nd boil the kettle. In this work they
were all the more energetic that the pangs of hunger were beginning to
remind them of the frugal and scanty nature of their last meal.

The bonfire did its work effectually. From all parts of the forest to
which they had wandered, the party came, dropping in one by one to
congratulate the lost and found pair. Last of all came Captain Dunning
and Tim Rokens, for the harpooner had vowed he would "stick to the cap'n
through thick and thin." Tim kept his word faithfully. Through thick
tangled brakes and thin mud-swamps did he follow his wretched commander
that night until he could scarcely stand for fatigue, or keep his eyes
open for sleep; and when the captain rushed into the camp at last, and
clasped his sobbing child to his heart, Tim Rokens rushed in along with
him, halted beside him, thrust his hands into his pockets, and looked
on, while his eyes blinked with irresistible drowsiness, and his
mud-bespattered visage beamed with excessive joy.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

PHILOSOPHICAL REMARKS ON "LIFE"--A MONKEY SHOT AND A MONKEY FOUND--JACKO
DESCRIBED.

"Such is life!" There is deep meaning in that expression, though it is
generally applied in a bantering manner to life in all its phases, under
all its peculiar and diversified circumstances. Taking a particular
view of things in general, we may say of life that it is composed of
diverse and miscellaneous materials--the grave and the gay; the sad and
the comic; the extraordinary and the commonplace; the flat and the
piquant; the heavy and the light; the religious and the profane; the
bright and the dark; the shadow and the sunshine. All these, and a
great deal more, similar as well as dissimilar, enter into the
composition of what we familiarly term life.

These elements, too, are not arranged according to order, at least,
order that is perceptible to our feeble human understandings. That
there does exist both order and harmony is undeniable; but we cannot see
it. The elements appear to be miscellaneously intermingled--to be
accidentally thrown together; yet, while looking at them in detail there
seems to us a good deal of unreasonable and chaotic jumble, in regarding
them as a whole, or as a series of wholes, it becomes apparent that
there is a certain harmony of arrangement that may be termed
kaleidoscopically beautiful; and when, in the course of events, we are
called to the contemplation of something grand or lovely, f