t island with his gun.
On these occasions he was usually accompanied by Sam, whose love for
sketching was quite equal to that of his companion for bird-shooting and
stuffing. Fred, of course went to keep them company, and was wont to
carry with him a rod, as well as a gun, for he was passionately fond of
fishing. On these occasions, too, they took Hans Ericsson with them, to
assist in rowing, and to pilot them when they felt inclined to leave the
yacht out of sight behind.

One day they were out on an excursion of this kind, and had rowed
towards the mainland, and up a fiord. Fred and Sam were reclining in
the stern of the boat; the former smoking a meerschaum pipe, the latter
making a drawing of a range of hills which were so rugged that the tops
appeared like the teeth of a saw. Grant and Hans were rowing.

"Do you know what o'clock it was when we left the yacht?" inquired Fred.

"What o'clock?" echoed Sam; "no; well, let me see. We went to bed last
night at five o'clock this morning."

"You mean that we turned in for our _night's rest_ at five this morning,
I suppose," said Temple.

"My dear Fred," retorted Sam, "never mind what I mean; only attend to
what I say. Don't be too particular. It's a bad habit being too
particular. I once had a friend who was too particular in his
attentions to a young lady, and the result was that he was obliged to
marry her."

"Then, Sam," returned Temple, "I should say that the habit of being too
particular is a good one, if it leads to such a good thing as marriage.
But to return to the point, what time of day or night do you think it is
_now_?"

"Have not the least idea," said Sam; "I think it's some time or other in
the evening, but this perpetual daylight confuses me. You know that
when you and Grant were away last week after the gulls, I went to bed on
Thursday forenoon at ten o'clock by mistake, thinking it was ten at
night. How I ever came to do it I can't tell, but I suppose that I had
sat so long stuffing that great eagle for Grant that my brains had got
obfuscated. It was cloudy, too (not unlike what it is just now), so
that I could not see the sun. Whatever was the cause, there is no doubt
of the fact that I lost a day somehow, and my ideas have got such a
twist that I fear they will never recover it."

"A most unfortunate state of things, truly," said Fred, laughing.
"Perhaps you'll recover when we return to low latitudes. If not, there
are plenty luna