le by the use of the rudder
only, and then she set bodily alongside of a natural rocky quay, where
she was immediately secured by good fasts run to the shore. In a word,
the station was reached, and the men of the 55th were greeted by their
expecting comrades, with the satisfaction which a relief usually brings.

Mabel sprang up on the shore with a delight which she did not care to
express; and her father led his men after her with an alacrity which
proved how wearied he had become of the cutter. The station, as the
place was familiarly termed by the soldiers of the 55th, was indeed a
spot to raise expectations of enjoyment among those who had been cooped
up so long in a vessel of the dimensions of the _Scud_. None of the
islands were high, though all lay at a sufficient elevation above the
water to render them perfectly healthy and secure. Each had more or less
of wood; and the greater number at that distant day were clothed with
the virgin forest. The one selected by the troops for their purpose
was small, containing about twenty acres of land, and by some of the
accidents of the wilderness it had been partly stripped of its trees,
probably centuries before the period of which we are writing, and a
little grassy glade covered nearly half its surface.

The shores of Station Island were completely fringed with bushes, and
great care had been taken to preserve them, as they answered as a screen
to conceal the persons and things collected within their circle. Favored
by this shelter, as well as by that of several thickets of trees and
different copses, some six or eight low huts had been erected to be used
as quarters for the officer and his men, to contain stores, and to serve
the purposes of kitchen, hospital, etc. These huts were built of logs in
the usual manner, had been roofed by bark brought from a distance, lest
the signs of labor should attract attention, and, as they had now
been inhabited some months, were as comfortable as dwellings of that
description usually ever get to be.

At the eastern extremity of the island, however, was a small,
densely-wooded peninsula, with a thicket of underbrush so closely matted
as nearly to prevent the possibility of seeing across it, so long as
the leaves remained on the branches. Near the narrow neck that connected
this acre with the rest of the island, a small blockhouse had been
erected, with some attention to its means of resistance. The logs were
bullet-proof, squared an