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.