in coming
nearer, I fired the second shot so close to the chap who wanted to
"yammerschooner" that he changed his mind quickly enough and bellowed
with fear, "Bueno jo via Isla," and sitting down in his canoe, he
rubbed his starboard cat-head for some time. I was thinking of the
good port captain's advice when I pulled the trigger, and must have
aimed pretty straight; however, a miss was as good as a mile for Mr.
"Black Pedro," as he it was, and no other, a leader in several bloody
massacres. He made for the island now, and the others followed him. I
knew by his Spanish lingo and by his full beard that he was the
villain I have named, a renegade mongrel, and the worst murderer in
Tierra del Fuego. The authorities had been in search of him for two
years. The Fuegians are not bearded.

So much for the first day among the savages. I came to anchor at
midnight in Three Island Cove, about twenty miles along from Fortescue
Bay. I saw on the opposite side of the strait signal-fires, and heard
the barking of dogs, but where I lay it was quite deserted by natives.
I have always taken it as a sign that where I found birds sitting
about, or seals on the rocks, I should not find savage Indians. Seals
are never plentiful in these waters, but in Three Island Cove I saw
one on the rocks, and other signs of the absence of savage men.

[Illustration: A brush with Fuegians]

On the next day the wind was again blowing a gale, and although she
was in the lee of the land, the sloop dragged her anchors, so that I
had to get her under way and beat farther into the cove, where I came
to in a landlocked pool. At another time or place this would have been
a rash thing to do, and it was safe now only from the fact that the
gale which drove me to shelter would keep the Indians from crossing
the strait. Seeing this was the case, I went ashore with gun and ax on
an island, where I could not in any event be surprised, and there
felled trees and split about a cord of fire-wood, which loaded my
small boat several times.

While I carried the wood, though I was morally sure there were no
savages near, I never once went to or from the skiff without my gun.
While I had that and a clear field of over eighty yards about me I
felt safe.

The trees on the island, very scattering, were a sort of beech and a
stunted cedar, both of which made good fuel. Even the green limbs of
the beech, which seemed to possess a resinous quality, burned readily
in my gre