 Chapter 9 It was the restlessness of Peter that roused Jolly Roger. Half awake, and before he opened his eyes, life seized upon him where sleep had cut it off for a time last night. His muscles ate. His neck was stiff. He seemed weighted like a log to the hard earth. Swiftly the experience of the preceding hours rushed upon him, and it was in the first of this wakefulness that he felt the presence of Peter. He sat up and stared wide-eyed at the dog. The fact that Peter had escaped from the cabin and had followed him was not altogether amazing. It was quite the natural thing for a one-man dog to do. But the unexpectedness of it held MacKay speechless, and at first a little disappointed. It was as if Peter had deliberately betrayed a trust. During the storm and flight of the night MacKay had thought of him as the one connecting link remaining between him and the girl he loved. He had left Peter to fill his place, to guard and watch and keep alive the memory of the man who was gone. For him there had been something of consolation in this giving up of his comradeship to Neda, and Peter had turned traitor. Even Peter seemed to sense the argument and condemnation that was passing behind MacKay's unsmiling eyes. He did not move, but lay squatted on his belly with his nose straight out on the ground between his forepaws. It was his attitude of self-immolation, his acknowledgment of the other's right to strike with a lash or club. Yet in his eyes, bright and steady behind his mop of whiskers, Jolly Roger saw a prayer. Without a word he held out his arms. It was all Peter needed, and in a moment he was hugged up close against MacKay. After all, there was a mighty something that reached from heart to heart of these two, and Jolly Roger said, with a sound that was half laugh and half sob in his throat, P. A. Bow, you devil, you little devil! His fingers closed in the cloth about Peter's neck, and his heart jumped when he saw what it was, a piece of Neda's dress. Peter, realizing that at last the importance of his mission was understood, waited in eager watchfulness while his master untied the knot. And in another moment, out in the clean and glorious sun that had followed storm, MacKay held the shining tress of Neda's hair. It was a real sob that broke in his throat now, and Peter saw him crush the shining thing to his face and hold it there, while strange quivers ran through his strong shoulders and a wetness that was not rain gathered in his eyes. God bless her! he whispered. And then he said, I wish I was a kid, Peter, a kid. He says, if I ever wanted to cry, it's now. In his face, even with the tears and the strange quivering of his lips, Peter saw a radiance that was joy. And MacKay stood up and looked south, back over the trail he had followed through the blackness and storm of night. He was visioning things. He saw Neda in Father John's cabin, urging Peter out into the wild tumult of thunder and lightning with that precious part of her which she knew he would love forever. Her last message to him. Her last promise of love and faith until the end of time. He guessed only the beginning of the truth. And Peter, denied the power of thought transmission because of an error in the creation of things, ran back a little way over the trail, trying to tell his master that Neda had come with him through the storm and was back in the deep forest, calling for him to return. But MacKay's mind saw nothing beyond the dimly lighted room of the missioner's cabin. He pressed his lips to the silken tress of Neda's hair, still damp with the rain. And after that, with the care of a miser, he smoothed it out and tied the end of the tress tightly with a string, and put it away in the soft buckskin wallet which he carried. There was a new singing in his heart as he gathered sticks with which to build a small fire, for after this he would not travel quite alone. That day they went on, and day followed day until August came, and north, still farther north they went into the illimitable wilderness which reached out in the drowsing stillness of the flying-up month, the month when newly-fledged things take to their wings and the deep forests lie asleep. Days added themselves into weeks, until at last they were in the country of the reindeer waterways. To the east was Hudson's Bay. Westward lay the black forests and twisting waterways of Upper Saskatchewan. And north, always north, beckoned the lonely plains and unmapped wildernesses of the Athabasca, the slave, and the great bear, toward which far country their trail was slowly but surely wending its way. The woodlands and swamps were now empty of man. Cabin and shack and Indian teepee were lifeless, and waited in the desolation of abandonment. No smoke rose in the treetops. No howl of dog came with the early dawn and the setting sun. Trap lines were overgrowing, and laughter and song and the ring of the trapper's axe were gone, leaving behind a brooding silence that seemed to pulse and thrill like a great heart, the heart of the wild unchained for a space from its human bondage. It was the vacation time, the midsummer carnival weeks of the wilderness people. Wild things were breeding. Fur was not good. Flesh was unfit to kill. And so they had disappeared, man, woman, and child, and their dogs as well, to foregather at the Hudson's Bay Company's posts scattered here and there in the fastnesses of the wilderness lands. A few weeks more, and they would return. Cabins would send up their smoke again. Brown-faced children would play about the teepee door. Ten thousand dwellers of the forests, white and half-breed and Indian-born, would trickle in twos and threes and family groups back into the age-old trade of a domain that reached from Hudson's Bay to the western mountains and from the height of land to the Arctic Sea. Until then nature was free, and in its freedom ran and rioted a silence over the land. These were days when the wolf lay with her young, but did not howl. When the lynx yawned sleepily and hunted but little. Days of breeding, nights of drowsy whisperings, and of big red moons, and of streams rippling softly at lowest ebb while they dreamed of rains and flood-time. And through it all, through the lazy drone of insects, the ruffling sighs of the treetops and the subdued notes of living things ran a low and tremulous whispering as if nature had found for itself a new language in this temporary absence of man. To Jolly Roger this was life. It breathed for him out of the cool earth. He heard it over him and under him and on all sides of him where other ears would have found only a thing vast and oppressive and silent. On what he called these motherhood days of the earth the passing years had built his faith and his creed. One evening he stopped for camp at the edge of the burnt wood. From his feet reached out the wide river, ankle deep in places, knee deep in others, rippling and singing between sandbars and driftwood where in May and June it had roared with the fury of flood. Peter, half asleep after their days traveled through a hut forest, watched his master. Since their flight from the edge of civilization far south he had grown heavier and broadened out. The hardship of adventuring and the craft of fighting for food and life had whipped the last of his puppyhood behind him. At six months of age he was scarred and lithe-muscled and ready for instant action at all times. Through the mop of Airdale whiskers that covered his face his bright eyes were ever alert and always they watched the back trail as he wondered why the slim blue-eyed girl they both loved and missed so much did not come. And vaguely he wondered why it was that his master always went on and on and never waited for her to catch up with them. And Jolly Roger was changed. He was not the plump and rosy faced wilderness freebooter who whistled and sang away down at Cragg's Ridge even when he knew the law was at his heels. The steadiness of their flight had thinned him and a graver look had settled in his face. But in his clear eyes was still the love of life, a thing even stronger than the grief which was eating at his heart as their trail reached steadily toward the barren land. In the sunset glow of this late afternoon Peter's watchful eyes saw his master draw forth their treasure. It was something he had come to look for and expect once, twice, and sometimes half a dozen times between the rising and the setting of the sun. And at night when they paused in their flight for the day Jolly Roger never failed to do what he was doing now. Peter drew nearer to where his master was sitting with his back to the big rock and his eyes glistened. Always he caught the sweet, elusive perfume of the girl when Jolly Roger drew out their preciously guarded package. He unwrapped it gently now and in a moment held in his hand to the tress of Neda's hair, the last of her they would ever possess or see. And Peter wondered again why they did not go back to where they had left the rest of the girl. Many times, seeing his restlessness and his yearning, Jolly Roger had tried to make him understand. And Peter tried to comprehend. But always in his dreams he was with the girl he loved, following her, playing with her, fighting for her, hearing her voice, feeling the touch of her hand. In his dog soul he wanted her, just as Jolly Roger wanted her with all the yearning and heartbreak of the man. Yet always when he awoke from his dreams they went on again, not south, but north. To Peter this was hopeless mystery and he possessed no power of reason to solve it. Nor could he speak in words the message which he carried in his heart, that last crying agony of the girl when she had sent him out on the trail of Roger McKay, and treating him to bring back the man she loved and would always love in spite of all the broken and unbroken laws in the world. That night, as they lay beside the burnt wood, Peter heard his master crying out Nate's name in his sleep. And the next dawn they went on, still farther north. In these days and weeks with the hot inundation of the wilderness about him, McKay fought doggedly against the forces which were struggling to break down the first law of his creed. The law might catch him and probably would, and when it caught him the law might hang him, and probably would. But it would never know him. There was something grimly and tragically humorous in this. It would never know of the consuming purity of his worship for little children and old people and women. It would laugh at the religion he had built up for himself, and it would cackle tauntingly if he dared to say he was not wholly bad. For it believed he was bad, and it believed he had killed Jed Hawkins, and he knew that seven hundred men were anxious to get him, dead or alive. But was he bad? He took the matter up one evening with Peter. If I'm bad, maybe it isn't all my fault, P. A. Boe, he said. Maybe it's this, and he swept his arms out to the gathering night. I was born in the open on a night just like this is going to be. My mother, before she died, told me many times how she watched the moon come up that night, and how it seemed to look down on her, and talk to her like a living thing. And I've loved the moon ever since, and the sun, and everything that's outdoors. And if there's a God I don't believe he ever intended man to make a law that wasn't right according to the plans he laid out. That's where I've got in wrong, P. A. Boe. I haven't always believed in man-made law, and I've settled a lot of things in my own way. And I guess I've loved trees and flowers and sunshine and wind and storm too much. I've just wandered, and I've done things along the way. The thrill of it got into me, P. A. Boe, and the law wants me. Peter heard the subdued humor of the man, a low laugh that held neither fear nor regret. It was the treaty money first, he went on, leaning very seriously toward Peter, as if he expected an argument. You see, Yellowbird was in that particular tribe, P. A. Boe. I remember her as she looked to me when a boy, with her two long shining black braids, and her face that was almost as beautiful to me as my mother's. My mother loved her, and she loved my mother. And I loved Yellowbird, just as a child loves a fairy. And always Yellowbird has been my fairy, Peter. I guess child worship is the one thing that lasts through life, always remaining ideal and never forgotten. Years after my mother's death, when I was a young man, and had been down to Montreal and Ottawa and Quebec, I went back to Yellowbird's tribe. And it was starving, P. A. Boe, starving to death. Reminiscent tenderness and humor were gone from Mackay's voice. It was hard and flinty. It was winter, he continued, the dead of winter, and cold, so cold that even the wolves and foxes had buried themselves in. No fish that autumn, no game in the deep snows, and the Indians were starving. P. A. Boe, my heart went dead when I saw Yellowbird. There didn't seem to be anything left of her but her eyes and her hair, those two great shining braids, and eyes that were big and deep and dark like beautiful pools. Boe, you never saw an Indian, an Indian like Yellowbird, cry. They don't cry very much. But when that childhood fairy of mine first saw me, she just stood there, swaying in her weakness, and the tears filled those big, wide-open eyes and ran down her thin cheeks. She had married Slim Buck. Two of their three children had died within a fortnight. Slim Buck was dying of hunger and exhaustion. And Yellowbird's heart was broken, and her soul was crying out for God to let her lie down beside Slim Buck and die with him when I happened along. Peter, Jolly Roger leaned over in the thickening dusk, and his eyes gleamed. Peter, if there is a God, and he thinks I did wrong, then, let him strike me dead right here. I'm willing. I found out what the trouble was. There was a new Indian agent, a cur, and near the tribe was a free trader, another cur. The two got together. The agent sent up the treaty money, and along with it, underground, mind you, he sent a lot of whiskey to the free trader. Inside of five days the whiskey got the treaty money from the Indians. Then came winter. Everything went bad. When I came and found out what had happened, eighteen out of sixty had died, and inside of another two weeks half the others would follow. Piebo, a way back somewhere, there must have been a pirate before me, maybe a great grandfather of mine. I set out, I came back in three days, and I had a sledge load of grub and warm things to wear, plenty of them. My God, how those starving things did eat! I went again and returned in another week with a still bigger sledge load, and Yellow Bird was getting beautiful again, and Slim Buck was on his feet, growing strong, and there was happiness, and I think God Almighty was glad. I kept it up for two months. Then the backbone of the winter broke. Game came into the country. I left them well supplied and skipped. That was what made me an outlaw, Piebo. That. He chuckled, and Peter heard the rubbing of his hands in the gloom. Want to know why? he asked. Well, you see, I went over to the free traders, and this God the law don't take into account went with me, and we found the skunk alone. First I licked him until he was almost dead. Then, sticking a knife into him about half an inch, I made him write a note saying he was called south suddenly, and authorizing me to take charge in his absence. Then I chained him in a dugout in a place where nobody would find him. And I took charge. Piebo I sure did. Everybody was on the traplines, and I wasn't bothered much by collars. And I fed and clothed my tribe for eight straight weeks, fed them until they grew fat. Boy and yellow bird's eyes were bright as stars again. Then I brought Roche, that was his name, back to his empty post, and I lectured him, and gave him another licking, and left. Mackay rose to his feet. The first stars were peeping out of the velvety darkness of the sky, and Peter heard his master draw in a deep breath the breath of a man whose lungs rejoice in the glory of life. After a moment he said, and the royal mounted have been after me ever since that winter, Peter, and the harder they've chased me, the more I've given them reason to chase me. I have killed Baudin, the government male runner, because he insulted another man's wife when that man, my friend, was away. Then Baudin, seeing his chance, robbed the male himself, and the crime was laid to me. Well, I got even, and stuck up a male sledge myself, but I guess there was a good reason for it. I've done a lot of things since then, but I've done it all with my naked fists, and I've never put a bullet or a knife into a man, except Roche, the free trader. And the funniest thing of the whole business, Piebo, is this. I didn't kill Jed Hawkins. Someday maybe I'll tell you about what happened on the trail, the thing which you and Neda didn't see. But now, for a moment, he stood very still, and Peter sensed the sudden thrill that was going through the man as he stood there in darkness. And then suddenly Jolly Roger bent over him. Peter, there's three women we'll love as long as we live, he whispered. There's my mother, and she is dead. There's Neda back there, and we'll never see her again, his voice choked for an instant. And then there's Yellowbird, he added. It's five years since I fed the tribe. Maybe they've had more kids. Boy, let's go and see! End of Chapter 9, Recording by Roger Maline Chapter 10 of The Country Beyond This LibriVox Recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Maline The Country Beyond by James Oliver Kerwood Chapter 10 North and West, in the direction of Yellowbird's people, went Jolly Roger and Peter after that night. They traveled slowly and consciously, and with each day Peter came to understand more clearly there was some reason why they must be constantly on their guard. His master, he noticed, was thrillingly attentive whenever a sound came to their ears, perhaps the cracking of a twig, a mysterious movement of brush, or the tread of a cloven hoof. And instinctively he came to know they were evading man. He remembered vividly their escape from Cassidy and their quiet hiding for many days in the mass of sun-baked rocks which Jolly Roger had called the stew-kettle. The same vigilance seemed to be a part of his master's movements now. He did not laugh, or sing, or whistle, or talk loudly. He built fires so small that at first Peter was absorbed in an almost scientific analysis of them. And instead of shooting game which could have been easily secured, he set little snares in the evening and caught fish in the streams. At night they always slept half a mile or more from the place where they had built their tiny supper-fire. And during these hours of sleep Peter was ready to rouse himself at the slightest sound of movement near them. Scarcely a night passed that his low growl of warning did not bring Jolly Roger out of his slumber, a hand on his gun, and his eyes and ears wide open. Whether he would have used the gun had the red-coated police suddenly appeared, McKay had not quite assured himself. Day after day the same old fight went on within him. He analyzed his situation from every point of view, and always, no matter how he went about it, eventually found himself face to face with the same definite fact. If the law succeeded in catching him it would not trouble itself to punish him for stealing back the treaty money, or for holding up government mails, or for any of his other misdemeanors. It would hang him for the murder of Jed Hawkins. And the minions of the law would laugh at the truth, even if he told it, which he never would. More than once his imaginative genius had drawn up a picture of that impossible happening. For it was a truth so inconceivable that he found the absurdity of it a grimly humorous thing. Even Neda believed he had killed her scoundrally foster father. Yet it was she, herself, who had killed him. And it was Neda whom the law would hang if the truth was known and believed. Frequently he went back over the scenes of that tragic night at Craigsridge, when all the happiness in the world seemed to be offering itself to him, the night when Neda was to go with him to the missioners, to become his wife, and then the dark trail, the dishelled girl staggering to him through the starlight, and her sobbing story of how Jed Hawkins had tried to drag her through the forest to Mooney's cabin, and how, at last, she had saved herself by striking him down with a stick which she had caught up out of the darkness. Would the police believe him, an outlaw, if he told the rest of the story, how he had gone back to give Jed Hawkins the beating of his life, and had found him dead in the trail, where Neda had struck him down? Would they believe him if, in a moment of cowardice, he told them that to protect the girl he loved, he had fastened the responsibility of the crime upon himself? No, they would not. He had made the evidence too complete. The world would call him a lying yellowback, if he betrayed what had actually happened on the trail between Craigsridge and Mooney's cabin. And this, after all, was the one remaining bit of happiness in Jolly Roger's heart, the knowledge that he had made the evidence utterly complete, and that Neda would never know, and the world would never know the truth. His love for the blue-eyed girl-woman, who had given her heart and her soul into his keeping, even when she knew he was an outlaw, was an undying thing, like his love for the mother of years ago. It will be easy to die for her, he told Peter, and this, in the end, was what he knew he was going to do. Thought of the inevitable did not make him afraid. He was determined to keep his freedom and his life as long as he could, but he was fatalistic enough, and sufficiently acquainted with the royal northwest-monad police, to know what the ultimate of the thing would be. And yet, with tragedy behind him, and a still grimmer tragedy ahead, the soul of Jolly Roger was not dead or in utter darkness. In it, waking and sleeping, he enshrined the girl who had been willing to give up all other things in the world for him, who had pleaded with him in the last hour of storm down in the edge of civilization, that she be given the privilege of accompanying him wherever his fate might lead, that he was an outlaw had not destroyed her faith in him, that he had killed a man, a man unfit to live, had only drawn her arms more closely about him, and had made her more completely a part of him. And a thousand times the maddening thought possessed Jolly Roger. Was he wrong and not right in refusing to accept the love and companionship which she had begged him to accept, in spite of all that had happened and all that might happen? Day by day he slowly won for himself, and at last, as they traveled in the direction of yellow birds' country, he crushed the final doubt that oppressed him and knew that he was right. In his selfishness he had not shackled her to an outlaw. He had left her free. Life and hope and other happiness were ahead of her. He had not destroyed her, and this thought would strengthen him and leave something of gladness in his heart, even in that gray dawn when the law would compel him to make his final sacrifice. It is a strange peace which follows grief, a secret happiness no other soul but one can understand. Out of it excitement and passion have been burned, and it is then the great God of things comes more closely into the possession of his own. And now, as they went westward and north toward the Walliston Lake country, this peace possessed Jolly Roger. It mellowed his world. It was half an ache, half a steady and undying pain, but it drew life nearer to him than he had ever known it before. His love for the sun and sky, for the trees and flowers, and all growing things of the earth, was more worship of the divine than a love for physical things. And each day he felt it drawing more closely about him in its comradeship, whispering to him of its might and of its power to care for him in the darkest hours of stress that might come. He did not travel fast after he had reached the decision to go to Yellowbird's people, and he tried to imagine, a great deal of the time, that Neda was with him. He succeeded in a way that bewildered Peter, for quite frequently the man talked to someone who was not there. The slowness and caution with which they traveled developed Peter's mental faculties with marvelous swiftness. His master, free of egoism and prejudice, had placed him on a plane of intimate equality, and Peter struggled each day to live up a little more to the responsibility of this intimacy and confidence. Instinct, together with human training, taught him woodcraft, until in many ways he was more clever than his master. And along with this, Jolly Roger slowly but surely impressed upon him the difference between wanton slaughter and necessary killing. Everything that's got a breath of life must kill, up to a certain point, Jolly Roger explained to him, repeating the lesson over and over. And that isn't wrong, Peter. The sin is in killing when you don't have to. See that tree over there, with a vine as big as my wrist winding around it, like a snake? Well, that vine is choking the life out of the tree, and in time the tree will die. But the vine is doing just what God Almighty meant it to do. It needs a tree to live on. But I'm going to cut that vine because I think more of the tree than I do the vine. That's my privilege, following my conscience. And we're eating young partridges tonight because we had to have something to keep us alive. It's the necessity of the thing that counts, Peter. Think you can understand that? It was pretty hard for Peter at first, but he was observant, and his mind worked quickly. The crime of destroying birdlings in their nest, or on the ground, was impressed upon him. He began to understand there was a certain humiliating shame attached to an attack upon a creature weaker than himself, unless there was a reason for it. He looked chiefly to his master for decisions in the matter. Snowshoe rabbits, young and half grown, were very tame in this month of August, and ordinarily he would have destroyed many of them in a day's travel. But unless Jolly Roger gave him a signal, or he was hungry, he would pass a snowshoe unconcernedly. This phase of Peter's development interested Jolly Roger greatly. The outlaw's philosophy had not been punctured by the egotistical I am the only reasoning being arguments of narrow-gaged nature scientists. He believed that Peter possessed not only a brain and super instinct, but also a very positive reasoning power which he was helping to develop. And the process was one that fascinated him. When he was not sleeping or traveling or teaching Peter, he was usually reading the wonderful little red volumes of history which he had perloined from the male sledge up near the barren lands. He knew their contents nearly by heart. His favorites were the life stories of Napoleon, Margaret of Anjou, and Peter the Great, and always when he compared his own troubles with the difficulties and tragedies over which these people had triumphed, he felt a new courage and inspiration and faced the world with better cheer. If nature was his God and Bible, and Neda, his angel, these finger-worn little books written by a man half a century dead were voices out of the past urging him on to his best. Their pages were filled with the vivid lessons of sacrifice, of courage and achievement, of loyalty, honor, and dishonor, and of the crashing tragedy which comes always with the last supreme egoism and arrogance of man. He marked the dividing lines and applied them to himself, and he told Peter of his conclusions. He felt a consuming tenderness for the glorious Margaret of Anjou, and his heart thrilled one day when a voice seemed to whisper to him out of their printed page that Neda was another Margaret, only more wonderful because she was not a princess and a queen. The only difference, he explained to Peter, is that Margaret sacrificed and fought and died for a king, and our Neda is willing to do all that for a poor beggar of an outlaw, which makes Margaret a second raider compared with Neda, he added, for Margaret wanted a kingdom along with her husband, and Neda would take just you and me. And that's where we're pulling some Peter the Great stuff, he tried to laugh, we won't let her do it. And so they went on, day after day, toward the Wallace and Waterways, the country of Yellowbird and her people. It was early September when they crossed the Geiki and struck up the western shore of Walliston Lake. The first golden tints were ripening in the canoe birch leaves, and the tremulous whisper of autumn was in the rustle of the aspen trees. The poplars were yellowing, the ash were blood red with fruit, and in cool, dank thickets, wild currents were glossy black and lusciously ripe. It was the season which Jolly Roger loved most of all, and it was the beginning of Peter's first September. The days were still hot, but at night there was a bracing something in the air that stirred the blood, and Peter found a sharp new note in the voices of the wild. The wolf howled again in the middle of the night. The loon forgot his love sickness and screamed raucous defiance at the moon. The big snowshoes were no longer tame but wary and alert, and the owls seemed to slink deeper into darkness and watch with more cunning. And Jolly Roger knew the human masters of the wilderness were returning from the posts to their cabins and traplines, and he advanced with still greater caution. And as he went, watching for smoke and listening for sound, he began to reflect upon the many changes which five years might have produced among Yellowbird's people. Possibly other misfortunes had come, other winters of hunger and pestilence, scattering and destroying the tribe. It might even be that Yellowbird was dead. For three days he followed slowly the ragged shore of Walliston Lake, and foreboding of evil was oppressing him when he came upon the fish-racks of the Indians. They had been abandoned for many days. For black bear tracks fairly inundated the place, and Peter saw two of the bears, fat and unafraid, nosing along the shore where the fish-offel had been thrown. It was the next day, in the hour before sunset, that Jolly Roger and Peter came out on the edge of a shelving beach where Indian children were playing in the white sand. Among these children playing and laughing with them was a woman. She was tall and slim, with a skirt of soft buckskin that came closely a little below her knees, and two shining black braids which tossed like velvety ropes when she ran. And she was running when they first saw her, running away from them, pursued by the children. And then she twisted suddenly and came toward them until with a startled cry she stopped almost within the reach of Jolly Roger's hands. Peter was watching. He saw the half-frightened look in her face, then the slow widening of her dark eyes and the quick intake of her breath. And in that moment Jolly Roger cried out a name. YELLOW BIRD! He went to her slowly, wondering if it could be possible the years had touched Yellow Bird so lightly. And Yellow Bird reached out her hands to him, her face flaming up with sudden happiness, and Peter wondered what it was all about as he cautiously eyed the half-dozen brown-faced little Indian children who had now gathered quietly about them. In another moment there was an interruption. A girl came through the fringe of willows behind them. It was as if another Yellow Bird had come to puzzle Peter, the same slim, graceful little body, the same shining eyes, and yet she was half a dozen years younger than Nada. For the first time Peter was looking at Sun Cloud, the daughter of Yellow Bird. And in that moment he loved her, just as something gave him confidence and faith in the starry eyed woman whose hands were in his masters. Then Yellow Bird called and the girl went to her mother, and Jolly Roger hugged her in his arms and kissed her on the scarlet mouth she turned up to him. Then they hurried along the shore toward the fishing-camp, the children racing ahead to tell the news, led by Sun Cloud, with Peter running at her heels. Never had Peter heard anything from a man's throat like the two yells that came from Slim Buck, Yellow Bird's husband and chief of the tribe, after he had greeted Jolly Roger McKay. It was a note harking back to the old war trails of the Crees, and what followed it that night was most exciting to Peter. Big fires were built of white driftwood, and there was singing and dancing, and a great deal of laughter and eating, and the interminable howling of half a hundred siwash dogs. Peter did not like the dogs, but he did know fighting because his love for Sun Cloud kept him close to the touch of her little brown hand. That night, in the glow of the big fire outside of Slim Buck's tepee, Jolly Roger's heart thrilled with a pleasure which it had not known for a long time. He loved to look at Yellow Bird. Five years had not changed her. Her eyes were starry bright. Her teeth were like milk. The color still came and went in her brown cheeks, even as it did in Sun Cloud's. All of which, in his heart of a wilderness, meant that she had been happy and prosperous. And he also loved to look at Sun Cloud, who possessed all of that rare wildflower beauty sometimes given to the northern Crees. And it did him good to look at Slim Buck. He was a splendid mate, and a royal father, and Jolly Roger found himself strangely happy in their happiness. In the eyes of men and women and little children, he saw that happiness all about him. For three winters there had been splendid trapping, Slim Buck told him, and this season they had caught and dried enough fish to carry them through the following winter, even if black days should come. His people were rich. They had many warm blankets and good clothes, and the best of teepees and guns and sledges, and several treasures besides. Two of these, Yellowbird and her husband, disclosed of Jolly Roger this first night. One of them was a sewing machine, and the other a phonograph. And Jolly Roger listened to Mother McCree and The Rosary that night as he sat by Walliston Lake with six hundred miles of wilderness between him and Cragg's Ridge. Later, when the camp slept, Yellowbird and Slim Buck and Jolly Roger still sat beside the red embers of their fire, and Jolly Roger told of what had happened down at the edge of civilization. It was what his heart needed, and he left out none of the details. Slim Buck was listening, but Jolly Roger knew he was talking straight at Yellowbird, and that her warm heart was full of understanding. Softly, in that low, Cree voice which is the sweetest of all voices, she asked him many questions about Neda, and gently her slim fingers caressed the tress of Neda's hair which he let her take in her hands. And after a long time, she said, I have given her a name. She is Umi the Pigeon. Slim Buck started at the strange note in her voice. The Pigeon, he repeated. Yes, Umi the Pigeon, Yellowbird nodded. She was not looking at them. In the firelight her eyes were glowing pools. Her body had grown a little tense. Without asking Jolly Roger's permission, she placed the tress of Neda's hair in her bosom. Umi the Pigeon, she said again, looking far away. That is her name, because the Pigeon flies fast and straight and true. Over forests and lakes and worlds the Pigeon flies. It is tireless. It is swift. It always flies home. Slim Buck rose quietly to his feet. Come, he whispered, looking at Jolly Roger. Yellowbird did not look at them or speak to them, and Slim Buck, with his hand on Jolly Roger's arm, pulled him gently away. In his eyes was a little something of fear, and yet along with it a sublime faith. Her spirit will be with Umi the Pigeon tonight, he said in a voice struck with awe. It will go to this place which you have described, and it will live in the body of the girl, and through Yellowbird it will tell you tomorrow what has happened and what is going to happen. In the edge of the shore-willows Jolly Roger stood for a time watching Yellowbird as she sat under the stars, motionless as a figure graven out of stone. He felt a curious tingling at his heart, something stirring uneasily in his breast, and he stood alone even after Slim Buck had stretched himself out in the soft sand to sleep. He was not superstitious, yet it was equally a part of his philosophy and his creed to believe in the overwhelming power of the mind. If you have faith enough and think hard enough, you can think anything until it comes true, he had told himself more than once. And he knew Yellowbird possessed that illimitable faith, and that behind her divination lay generations and centuries of an unbreakable certainty in the power of mind over matter. He realized his own limitations, but a mysterious voice in the still night seemed whispering to him that in the crude wisdom of Yellowbird's brain lay the secret to strange achievement, and that on this night her mind might perform for him what he, in his greater wisdom, would call a miracle. He had seen things like that happen, and he sat down in the sand, sleepless, and with Peter at his feet waited for Yellowbird to stir. He could see the dull shimmer of starlight in her hair, but the rest of her was a shadow that gave no sign of life. The camp was asleep. Even the dogs were buried in their wallows of sand, and the last red spark of the fires had died out. The hour passed, and another hour followed, and the lids of Jolly Roger's eyes grew heavier as the fading stars seemed to be sinking deeper into infinity. At last he slept, with his back leaning against a sand dune the children had made. He dreamed, and was flying through the air with Yellowbird. She was traveling swift and straight, like an arrow, and he had difficulty in keeping up with her, and at last he cried out for her to wait, that he could not go farther. The cry roused him. He opened his eyes, and found cool gray dawn in the sky. Peter, alert, was muscling his hand. Slimbuck lay in the sand, still asleep. There was no stir in the camp. And then, with a sudden catch in his breath, he looked toward Yellowbird's teepee. Yellowbird still sat in the sand. Through the hours of fading starlight and coming dawn, she had not moved. Slowly, Mackay rose to his feet. When he came to her, making no sound, she looked up. The shimmer of glistening dew was in her hair. Her long lashes were wet with it. Her face was very pale, and her eyes so large and dark, that for a moment they startled him. She was tired. Exhaustion was in her slim, limp body. A sigh came from her lips, and her shoulders swayed a little. Sit down, Nikawa! she whispered, drying the ropes of her hair about her as if she were cold. Then she drew a slim hand over her eyes, and shivered. It is well, Nikawa! she spoke softly. I have gone through the clouds to where lives Umi, the pigeon. I found her crying in a trail. I whispered to her, and happiness came. And that happiness is going to live for Nikawa and the pigeon. It cannot die. It cannot be killed. It cannot be killed. The red-coated men of the great white father will never destroy it. You will live. She will live. You will meet again in happiness. And happiness will follow ever after. That much I learned, Nikawa. In happiness you will meet again. Where? When? whispered Jolly Roger, his heart beating with sudden swiftness. Again Yellowbird passed her hand over her eyes, and as she held it there for a moment, she bowed her head until Jolly Roger could see only her dew-wet hair, and she said, In the country beyond, Nikawa! Her eyes were looking at him again, big, dark, and filled with mystery. And where is this country Yellowbird? He asked, a strange chill driving the warmth out of his heart. You mean up there? And he pointed to the gray sky above them. No, it is happiness to come in life, not in death, said Yellowbird slowly. It is not beyond the stars. It is— He waited, leaning toward her. In the country beyond, she repeated with a tired little droop of her head. And where that is, I do not know, Nikawa. I could not pass beyond the great white cloud that shut me out. But it is somewhere I will find it, and then I will tell you and the pigeon. She stood up and swayed in the gray light, like one worn out by hard travel. Then she passed into the teepee, and Jolly Roger heard her fall on her blanket bed. And still stranger whisperings filled his heart as he faced the east, where the first red blush of day drove back the star mists of dawn. He heard a step in the soft sand, and Slimbuck stood beside him. And he asked, Did you ever hear of the country beyond? Slimbuck shook his head, and both looked in silence toward the rising sun. Peter was glad when the camp roused itself out of sleep with waking voices and laughter and the building of fires. He waited eagerly for sun-cloud. At last she came out of Yellowbird's teepee, rubbing her eyes in the face of the glow in the east, and then her white teeth flashed a smile of welcome at him. Together they ran down to the edge of the lake, and Peter wagged his tail, while sun-cloud went out knee-deep and scrubbed her pretty face with handfuls of the cool water. It was a happy day for him. He was different from the Indian dogs, and sun-cloud and her playmates made much of him. But never, even in their most exciting play, did he entirely lose track of his master. Jolly Roger, to an extent, forgot Peter. He tried to deaden within him the impulses which Yellowbird's conjuring had roused. He tried to see in them a menace and a danger, and he repeated to himself the folly of placing credence in Yellowbird's medicine. But his efforts were futile, and he was honest enough to admit it. The uneasiness was in his breast. A new hope was rising up, and with that hope were fear and suspense, for deep in him was growing stronger the conviction that what Yellowbird would tell him would be true. He noted the calm and dignified stiffness with which Slimbuck greeted the day. The young chief passed quietly among his people. A word traveled in whispers, voices and footsteps were muffled, and before the sun was an hour high, there was no teepee standing but one on that white strip of beach. And the one teepee was Yellowbird's. Not until the camp was gone, leaving her alone, did Yellowbird come out into the day. She saw the food placed at her teepee door. She saw the empty places where the homes of her people had stood, and in the wet sand of the beach the marks of their missing canoes. Then she turned her pale face and tired eyes to the sun, and unbraided her hair so that it streamed, glistening all about her, and uncovered the white sand when she sat down again in front of the smoke-darkened canvas that had become her conjurer's house. Two miles up the beach, Slimbuck's people made another camp. But Slimbuck and Jolly Roger remained in the cover of a wooded headland only half a mile from Yellowbird. They saw her when she came out. They watched for an hour after she sat down in the sand. And then Slimbuck grunted, and with a gesture of his hands said they would go. Jolly Roger protested. It was not safe for Yellowbird to remain until the bird to remain entirely beyond their protection. There were bears prowling about, and human beasts occasionally found their way through the wilderness. But Slimbuck's face was like a bronze carving in its faith and pride. Yellowbird only goes with the good spirits, he assured Jolly Roger. She does not do witchcraft with the bad. And no harm can come while the good spirits are with her. It is thus she has brought us happiness and prosperity since the days of the famine, Nikawa. He spoke these words in Cree, and McKay answered him in Cree as they turned in the direction of the camp. Halfway Suncloud came to meet them with Peter at her side. She put a brown little hand in Jolly Roger's. It was quite new and pleasant to be kissed as Jolly Roger had kissed her, and she held up her mouth to him again. Then she ran ahead with Peter yipping foolishly and happily at her moccasin heels. And Jolly Roger said, I wish I was your brother, Slimbuck, and NATO was Yellowbird's sister, and that I had many like her. And his eyes followed Suncloud with hungry yearning. And as he said these words, Yellowbird sat with bowed head and closed eyes with the soft tress of NATO's hair in her hands. It was the physical union between them, and all that day and the night that followed, Yellowbird held it in her hand or against her breast as she struggled to send out the soul that was in her on its mission to Umi the Pigeon. In darkness she buried the food that was left her and stamped on it with her feet. The sacrifice of her body had begun, and for two days thereafter Jolly Roger and Slimbuck saw no movement of life about the lone teepee in the sand. But the third morning they saw the smoke of a little greenwood fire rising straight up from in front of it. Slimbuck drew in a deep breath. It was the signal fire. She knows, he said, pointing for Jolly Roger to go. She is calling you. The tenseness was gone from the bronze muscle of his face. He was lonely without Yellowbird, and the signal fire meant she would be with him again soon. Jolly Roger was in a deep breath. He was in a deep breath again soon. Jolly Roger walked swiftly over the white beach. Again he tried to tell himself what folly it all was, and that he was answering the signal fire only to humor Yellowbird and Slimbuck. But words, even spoken half aloud, did not quiet the eager beating of his heart. Not until he was very near did Yellowbird come out of the teepee. Jolly Roger stopped short, a gasp on his lips. She was changed. Her radiant hair was still down, polished smooth. But her face was whiter than he had ever seen it, and drawn and pinched almost as in the days of the famine. For two days and two nights she had taken no food, and for two days and two nights she had not slept. But there was triumph in her big, wide-open eyes and Jolly Roger felt something strange rising up in his breast. Yellowbird held out her hands toward him. We have been together, the pigeon and I, she said. We have slept in each other's arms, and the warmth of her head was laying against my breast. I have learned the secrets, Nikawa, all but one. The spirits will not tell me where lies the country beyond. But it is not up there beyond the stars. It is not in death, but in life you will find it. That they have told me, and you must not go back to where the pigeon lives, for you will find black desolation there. But always you must keep on and on, seeking for the country beyond. You will find it, and there also you will find the pigeon and happiness. You cannot fail, Nikawa, yet my heart stings me that I cannot tell you where that strange country is. But when I came to it, golden silver clouds shut it in, and I could see nothing, and yet out of it came the singing of birds and the promise of sweet voices that it shall be found. If you seek faithfully, Nikawa, I am glad. Each word that she spoke in her soft and tremulous Cree was a new message of hope in the empty heart of Jolly Roger McKay. The world might laugh. Men might tap their heads and smile. His own voice might argue and taunt. But deep in his heart he believed. Something of the radiance of the new day came into his face, even as it was returning into yellow birds. He looked about him, east, west, north, and south, upon the sunlit glory of water and earth, and suddenly he reached out his arms. I'll find it, yellow bird! he cried. I'll find this place you call the country beyond. And when I do, he turned and took one of yellow bird's slim hands in both his own. And when I do, we'll come back to you, yellow bird, he said. And like a cavalier of old he touched his lips gently to the palm of yellow bird's little brown hand. End of chapter 10, recording by Roger Maline Chapter 11 of The Country Beyond This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Maline The Country Beyond by James Oliver Kerwood Chapter 11 Days of new hope and gladness followed in the camp of yellow bird and slim buck. It was as if McKay, after a long absence, had come back to his own people. The tenderness of mother and sister lay warm in yellow bird's breast. Slim buck loved him as a brother. The wrinkled faces of the old softened when he came near and spoke to them. Little children followed him, and at dusk and dawn, suncloud held up her mouth to be kissed. For the first time in years, McKay felt as if he had found home. The Northland Indian summer held the world in its drowsy arms, and the sun-filled days and the starry nights seemed overflowing with the promise of all time. Each day he put off his going until tomorrow, and each day Slim buck urged him to remain with them always. But in yellow bird's eyes was a strange, quiet mystery, and she did not urge. Each day and night she was watching and waiting, and at last that for which she watched and waited came to pass. It was night, a dark, still night, with a creeping restlessness in it. This restlessness was like the ghostly pulse of a great living body, still for a time, then moving, hiding, whispering between the clouds and the sky, and the deeper shadowed earth below. A night of uneasiness, of unseen forces chained and stifled, of impending doubt and oppressive lifelessness. There was no wind, yet under the stars gray masses of clouds sped as if in flight. There was no breeze in the treetops, yet they whispered and sighed. In the strange spell of this midnight, heavy with its unrest, the wilderness lay half asleep, half awake, with the mysterious stillness of death and shrouding it. At the edge of the white sands of Wallaceton, whose broad water was like oil tonight, stood the tepees of yellow bird's people. Smoke blackened, and seasoned by wind and rain, they were dark blotches sentineling the shore of the big lake. Behind them, beyond the willows, were the Indian dogs. From them came an occasional whine, a deep sigh, the snapping of a jaw, and in the gloom their bodies moved restlessly. In the tepees was the spell of this same unrest. Sleep was never quite sure of itself. Men, women, and little children twisted and rolled, or lay awake, and weird and distorted shapes and fancies came in dreams. In her tepee, yellow bird lay with her eyes wide open, staring at the gray blur of the smoke hole above. Her husband was asleep. Suncloud, tossing on her blankets, had flung one of her long braids so that it lay across her mother's breast. Yellow bird's slim fingers played with its silken strands as she looked straight up into nothingness. Wide awake she was thinking. Thinking as slimbuck would never be able to think. Back to the days when a white woman had been her goddess. And when a little white boy, the woman's son, had called yellow bird my fairy. In the gloom, with foreboding eating at her heart, yellow bird's red lips parted in a smile as those days came back to her. For they were pleasing days to think about. But after that the years sped swiftly in her mind until the day when the little boy, a man grown, came to save her tribe and her own life and the life of Suncloud and of Slimbuck, her husband. Since then prosperity and happiness had been her lot. The spirits had been good. They had not let her grow old, but had kept her still beautiful. And Suncloud, her little daughter, was beautiful. And Slimbuck was more than ever her god among men and her people were happy. And all this she owed to the man who was sleeping under the gloom of the sky outside, the hunted man, the outlaw, the little boy grown up, Jolly Roger McKay. As she listened and stared up at the smoke-hole strange spirits were whispering to her. And yellow bird's blood ran a little faster and her eyes grew bigger and brighter in the darkness. They seemed to be accusing her. They told her it was because of her that Roger McKay had come in that winter of starvation and death and had robbed and almost killed that she and Slimbuck and little Suncloud might live. That was the beginning and the thrill of it had got into the blood of Nikawa, her little white brother grown up. And now he was out there, alone with his dog in the night. And the red-coated avengers of the law were hunting him. They wanted him for many things, but chiefly for the killing of a man. Yellow bird sat up, her little hands clenched about the thick braid of Suncloud's hair. She had conjured with the spirits and had let the soul go out of her body that she might learn the future for Nikawa, her white brother. And they had told her that Roger McKay had done right to think of killing. Their voices had whispered to her that he would not suffer more than he had already suffered and that in the country beyond he would find Neda, the white girl, and happiness and peace. Yellow bird did not disbelieve. Her faith was inimitable. The spirits would not lie. But the unrest of the night was eating at her heart. She tried to lift herself to the whisperings above the tee-pee top. But they were unintelligible, like many voices mingling, and with them came a dull fear into her soul. She put out a hand as if to rouse Slimbuck. Then she drew it back and placed Suncloud's braid away from her. She rose to her feet so quietly that even in their restlessness they did not fully awake. Through the tee-pee door she went and stood up straight in the night as if now she might hear more clearly and understand. For a space she breathed in the oppressive something that was in the air, and her eyes went east and west for a sign of storm. But there was no threat of storm. The clouds were drifting slowly and softly, with starlight breaking through their rifts, and there was no moan of thunder or wail of wind far away. Her heart, for a little, seemed to stop its beating and her hands clasped tightly at her breast. She began to understand, and a strange thrill crept into her. The spirits had put a great burden upon the night so that it might drive sleep from her eyes. They were warning her. They were telling her of danger approaching swiftly, almost impending. And it was peril for the white man who was sleeping somewhere near. Swiftly she began seeking for him, her naked little brown feet making no sound in the soft white sands of Walliston. And as she sought, the clouds thinned out above, and the stars shone through more clearly as if to make easier for her the quest in the gloom. Where he had made his bed of blankets in the sand, closed beside a flat mass of water-washed sandstone, Jolly Roger lay half asleep. Peter was wide awake. His eyes gleamed brightly and watchfully. His lank and bony body was tense and alert. He did not whine or snap his jaws, though he heard the Indian dogs occasionally doing so. The comradeship of a fugitive, ever on the watch for his fellow men, had made him silent and velvet-footed, and had sharpened his senses to the keenness of knives. He, too, felt the impelling force of an approaching menace in this night of stillness and mystery, and he watched closely the restless movements of his master's body and listened with burning eyes to the name which he had spoken three times in the last five minutes of his sleep. It was Neda's name, and as Jolly Roger cried it out softly in the old way as if Neda was standing before them, he reached out, and his hands struck the sandstone rock. His eyes opened, and slowly he sat up. The sky had cleared of clouds, and there was starlight, and in that starlight Jolly Roger saw a figure standing near him in the sand. At first he thought it was sun-cloud, for Peter stood with his head raised to her. Then he saw it was yellow bird, with her beautiful eyes looking at him steadily and strangely as he awakened. He got upon his feet and went to her, and took one of her hands. It was cold. He felt the shiver that ran through her slim body, and suddenly her eyes swept from him out into the night. Listen, Nikawa! Her fingers tightened in his hand. For a space he could hear the beating of her heart. Twice I have heard it! she whispered then. Nikawa, you must go! Heard what? he asked. She shook her head. Something I don't know what, but it tells me there is danger. And I saw danger over the tee-pee top, and I have heard the whisperings of it all about me. It is coming. It is coming slowly and cautiously. It is very near. Hark! Nikawa! Was that not a sound out in the water? I think it was the wing of a duck, yellow bird. And that, she cried swiftly, her fingers tightening still more, that sound as if wood strikes on wood. The croak of a loon fire up the shore, yellow bird. She drew her hand away. Nikawa, listen to me! she importuned him in kree. The spirits have made this night heavy with warning. I could not sleep. Suncloud twitches and moans. Slimbuck whispers to himself. You were crying out the name of Neda, Umi the Pigeon, when I came to you. I know. It is danger. It is very near. And it is danger for you. And only a short time ago you were confident happiness and peace were coming to me, yellow bird, reminded Jolly Roger. The spirits, you said, promised the law should never get me, and I would find Neda again in that strange place you called the country beyond. Have the spirits changed their message because the night is heavy? Yellow bird's eyes were staring into darkness. No, they have not changed, she whispered. They have spoken the truth. They want to tell me more, but for some reason it is impossible. They have tried to tell me where lies this place they called the country beyond, where you will again find Umi the Pigeon. But a cloud always comes between. And they are trying to tell me what the danger is off there in the darkness. Suddenly she caught his arm. Nekawa, did you hear? A fish leaping in the still water, yellow bird. He heard a low whimper in Peter's throat, and looking down, he saw Peter's muzzle pointing toward the thick cloud of gloom over the lake. What is it, Piebo? he asked. Peter whimpered again. Jolly Roger touched the cold hand that rested on his arm. Go back to your bed, yellow bird. There is only one danger for me, the red-coated police. And they do not travel in the dark hours of a night like this. They are coming, she replied. I cannot hear or see, but they are coming. Her fingers tightened. And they are near. She cried softly. You are nervous, yellow bird, he said, thinking of the two days and three nights of her conjuring, when she had neither slept nor taken food that she might more successfully commune with the spirits. There is no danger. The night is a hard one for sleep. It has frightened you. It has warned me, she persisted, standing as motionless as it was. She persisted, standing as motionless as a statue at his side. Nikawa, the spirits, do not forget. They have not forgotten that winter when you came, and my people were dying of famine and sickness, when I dreaded to see little sun-cloud close her eyes, even in sleep, fearing she would never open them again. They have not forgotten how all that winter you robbed the white people over on the Daishan that we might live. If they remember those things and lie, I would not be afraid to curse them. But they do not lie. Jolly Roger McKay did not answer. Deep down in him that strange something was at work again, compelling him to believe, yellow bird. She did not look at him, but in her low, cre-voice, soft as the mellow notes of a bird, she was saying, You will be going very soon, Nikawa, and I shall not see you again for a long time. Do not forget what I have told you, and you must believe. Somewhere there is this place called the country beyond. The spirits have said so. And it is there you will find your Umi, the pigeon, and happiness. But if you go back to the place where you left the pigeon when you fled from the red-coated men of the law, you will find only blackness and desolation. Believe, and you shall be guided. If you disbelieve, she stopped. You heard that, Nikawa? It was not the wing of a duck, nor was it the croak of a loon far up the shore, or a fish leaping in the still water. It was a paddle. In the star-gloom, Jolly Roger McKay bowed his head and listened. Yes, a paddle, he said, and his voice sounded strange to him. Probably it is one of your people returning to camp, yellow bird. She turned toward him and stood very near. Her hands reached out to him. Her hair and eyes were filled with the velvety glow of the stars, and for an instant he saw the tremble of her parted lips. Good-bye, Nikawa! she whispered. And then, without letting her hands touch him, she was gone. Swiftly she ran to Slimbuck's teepee and entered, and very soon she came out again with Slimbuck beside her. Jolly Roger did not move, but watched as Yellowbird and her husband went down to the edge of the lake and stood there, waiting for the strange canoe to pass or come in. It was approaching. Slowly it came up, an indistinct shadow at first, but growing clearer until at last he could see the silhouette of it against the star-silvered water beyond. There were two people in it. Before the canoe reached the shore, Slimbuck stood out knee-deep in the water and hailed it. A voice answered, and at the sound of that voice, McCay dropped like a shot beside Peter, and Peter's lips curled up and he snarled. His master's hand warned him, and together they slipped back into the shadows, and from under a piece of canvas, Jolly Roger dragged forth his pack and quietly strapped it over his shoulders while he waited and listened. And then, as he heard the voice again, he grinned and chuckled softly. It's Cassidy, Piebo. We can't lose that red-headed fox, can we? A good-humored devil-tree lay in his eyes, and Peter, looking up, thought for a moment his master was laughing. Then Jolly Roger made a megaphone of his hands, and called very clearly out into the night, Ho Cassidy! Is that you, Cassidy? Peter's heart was choking him as he listened. He sensed a terrific danger. There was no sound at the edge of the lake. There was no sound anywhere. For a few moments a death-like stillness followed Jolly Roger's words. Then a voice came in answer, each word cutting the gloom with the decisive clearness of a bullet coming from a gun. Yes, this is Cassidy, Corporal Terrence Cassidy of M Division, Royal Northwest Mounted Police. Is that you, McKay? Yes, it's me, replied Jolly Roger. Does the wager still hold, Cassidy? It holds. There was a shadowy movement on the beach. The voice came again. Watch yourself, McKay. If I see you, I shall fire. With drawn gun, Cassidy rushed toward the spot where Jolly Roger and Peter had stood. It was empty now except for the bit of old canvas. Cassidy's Indian came up and stood behind him, and for many minutes they listened for the crackling of brush. Slim Buck joined them, and last came Yellowbird, her dark eyes glowing like pools of fire in their excitement. Cassidy looked at her, marveling at her beauty, and suspicious of something that was in her face. He went back to the beach. There he caught himself short, astonishment bringing a sharp exclamation from his lips. His canoe and outfit were gone. Out of the star gloom behind him floated a soft ripple of laughter as Yellowbird ran to her teepee. And from the mist of water, far out came a voice, the voice of Jolly Roger McKay. Good-bye, Cassidy! With it mingled the defiant bark of a dog. In her teepee, a moment later, Yellowbird drew Suncloud's glossy head close against her warm breast, and turned her radiant face up thankfully to the smoke hole in the teepee top, through which the spirits had whispered their warning to her. Indistinctly, and still farther away, her straining ears heard again the cry, Good-bye, Cassidy! End of Chapter 11, Recording by Roger Maline.