e easier,
if the tree were hollow up to the fork.

In case of danger it would be advisable to seek refuge among the thick
boughs borne by the enormous trunk. But this matter could be looked into
later on.

When he had finished his inquiries the sun was low on horizon, and it
seemed best to put off till to-morrow the preparations for their
definitely taking up their abode.

But, after a meal with dessert composed of wild apples, what could they
do better than pass the night on a bed of the vegetable dust which
covered the ground inside the sequoia?

And this, under the keeping of Providence, was what was done, but not
until after Godfrey, in remembrance of his uncle, William W. Kolderup,
had given to the giant the name of "Will Tree," just as its prototypes
in the forests of California and the neighbouring states bear the names
of the great citizens of the American Republic.

CHAPTER XII.

WHICH ENDS WITH A THUNDER-BOLT.

It must be acknowledged that Godfrey was in a fair way to become a new
man in this completely novel position to one so frivolous, so
light-minded, and so thoughtless. He had hitherto only had to allow
himself to live. Never had care for the morrow disquieted his rest. In
the opulent mansion in Montgomery Street, where he slept his ten hours
without a break, not the fall of a rose leaf had ever troubled his
slumbers.

It was so no longer. On this unknown land he found himself thoroughly
shut off from the rest of the world, left entirely to his own resources,
obliged to face the necessities of life under conditions in which a man
even much more practical might have been in great difficulty. Doubtless
when it was found that the _Dream_ did not return, a search for him
would be made. But what were these two? Less than a needle in a hayrick
or a sand-grain on the sea-bottom! The incalculable fortune of Uncle
Kolderup could not do everything.

When Godfrey had found his fairly acceptable shelter, his sleep in it
was by no means undisturbed. His brain travelled as it had never done
before. Ideas of all kinds were associated together: those of the past
which he bitterly regretted, those of the present of which he sought the
realization, those of the future which disquieted him more than all!

But in these rough trials, the reason and, in consequence, the reasoning
which naturally flows from it, were little by little freed from the
limbo in which they had hitherto slept. Godfrey was resolved