He did not know yet the full history of the accident.

He only knew that Jimmy had in some manner got into the water, was overcome by the icy bath and was perishing when Bobby called, and that Bobby by quick thought and quick action had saved his young partner.
"They're both as tough as nuts or they never would have come out of that dip so well," he said to himself.

"Bobby's a hero, and as unselfish as the day is long.
"I wonder what he'd have been if he'd never gone adrift and had never come to this rugged land.

I wonder if his rich parents, or the luxuries and frivolities of civilization, would have spoiled him, and made him grow up into a selfish, cowardly, and perhaps dissipated, weakling?
I wonder if it's the rugged country and the rugged, hard life he lives, that have given him a rugged, noble heart, or whether he'd have had it anyway?
"It's God's mystery.

God holds our destiny in His hands, and our destiny is His will.