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.
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