aground, which he
thought more than likely to happen early in its voyage.

So Billy Brackett rowed down the creek without a trace of anxiety to
mar the pleasure of the adventure into which he had so unexpectedly
tumbled. One peculiarity of this light-hearted young man was that no
proposition to leave a beaten track and strike into an unexplored
trail, even though it led in exactly the opposite direction, could be
too absurd or unexpected to meet with his ready approval, always
providing it promised plenty of adventure. At the same time he never
lost sight of the fact that he had a living to earn, besides a
professional reputation to win and maintain. Consequently he generally
managed to make his adventures keep step with his duties. In the
present instance he felt that Major Caspar's aid was necessary to the
fulfilling of his timber contract. He also realized that the only way
to obtain it was by taking his brother-in-law's place in searching for
the lost raft and navigating it down the river to a market. He had no
family ties to bind him to times or places, and with Bim for company he
was ready to start at any moment for any portion of the globe.

"Bim" was a diminutive of Cherubim, a name bestowed by its present
owner upon the wretched puppy that he had rescued from an abandoned
emigrant wagon high up in the California Sierras, because like Cherubim
and Seraphim he "continually did cry." The little one was nearly dead,
and its mother, lying beside it, was quite so, when they were
discovered by the tender-hearted engineer. He had fought his way
through a blinding snowstorm and high-piled drifts to the abandoned
wagon on the chance of finding human beings in distress. When he
discovered only a forlorn little bull-pup, he buttoned it warmly under
his blanket overcoat and fought his way back to camp. During that
struggle the helpless creature won its way to Billy Brackett's heart,
as all young things, human or animal, were sure to do, and assumed a
place there that had never since been resigned.

From that day Bim, or "U-Bim," as he was sometimes called, had so
thrived under good feeding, kind care, and judicious training that when
he started with his master to voyage down the great river he was as
fine a specimen of a full-blooded bull-dog as could be found in the
country. He was pure white, bow-legged, and broad-chested. His upper
lip was drawn slightly back, so as to display his teeth; but this
expressio