e vessel to
be obtained, in which to render the lard? At first, I thought only of
the fire. If we could once raise fuel for that, the vessel would not be
of so much importance--we might contrive to heat a flat, thin stone, and
melt some of the fat in that way. If we could not make fine candles, we
might dip some wick in the grease, and thus have a kind of taper that
would serve almost as well. I knew we had wick--I remembered the long
hempen string which Ossaroo has got, and I knew that that would serve
admirably for the purpose. All that would be easy enough--at least it
appeared so--all except the stuff for the fire."

"Very ingenious of you, Caspar; these things had never entered my mind.
Go on, brother!"

"Well--to make a long story short, I have got the fuel."

"Bravo! good! good!" exclaimed Karl and Ossaroo in a breath, and in
accents of joy. "You have got the fuel?"

"Yes--I found it, at length; just as I was bobbing over asleep, the idea
crossed my mind; though I fancied I was only dreaming, and must have
afterwards fallen asleep. But I partially awoke shortly after, and took
to thinking again; and then I found the vessel in which we can render
our tallow--I think we can."

"Hurrah! better than all!"

"And now, listen to my plan; for I have been thinking while I have been
talking, and I have it _more_ complete than ever. Maybe you can both
add something, but here is what I propose."

"Tell us, Caspar--all right, go on."

"We have with us two guns--Ossaroo has his spear, his hatchet, his bow,
and a good quiver of arrows--fortunately his quiver, too, is of thick
bamboo, and dry as a chip. First, then, I propose that, with Ossaroo's
axe, we break up the stocks of our guns, ramrods, and all--we can soon
make others, once we get out--also the shaft of Ossaroo's spear, his
bow, arrows, and quiver--never mind, Ossaroo, you can replace them from
the forest. This being done, we can make a fire large enough to melt as
much fat as will make us no end of dips."

"You are right, brother," interposed Karl; "but how about the vessel to
melt it in?"

"That puzzled me for a while," replied the ingenious Caspar; "but I got
over the difficulty, at length, by thinking of my powder-flask; you know
it is a patent one, and the top screws off. Well--we can take off the
top, empty the powder into one of our pockets, and make use of the
bottom part for the lard. I am sure it will stand the fire, for it is
stout c