But the present was very immediate with Jerry. He had early learned the
iron law of the immediate, and to accept what _was_ when it was, rather
than to strain after far other things. The sea was. The land no longer
was. The _Arangi_ certainly was, along with the life that cluttered her
deck. And he proceeded to get acquainted with what was--in short, to
know and to adjust himself to his new environment.

His first discovery was delightful--a wild-dog puppy from the Ysabel
bush, being taken back to Malaita by one of the Meringe return boys. In
age they were the same, but their breeding was different. The wild-dog
was what he was, a wild-dog, cringing and sneaking, his ears for ever
down, his tail for ever between his legs, for ever apprehending fresh
misfortune and ill-treatment to fall on him, for ever fearing and
resentful, fending off threatened hurt with lips curling malignantly from
his puppy fangs, cringing under a blow, squalling his fear and his pain,
and ready always for a treacherous slash if luck and safety favoured.

The wild-dog was maturer than Jerry, larger-bodied, and wiser in
wickedness; but Jerry was blue-blooded, right-selected, and valiant. The
wild-dog had come out of a selection equally rigid; but it was a
different sort of selection. The bush ancestors from whom he had
descended had survived by being fear-selected. They had never
voluntarily fought against odds. In the open they had never attacked
save when the prey was weak or defenceless. In place of courage, they
had lived by creeping, and slinking, and hiding from danger. They had
been selected blindly by nature, in a cruel and ignoble environment,
where the prize of living was to be gained, in the main, by the cunning
of cowardice, and, on occasion, by desperateness of defence when in a
corner.