These were pleasant thoughts, but to Karl the pleasantest thought of all
was the returning conviction that Caspar _was still in his senses_!

CHAPTER SIXTY TWO.

HOPES.

Ossaroo now joined in the general joy; and the three placed their heads
together, to deliberate upon Caspar's suggestion, and to discuss its
feasibility in detail.

But neither Karl nor Ossaroo had much need to spend their opinion on the
details; for the original "promoter" of the plan had already conceived
nearly the whole of them. It was, in fact, these that he had got hold
of while half asleep; and which, on first awaking, he believed to have
occurred to him in a dream. But there was no dream in the matter. The
idea of making candles from the bear's fat had been in his mind before
he lay down--he had even thought of it while they were at work in curing
the meat.

"Yes," said he, commencing to tell them in detail all that had passed
through his mind upon the subject; "I had thought of the candles, while
assisting Ossaroo to cut up the bear. I could tell, by the touch, that
many pieces of the meat were almost pure fat; and I wondered to myself
whether it would not burn and make a light. I knew, of course, that
there was plenty more in the great stomach of the animal, and that of
the real sort of which candles could be made. Would it burn? that was
the question that puzzled me. I feared that it would not burn without
first being rendered to grease or lard, and a wick put into it,--in
fact, I knew it could not; and there arose the difficulty, since we had
no fire wherewith to render the fat, and no vessel to render it in, even
if we had been provided with fire in plenty."

"Ah! that is too true," assented Karl, rather despairingly.

"Well, so thought I, Karl, and I had well-nigh given up thinking about
the matter--of course, I said nothing about it to either of you--as I
knew you could not create fuel out of stones any more than I, and there
was an end of it."

"Yes--an end of it," unconsciously echoed Karl, in a desponding tone.

"Not yet, brother! not yet!" rejoined Caspar, as he proceeded in his
relation. "You see the thing had got into my thoughts, and, after a
while, I found myself once more speculating upon it. How were we to
make a fire that would melt that fat? That we could strike a light, I
knew--we could do that with our tinder or gunpowder; but where were we
to get sufficient fuel to make a fire with, and where was th