run aground on the island, and wished the men
had remained, that they might have given us
a cast ashore in their broadhorn. He stooped,
blew the embers to a glow, laid on dry brush
and fresh wood, and soon the hut was
illuminated by a cheery glare. It was large, in
good repair, and contained an old table of
unbarked wood, and several broken barrels which
had probably served for seats. There were
shelves nailed up, but they were empty, nor
were any provisions visible. But in an inner
recess, half partitioned off from the larger apartment,
were several heaps of brushwood and
flowery grasses: beds not to be despised when
mattresses and pillows were out of the question.
I do not suppose that Jeremiah Flint had ever
heard of the French proverb, Qui dort díne, but
he showed some sagacity in remarking that when
asleep, our foodless and comfortless state would
be less vexatious. We dried our clothes
before the large fire, and prepared to obtain such
repose as we might, in the inner compartment of
the cabin. General Flint had been, in the course
of his adventurous life, accustomed to queer
sleeping-places, and it was with a grunt of
satisfaction that he adjusted his bony frame to the
heaps of withering brush.

"Pull some o' them sassafras boughs over
your face, mister: that's the way to cheat the
skeeturs," said he; " we'll have a good long
nap, and wake up in time to hoist a handkercher
on one of those hemlocks down by the waterside.
If a steamer don't see it, a flat-boat may."

I lay still a few moments, and then rolled
restlessly from side to side. My nerves were
strung to a painful tension, and my brain
was too active to allow sleep to visit me.
The accident, with all its horrors, rather
imagined than actually seen, was ever before my
eyes, but it seemed unreal and unnatural, a vivid
nightmare rather than a sad reality. Poor Ned
Granger, too! What sad news to carry home
to the quiet Devonshire rectory, where father,
mother, and sisters, were hopefully awaiting his
return! To die so early, and by a death so
horrible and abrupt—how should I ever dare to
tell it? Poor dear Ned, who saved my life once,
who had done me fifty kindnesses, with whom I
had never exchanged an angry word. Where
should I ever again in life find such a friend as
that early one, now lost?

How long I mused I cannot tell, but I was
startled by a sound which broke the stillness
of the night—a very odd sound to be heard
on Island Number Ten—the neigh of a horse.
I shook off my reverie, and half raised myself to
listen. The sound was not renewed, but so sure
was I that it had been no cheat of fancy that I
determined to rouse my companion and solve
the doubt. It was not until I nad shaken Flint,
who was a heavy sleeper, that he woke up,
grumbling.

"Jerusalem, mister, what's afloat? Not a
b'ar swum across, sure-ly."

"No," said I, rather ashamed, "only the
neighing of a horse, close at hand."

"Unpossible—couldn't be! There's no horse
beasts here. What should they be doing on
the island? You must have been dreaming,
Mr. Barham."

The general yawned and sank back into the
pile of brushwood, nor was it long before his
heavy breathing announced that he was fast
asleep. I was far from convinced, but I was
puzzled; imagination, I knew, does often play
us strange tricks. Besides, was it not possible
that a horse had neighed on shore, on either
the left or right bank, and that my ear,
perhaps unusually acute after the excitement
of the night, had caught and exaggerated the
distant sound. I pondered yet awhile, but I
was weary; gradually my nerves relaxed, my
eyelids became heavy, and I sank into deep slumber.
Not so deep, however, but that my dreams
were stirring and various, changing like the
shifting patterns of a kaleidoscope. One dream
was particularly distinct. I have forgotten it
now, but I know that a conversation between
ideal personages attracted my fullest attention,
and that by degrees this conversation grew more
and more real and audible.

"I don't care a cuss how it kept alight," said
some one; " jist clap on a kipple more sticks,
and I'll blow up the kindlers."

Directly afterwards I heard the familiar noise
—familiar, at least, to one fresh from prairie
travel—of somebody blowing the embers of a
fire into a blaze, while the sharp crackle of burning wood
succeeded.

"Where's Stone's marm?" asked some one
else, in a high cracked voice, that contrasted
with the deep tones of the first speaker:
"where's the old critter got to, I admire! I'm
as starved, for one, as any wolf, and there's never
a scrap to eat until she briles the meat. Ten
hours' work makes a man peckish, and we must
clear out of this before day."

Vaguely the thought dawned in my
half-unconscious mind that I was no longer asleep, and
that the words I heard were real words, spoken
by beings of flesh and blood. I opened my eyes.
The larger compartment of the log-house was
suffused with dull red light, which brightened
into a clearer glow as the wood, heaped on the
fire with a lavish hand, caught the ascending
blaze. Around this fire were grouped five or six
men, most of whom wore the red flannel shirts
and coarse homespun of the regular Mississippi
working garb, though one was in a suit of rusty
black, of city make. Several more dark figures
hovered about the open doorway, going and
coming, bringing bags and barrels, which were
received by two of the men within. Boatmen,
thought I, who had probably put in for a safe
haven when benighted on the rapid and
dangerous river. I was preparing to accost them,
when a shrill neighing, unmistakably that of a
horse this time and close by, was answered as
shrilly and distinctly by an equine companion.

"Darn them brutes! pinch their nostrils, you
loafing dunces! or, if a steamer goes by, the
place will be blown upon," said a deep and fierce
voice from the hut. And a man whom I had
I not observed, sprang up from a sitting posture