'You will have to put us up to the trick first; how it's to be done, you know, Jerry,' said Alick.
'All right, muster! But there's no trick in the matter, and no secret, 'cept it be kindness and firmness. Them's the two great rulin' powers with dumb animals, same's with we humans. 'Tain't no good tryin' to train a child by lettin' him do jes' whatever he pleases. You wouldn't call that training, now, would you? Say!' Jerry looked up from the pipe he was filling to put the question, with some little earnestness.
A strange flush stole up into Alick Carnegy's cheeks; for the life of him he could not help applying Jerry's excellent logic to himself. The stern, high-minded face of the tutor he had insulted floated before the boy's eyes, and he winced, for the second time that day, at Jerry's words, as he remembered how he had fought with and rebelled against the authority set over him. Alick's conscience was by no means altogether deadened, and his triumph was dashed.
'Yes,' continued Jerry 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 dépôt—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—me and old Pierre Lacroix, the Frenchman who taught me how to train them little customers.' Jerry pointed with his pipe to the infant finches under his handkerchief. 'Old Pierre was too rheumatic, they soon found out, to be any use, in spite of his long head, which was as full of wisdom as an egg's full of meat. None but sound, able-bodied men will do for that work, I tell you. He was a queer old fish, Pierre was. Poor chap, he was a Roming, you know; but for all that he was, in his mistaken way, a pious, God-fearing man. It was kind o' queer to see him, when we two were on our way back through all them ice-plains; if we so much as heard the howl of a hungry wolf, Pierre would pull out his beads and rattle off a prayer. But I didn't so much wonder at his fright, for the cries of them wolves certainly did freeze one's marrow through and through. And we once came to pretty close quarters with the brutes. It was one night, a starless, cloudy night, with a storm brewing, and we heard behind us a faint sound that struck us dumb with horror. The wolves had scented us from afar, and were giving chase. We took to our heels, as the sayin' is; but you don't make much way on that there ground. The awful baying voices gained on us, minute by minute. On, on, we breathlessly fought our way, desperate to escape. At last, so close was the pack behind us, that I could count 'em, half a dozen or so, and by the light of the torches we carried I could plainly see their red tongues lolling out of their hungry jaws. So did Pierre, and out came his beads. But reely, boys, there are more wonderful escapes in real life than ever folks read of in books. Now, what do you suppose saved us that night? Under Providence, of course, I means. We might have turned at bay and shot one or two, and there was a knife apiece. But we should have been doomed men had we done so. However, help was close, just as hope was dying out in our hearts. Running for our lives we had reached the land,—before that, you understand, we'd been traversing an ice-floe,—we knew 'twas land by the low bank sheering down. As we set foot on it a mighty roaring crack sounded, breaking up into a thousand echoes in the white silence. It was the ice parting from the shore, through the wind-storm that had risen. Between us and our savage hunters the cold black waves boiled up instantly, released from their prison, and the baffled wolves howled furiously at the fissure growing wider each second. We were saved; and, boys, never did I see the finger of God more plainly than at that moment! I am glad I wasn't ashamed to throw myself on my knees and thank Him aloud, and Frenchy joined me with all his heart.'