hillside I stepped straight into the death trap of
a rattlesnake. He struck me below the knee, and we were a long way
from help. But the boy was equal to the emergency. Quite coolly he
killed the snake with a club. I fortunately kept my head and directed
him, though he knew just what to do. With his hunting knife he cut my
trouser leg away and double gashed my leg where the fangs had entered,
then sucked the wound and spat out the poison until the blood had
ceased to flow. Then he quickly made a tourniquet of his handkerchief
and fastened it just above the wound, and, making me comfortable, he
ran the whole distance to the house, bringing a motor car and help in
less than an hour. There isn't the slightest doubt that Jerry saved my
life on this occasion just as the following winter I saved him from
death at the horns of a mad buck deer.

You will not wonder therefore that the bond of affection and reliance
was strong between us. I gave Jerry of the best that was in me, and in
return I can truly say that not once did he disappoint me.

In addition to the woodlore that I taught him, I made him a good shot
with rifle and revolver. I had men from the city from time to time,
the best of their class, who taught him boxing and fencing. I had a
gymnasium built with Mr. Ballard's consent, and a swimming pool, which
kept him busy after the lesson hour. At the age of fifteen Jerry was
six feet tall and weighed one hundred and sixty-five pounds, all bone
and muscle. In the five years since I had been at Horsham Manor there
had not been a day when he was ill, and except for an occasional
accident such as the adventure with the lynx, not one when I had
called in the services of a doctor. Physically at least I had so far
succeeded, for in this respect Jerry was perfection.

As to his mind, perhaps my own ideals had made me too exacting.
According to my carefully thought out plans, scholarship was to be
Jerry's buckler and defense against the old Adam. God forbid that I
should have planned, as Jack Ballard would have had it, to build Jerry
in my own image, for if scholarship had been my own refuge it had also
done something to destroy my touch with human kind. It was the quality
of sympathy in Jerry which I had lacked, the love for and confidence
in every human being with whom he came into contact which endeared him
to every person on the place. From Radford to Christopher, throughout
the house, stables and garage, down to the humble