house.

"Well, this _is_ hard luck," said Easton. "There's good bread and
molasses almost within hailing distance and we've likely got to sit
out here on the rocks all night without wood enough to keep fire, and
it's going to rain pretty soon and we can't even get back to our
pemmican and tent."

"Don't give up yet, boy," I encouraged. "Maybe they'll see our fire
when we start it and take us off."

We filled our pipes and struck matches to light them. They were wax
taper matches and made a good blaze. "Wonder what it'll be like to
eat civilized grub again and sleep in a bed," said Easton
meditatively, as he puffed uncomfortably at his pipe.

While he was speaking the glow of a lantern appeared from the Post
house, which we could locate by its lamp-lit windows, and moved down
toward the place where we had seen the boats on the mud. The sight of
it made us hope that we had been noticed, and we jumped up and
combined our efforts in shouting until we were hoarse. Then we
ignited the pile of brush. It blazed up splendidly, shooting its
flames high in the air, sending its sparks far, and lighting weirdly
the strange scene. We stood before it that our forms might appear in
relief against the light reflected by the rocky background, waving our
arms and renewing our shouts. Once or twice I fancied I heard an
answering hail from the other side, like a far-off echo; but the wind
was against us and I was not sure. The lantern light was now in a
boat moving out toward the main river. Even though it were coming to
us this was necessary, as the tide could not be high enough yet to