to the hut she had left,
warbling an air, stooped as if to pick up some object from the ground,
and hurried towards the hut June had mentioned. This was a dilapidated
structure, and it had been converted by the soldiers of the last
detachment into a sort of storehouse for their live stock. Among other
things, it contained a few dozen pigeons, which were regaling on a pile
of wheat that had been brought off from one of the farms plundered on
the Canada shore. Mabel had not much difficulty in catching one of these
pigeons, although they fluttered and flew about the hut with a noise
like that of drums; and, concealing it in her dress, she stole back
towards her own hut with the prize. It was empty; and, without doing
more than cast a glance in at the door, the eager girl hurried down to
the shore. She had no difficulty in escaping observation, for the trees
and bushes made a complete cover to her person. At the canoe she
found June, who took the pigeon, placed it in a basket of her own
manufacturing, and, repeating the words, "blockhouse good," she glided
out of the bushes and across the narrow passage, as noiselessly as she
had come. Mabel waited some time to catch a signal of leave-taking or
amity after her friend had landed, but none was given. The adjacent
islands, without exception, were as quiet as if no one had ever
disturbed the sublime repose of nature, and nowhere could any sign or
symptom be discovered, as Mabel then thought, that might denote the
proximity of the sort of danger of which June had given notice.

On returning, however, from the shore, Mabel was struck with a little
circumstance, that, in an ordinary situation, would have attracted no
attention, but which, now that her suspicions had been aroused, did not
pass before her uneasy eye unnoticed. A small piece of red bunting, such
as is used in the ensigns of ships, was fluttering at the lower branch
of a small tree, fastened in a way to permit it to blow out, or to droop
like a vessel's pennant.

Now that Mabel's fears were awakened, June herself could not have
manifested greater quickness in analyzing facts that she believed might
affect the safety of the party. She saw at a glance that this bit of
cloth could be observed from an adjacent island; that it lay so near the
line between her own hut and the canoe as to leave no doubt that June
had passed near it, if not directly under it; and that it might be a
signal to communicate some important fact c