Bobby of the Labrador Part 20

"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, n.o.ble heart, or whether he'd have had it anyway?

"It's G.o.d's mystery. G.o.d 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 n.o.ble 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."

"Jumped in to save you? My partner a hero, too! I knew it was in him, though. You're a pair of the bravest chaps I ever knew, and I'm proud of you both," and Skipper Ed's voice sounded strange and choky.

"Oh, it was nothing for me to do! I was safe on the end of the line! I was sure of getting out--but Jimmy!"

"Here," said Skipper Ed, "is some fine tender seal meat and a hard biscuit. Drink down this hot tea. It's good for you. And stop talking. I know what you did, you young husky."

Bobby laughed, and sipped the steaming tea.

Jimmy always insisted that he would have gone into the water anyhow when the ice turned over, and therefore had no choice, and deserved no credit for what he did, but that Bobby did a very brave act. And Bobby insisted that Jimmy had risked his life to save his, and was the bravest chap in the world. And Skipper Ed insisted that both lads were wonderful heroes.

So it comes about that you and I will have to decide for ourselves which was right, and who was the hero.

CHAPTER XXII

A STORM AND A CATASTROPHE

True to his promise, Bobby was up the next morning bright and early, and awoke Skipper Ed as he moved about, lighting the lamp and hanging the kettle of snow to melt for tea, and the kettle containing cooked seal meat, to thaw, for it had frozen hard in the night. Then, while he waited for these to heat, he crawled back into his sleeping bag.

"How are you feeling after your Arctic dip?" inquired Skipper Ed.

"As fine as could be!" answered Bobby. "My fingers were nipped a little, and they're a bit numb. That's the only way I'd know, from the way I feel, that I'd been in the water."

"You're a regular tough young husky!" declared Skipper Ed. "But it was a narrow escape, and we can thank G.o.d for the deliverance of you two chaps. You mustn't take those risks again. It's tempting Providence."

"Why, I didn't think we were careless," said Bobby. "It was the sort of thing that is always likely to happen."

Jimmy lifted his head.

"h.e.l.lo!" drowsily. "Is it time to get up? I've been sleeping like a stone."

"It isn't time for you to get up," cautioned Skipper Ed. "You stay right where you are today."

"I'm all right, Partner!" Jimmy declared.

"Well, you've got to demonstrate it. We don't want any pneumonia cases on our hands. Just draw some long breaths, and punch yourself, and see how you feel."

"I feel fine," insisted Jimmy, after some deep breaths and several self-inflicted punches. "It doesn't hurt a bit to breathe, and I don't feel lame anywhere. The only place I feel bad is in my stomach, and that's just shouting for grub."

"Very well," laughed Skipper Ed, "that kind of an ache we can cure with boiled seal and hardtack."

And so, indeed, it proved. Their hardihood, brought about by a life of exposure to the elements, and their const.i.tutions, made strong as iron by life and experience in the open, withstood the shock, and, none the worse for their experience, and pa.s.sing it by as an incident of the day's work, they resumed the hunt with Skipper Ed.

All of that day and the next, which was Thursday, they hunted with great success, and when Thursday night came more than half a hundred fat seals, among which were three great bearded seals--"square flippers,"

they called them--lay upon the ice as their reward. They were well pleased. Indeed, they could scarcely have done better had Abel Zachariah been with them.

"Tomorrow will be Friday, and we had better haul our seals to Itigailit Island to the cache," Skipper Ed suggested that evening as they sat snug in the _igloo_, eating their supper. "We have all we can care for."

"I hate to leave with all these seals about, but I suppose we'll have to go some time," said Bobby regretfully.

"Yes, and I'm wondering what I'll find in my traps when we get home,"

said Jimmy.

"You may have a silver fox, Partner," laughed Skipper Ed.

"I've been looking for one every round I've made this winter," Jimmy grinned.