do but he, too, must learn. Much perseverance was necessary before Abel and Mrs. Abel gave their consent, but finally it was obtained, and in a little while Bobby was as keen for a dip and a dive and a swim as were Skipper Ed and his partner, Jimmy.

And so the years passed in toil, in pleasure, and in attainment—active years that were filled with glorious doing, and with never a heavy moment or idle wasting of time or vain dawdling.

"Never waste time," said Skipper Ed, one stormy winter's day when Bobby was over there, and he and Bobby and Jimmy were luxuriating in their big chairs before the fire. "If you can't be busy with your hands, be busy with your brain. You were put into the world for some purpose, and your destiny is the will of the Almighty. But we may spoil His will by refusing to do the very best we can. The Almighty plans some fine thing for each of us, but He leaves it with us to decide whether we will have the fine things or not. What we're to be or to do comes to us gradually, just as the sun rises gradually. We never know ahead what He has planned for us. That's His big surprise.

"He may have put us into the world to do some great thing, and to become a great and useful man, or we may be intended just to help other people to be noble and honest and true, by doing our duty always, and setting an example of honesty and nobility."

"Do you think you or Jimmy or I will ever be great men?" Bobby asked in some awe.

"Partner is a great man now" declared Jimmy. "He knows most everything!"

"No, not everything," laughed Skipper Ed. "Not everything, Partner. But," and he spoke gravely again, "I've always tried to do my duty as God has pointed it out to me. Perhaps the Great Thing that I was intended to do was to teach you two chaps what I could, and perhaps your Great Thing is to teach others, and perhaps working all together in this way we may guide someone else to a great destiny.

"We are just hunters and fishermen. Aside from our own two families, we don't see many people, except the missionary down at Nain, and the Eskimos at the settlement there, and now and again in summer the fishermen on passing schooners. But that doesn't matter. Here Destiny placed us, and here is our work, and we must do it the best we can.

"We should work hard when we have work to do; we should play hard when we are at play; we should think hard when we are neither working nor playing. We should not waste time idling. We should do our level best to fit ourselves for our destiny, whatever it may be."

This was one of many conversations of the sort that Skipper Ed had with the boys. He was their comrade, their teacher, their adviser, and their inspiration. And, be it said, with the constant inspiration, also, of the great wilderness and sea, with no other youthful companions or playmates, and with little of the joy of sports with which boys in civilization are blessed, it was but natural that they should feel more deeply the responsibility of life, and should ponder and take to heart more seriously Skipper Ed's philosophy, than they would had their lot been cast in a city or a town.

It is not to be supposed, however, that they never got into mischief. They were too full of life and energy to avoid that. But they were seldom or never instructed not to do this or that, and their mischief was usually the result of indiscretion and error of judgment natural to youth, rather than disobedience. Eskimos do not whip or punish their children. They treat them rather, as comrades, and the boy's effort is to do as nearly as he can the things his elders do and in the manner in which they do them.

And this was the case with Abel and Mrs. Abel and Bobby. They never punished Bobby. It was the case also with Skipper Ed and Jimmy. Skipper Ed, from the first, called Jimmy his partner, and talked to him and treated him very much as he would have done had Jimmy been a grown-up.

From the very beginning Bobby had his escapades, which usually included adventures. During the first summer after his arrival he fell into the water with due regularity, but always, fortunately, within reach of Abel's or Mrs. Abel's strong arms. Once he climbed into the big boat, undid the painter, and the tide had carried him well out to sea before his plight was discovered and he was rescued by Abel in the skiff. And once he was lost for a day in the forest, with Abel, Mrs. Abel, Skipper Ed, and Jimmy searching frantically for him. They found him, quite tired out with his wanderings, peacefully sleeping on the forest moss.

With these escapades and a thousand others, Bobby kept his foster parents pretty constantly varying between a state of suspense and a state of joy, for they were vastly delighted when he emerged from an adventure, usually not much the worse for his experience.

Bobby's age was, of course, a matter of conjecture. Abel and Mrs. Abel must needs have a definite date set down as his birthday, in order that it might be duly and appropriately celebrated each year, and as a convenient date they chose December 1 of the year in which he came to them as his fourth birthday. This was a date when the autumn seal hunt would be finished, and the sea ice would be formed, when Abel might go to Nain with the dogs and bring back some sweets or other surprise.

Upon this reckoning Bobby was eight and Jimmy was twelve years of age when the two lads had their first real adventure together. It was in the spring. A westerly wind had cleared the bay of ice, and Abel and Skipper Ed had gone north in the big boat two days before for the spring seal hunt, and were not expected back for a fortnight. Jimmy, during Skipper Ed's absence, was stopping with Bobby and Mrs. Abel as usual, and the two boys were out bright and early to haul a trout net which was set in the mouth of a river which flowed into the bay not far away.

It was one of those ideal days which come now and again to that northern country in spring, as though to emphasize by contrast the fact that the long bleak winter is over. The sun shone brilliantly and the rippling waves of the nearly placid bay sparkled and glinted alluringly, spicy odors of the forest perfumed the air, and birds twittered gleefully.