Page:Songs from the Southern Seas and Other Poems (1873).djvu/74

70 These 'ere natives are safe as if locked and barred, If you'll line that shoal with a mastiff guard!"

And the settlers looked at each other awhile, Till the wonder toned to a well-pleased smile When the brown ex-burglar said he knew, And would show the whole of 'em what to do.

Some three weeks after, the guard was set; And a native who swam to the shoal was met By two half-starved dogs, when a mile from shore,— And, somehow, that native was never seen more. All the settlers were pleased with the capital plan, And they voted their thanks to the hard-faced man. For a year, each day did the government boat Take the meat to the isle and its guard afloat. In a line, on the face of the shoal, the dogs Had a dry house each, on some anchored logs; And the neck-chain from each stretched just half way