The grandest receipt for enabling a person to be truly brave, is that he must ever walk on in the strict line of duty.

We were driving northward at a fearful rate, for the rapidity of the current was greatly increased by the wind. We wished that we could get back to our oak tree, as we might make fast to its branches, but it was nowhere visible. To have paddled against the gale would have only exhausted our strength to no purpose. As Malcolm found that he could guide the canoe without me, he told me to bail out the water. As I turned round to do so, I shouted with joy, for I thought I saw a large boat under full sail coming down towards us. On it came, much faster than we were driving; but as it drew near, it looked less and less like a boat, till to my bitter disappointment I discovered that it was a large haystack which had been floated bodily away. At length just before us appeared a clump of trees, and we, hoped that the ground on which they stood might be out of water. Malcolm steered towards the spot. We might remain there till the storm was over. The trees bent with the wind, and it appeared as if they could not possibly stand. We approached the spot perhaps with less caution than we had before employed. Suddenly the canoe spun round, a large rent appeared in her bows, over she went, and we were thrown struggling into the water. Before we could regain the canoe she had floated far away, and not without a severe struggle did we succeed in reaching the land. We climbed up by some bushes, and found ourselves on the summit of a little knoll rising out of the water, and not comprising more than fifty square yards. Our first impulse was to look out to see what had become of our canoe, and we stood watching it with a bewildered gaze as it floated away half filled with water. It was not till it had disappeared in the distance that we remembered it had contained all our provisions. That was bad enough, but we had never experienced hunger, and did not know how long we might exist without food. What appeared then worse was, that the waters were rising round our island, and we might soon have no dry spot on which to rest our feet. We might climb up into the trees, but we had seen other trees washed away, and such might be the fate of these our last refuge. The day wore on, the storm ceased, and the weather again became calm and beautiful. I now grew excessively hungry, and cried very much, and felt more wretched than I had ever done before. Malcolm, who bore up wonderfully, tried to comfort me, and suggested that we should hunt about foe roots or underground nuts such as we had seen the Indians eat. We fortunately had our pocket knives, and with these we dug in all directions, till we came upon some roots 

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