rry reflectively, as he watched the smoke curling
upward in the air, 'and 'tis the very same wi' ourselves, after we're
growed up to manhood. That's how the Almighty deals with us. He's
firm--none firmer; and He's kinder to us than we knows on--none
kinder--if so be as we would but trust ourselves to His way.'

Jerry Blunt, exposed to temptations many and varied, had always been a
right-thinking, honest kind of lad. In spite of his wanderings to and
fro over the earth, he retained his early faith intact.

'Many's the time in my life,' he went on, speaking in a gravely
reverent tone, 'I've fought to get my will in some things--struck out
blindly, as you might say; but there was always the firm Hand guiding
me in His way, not my own. Even when this mishap befell me'--Jerry
touched his empty sleeve--'though I couldn't see it at the time, bein'
so ignorant-like, it was all a-purpose for my good.'

'How, Jerry? What on earth do you mean? To lose your right arm must
have been a frightful bit of bad luck!' Alick spoke in astonishment,
but with a certain amount of respect for one who had had such a large
experience as the bird-trainer.

'There ain't no such thing as luck, either good or bad,' Jerry took out
his pipe to say. ''Tis God's will; that's the properest word
for't--not luck. As for my own misfortin', as everybody called it,
why, after all it didn't turn out so bad, when you come to think it
out.'

'Why? Do tell us all about it, Jerry, will you?' urged Alick, to whom
the topic of the North Pole expedition was always attractive; and he
threw himself back on the mossy ground to listen in rapt attention.

'Well, muster, I make no doubt that you've heard tell fifty times over
how I got a frost-bite when I was in Franz Josef Land with the
expedition. It all came about with me bein' in such a hurry like to
finish a job I'd to do, that I put off rubbin' my hands with snow, as
is the right thing to do, remember, if so be as you boys ever get
frostbit. Well, the long and the short of that neglect was, they was
forced to take off my arm--there wasn't no chice in the matter--above
the elbow too. We happened at the moment to be at a fixed camping
depot--not one of them nasty movin' floes, but on a good sound
spot--and the expedition was under orders to march norrards when the
thing happened to me. Well, in course, they nat'rally said as they
didn't want to be saddled with a one-handed man, and I was turned
back