in an eddy formed by a clump of cottonwood, and the light of the steamer
is a solitary, bright star in the distance, when the silence is broken
by the "bow oar":

"Light ahead."

All eyes are turned in that direction. In a few seconds a twinkling
light appears, shines steadily, and again disappears as if by the
shifting position of some black object apparently drifting close upon
us.

"Stern, all; a steamer!"

"Hold hard there! Steamer be damned!" is the reply of the coxswain.
"It's a house, and a big one too."

It is a big one, looming in the starlight like a huge fragment of the
darkness. The light comes from a single candle, which shines through a
window as the great shape swings by. Some recollection is drifting back
to me with it as I listen with beating heart.

"There's someone in it, by heavens! Give way, boys--lay her alongside.
Handsomely, now! The door's fastened; try the window; no! here's
another!"

In another moment we are trampling in the water which washes the floor
to the depth of several inches. It is a large room, at the farther end
of which an old man is sitting wrapped in a blanket, holding a candle in
one hand, and apparently absorbed in the book he holds with the other. I
spring toward him with an exclamation: