On the search for this he now started. He walked all about the open ground, looking around in all directions, to see if he could find anything, but without any success. Then he ascended the declivity towards the woods, but nothing appeared which was at all adapted to meet his wants. He saw a young tree, which he thought might do, and tried to cut it down with his pocket-knife. After about an hour's hard work he succeeded in bringing it down, and another hour was spent in trimming the branches. The result of all this labor at length lay at his feet in the shape of a rough pole, with jagged splinters sticking out all over it, which promised to be of about as much utility as a spruce bush. In utter disgust he turned away, leaving the pole on the ground, and making up his mind to sail, as he did before, without any rudder. In this mood he descended the declivity, and walked disconsolately towards the shore which was on the side of the island directly opposite to where the boat lay. He had not yet been near enough to see the beach; but now, as he came nearer, a cry of delight escaped him involuntarily; for there, all along the beach, and close up to the bank, lay an immense quantity of drift-wood, which had been brought here by the tide from all the upper waters of the bay. It was a most heterogeneous mixture that lay before him--chips from timber ponds, logs from ship-yards, boards from saw-mills, deals, battens, fence posts, telegraph poles, deal ends, edgings, laths, palings, railway sleepers, treenails, shingles, clapboards, and all the various forms which wood assumes in a country which makes use of it as the chief material of its manufactures. Along the countless streams that flow into the bay, and along its far-winding shores, and along the borders of all its subsidiary bays, and inlets, and basins, the manufacture of wood is carried on--in saw-mills, in ship-yards, and in timber ponds; and the currents that move to and fro are always loaded with the fragments that are snatched away from these places, most of which are borne afar out to sea, but many of which are thrown all along the shores for hundreds of miles. Ile Haute, being directly in the way of some of the swiftest currents, and close by the entrance to a basin which is surrounded by mills and ship-yards, naturally received upon its shores an immense quantity of these scattered and floating fragments. Such was the sight that now met the eyes of Tom, and presented him with a countless number of fragments of wood adapted to his wants, at the very time when he had worked fruitlessly for two hours at fashioning one for himself. Looking over the heaps of drift-wood, he found many pieces which suited him; and out of these he chose one which was shaped a little like an oar. Securing this prize, he walked over to where the sail was, and deposited it there.