off, reaching the Manor house very bloody but happy. But the happiest
of the lot of us, even including Skookums, the bull pup, was Jerry
himself at the sight under the lamplight of the formidable size of his
dead enemy. But I led Jerry at once upstairs, where I stripped him and
took account of his injuries.

His left arm was bitten twice and his neck and shoulder badly torn,
but he had not whimpered, nor did he now when I bathed and cauterized
his wounds. Whatever pain he felt, he made no sign, and I knew that by
inference my night-talks by the campfire had borne fruit. Old
Christopher, the butler, to whom the Great Experiment was a mystery,
hovered in the background with towels and lotions, timidly
reproachful, until Jerry laughed at him and sent him to bed, muttering
something about the queer goings on at Horsham Manor.

This incident is related to show that Jerry had more courage than most
boys of his years. Part of it was inherent, of course, but most of it
was born of the habit, learned early, to be sure of himself in any
emergency. There was little doubt in my mind that there was some of
the stuff in Jerry of which heroes are made. I thought so then, for I
was proud of my handiwork. I did not know, alas! to what tests my
philosophy and John Benham's were to be subjected. All of which goes
to show that in running counter to human nature the wisest plans, the
greatest sagacity, are as chaff before the winds of destiny. But to
continue:

The following summer Jerry gave further proofs of his presence of mind
in an accident of which I was the victim. For while trudging with
Jerry along a rocky hillside I stepped straight into the death trap of
a rattlesnake. He struck me below the knee, and we were a long way