After a good deal of search, Mark selected a spot on the ‘Summit,’ as he began to term the place, and pitched his tent on, it.  Holes were made in the soft rocks, and pieces of spars were inserted, to answer for posts.  With a commencement as solid as this, it was not difficult to make the walls of the tent (or marquee would be the better word, since both habitations had nearly upright sides) by means of an old fore-course.  In order to get the canvas up there, however, it was found necessary to cut out the pieces below, when, by means of the purchase at the derrick, it was all hoisted to the Summit.

These several arrangements occupied Mark and Bob another fortnight, completing the first quarter of a year they had passed on the Reef.  By this time they had got accustomed to their situation, and had fallen into regular courses of duty, though the increasing heats admonished both of the prudence of not exposing themselves too much beneath the fiery sun at noon-day.

Chapter VIII.

    “Now from the full-grown day a beamy shower
    Gleams on the lake, and gilds each glossy flower,
    Gay insects sparkle in the genial blaze,
    Various as light, and countless as its rays—­
    Now, from yon range of rocks, strong rays rebound,
    Doubling the day on flowery plains around.”

    Savage.

After the tent on the Summit was erected, Mark passed much of his leisure time there.  Thither he conveyed many of his books, of which he had a very respectable collection, his flute, and a portion of his writing materials.  There he could sit and watch the growth of the different vegetables he was cultivating.  As for Bob, he fished a good deal, both in the way of supplies and for his amusement.  The pigs and poultry fared well, and everything seemed to thrive but poor Kitty.  She loved to follow Mark, and cast many a longing look up at the Summit, whenever she saw him strolling about among his plants.

The vegetables on the Summit, or those first put into the ground, flourished surprisingly.  Loam had been added repeatedly, and they wanted for nothing that could bring forward vegetation.  The melons soon began to run, as did the cucumbers, squashes, and pumpkins; and by the end of the next month, there were a dozen large patches on the mount that were covered by a dense verdure.  Nor was this all; Mark making a discovery about this time, that afforded him almost as, much happiness as when he first saw his melons in leaf.  He was seated one day, with the walls of his tent brailed up, in order to allow the wind to blow through, when something dark on the rock caught his eye.  This spot was some little distance from him, and going to it, he found that large quantities of his grass-seed had actually taken!  Now he might hope to convert that barren-looking, and often glaring rock, into a beautiful grassy hill, and render that which was sometimes painful to the