He filled his pipe, and sat for two hours, and until darkness settled, smoking and ruminating.  He did not know yet the full history of the accident.  He only knew that Jimmy had in some manner got into the water, was overcome by the icy bath and was perishing when Bobby called, and that Bobby by quick thought and quick action had saved his young partner.

“They’re both as tough as nuts or they never would have come out of that dip so well,” he said to himself.  “Bobby’s a hero, and as unselfish as the day is long.

“I wonder what he’d have been if he’d never gone adrift and had never come to this rugged land.  I wonder if his rich parents, or the luxuries and frivolities of civilization, would have spoiled him, and made him grow up into a selfish, cowardly, and perhaps dissipated, weakling?  I wonder if it’s the rugged country and the rugged, hard life he lives, that have given him a rugged, noble heart, or whether he’d have had it anyway?

“It’s God’s mystery.  God holds our destiny in His hands, and our destiny is His will.  Perhaps He sent the lad here to mould his character upon the plan of the great wide wilderness and boundless sea, and to fit him for some noble part that he is to play some time in life.”

Skipper Ed knocked the ashes from his pipe.

“Perhaps after all,” he mused, “my life here has not been wasted.  Perhaps my part in life was to teach these boys and help to broaden their life.  Perhaps that was the reason I drifted here and remained here.  Every misfortune and every sorrow is just a stepping stone to something higher and better.”

“Skipper!” Bobby was awake and Skipper Ed’s musings were at an end.

“Yes, son.”  He called Bobby “son” sometimes, as a special mark of affection.

“Did you find the netsek and mittens?”

“Yes, you practical young scamp.”

“That’s good,” said Bobby, “for I couldn’t hunt tomorrow without them.”

“Hunt tomorrow!” exclaimed Skipper Ed.  “Is that the first thing you think of when you wake up?  I’m not sure I’ll let you hunt tomorrow.  I may keep you in your sleeping bag.”

“I’m all right, Skipper,” declared Bobby, “I’m going to get out of my bag right now.  I’m so hungry I’ll be eating it if I don’t.”

“Stay where you are!” commanded Skipper Ed.  “I’ll feed you right there.  I have some fresh seal meat all cooked, and I’ll make tea.”

“Is Jimmy asleep, and is he all right?”

“Yes, he’s sleeping, and I’ve no doubt he’ll be all right in a day or two.”

“Skipper,” said Bobby, as Skipper Ed threw a handful of tea into the simmering teakettle, “do you know what Jimmy did?”

“Why, yes.  He fell into the sea, and would have perished if you hadn’t been so prompt in making a human fishhook of yourself.”

“What I did wasn’t anything any one wouldn’t have done,” declared Bobby deprecatingly.

“But we were on that cake of ice and it began to turn over, and Jimmy jumped into the water to save me.  If we’d both gone in we’d both have drowned, for we couldn’t have got out with our netseks on in that paralyzing cold, and Jimmy knew it, so he just jumped in to save me, and I’m sure he never expected to get out himself.  That’s the greatest thing anybody could have done.”