 CHAPTER XVI It was Peter who roused Jolly Roger many hours later, Peter nosing about the still-burning embers of the fire, and at last muzzling his master's face with increasing anxiety. Roger K. sat up out of his nest of balsam-bows and blankets, and caught the bright glint of sunlight through the treetops. He rubbed his eyes and stared again to make sure. Then he looked at his watch. It was ten o'clock, and peering in the direction of the open he saw the white edge of it glistening in the unclotted blaze of a sun. It was the first sun, the first real sun, he had seen for many days, and with Peter he went to the rim of the barren a hundred yards distant. He wanted a shout. As far as he could see the white plain was ablaze with eye-blinding light, and never had the sky at Crags Ridge been clearer than the sky that was over him now. He returned to the fire, singing. Back through the months left Peter's memory to the time when his master had sung like that. It was in Indian Tom's Cabin, with Crags Ridge just beyond the creek, and it was in those days before Terrence Cassidy had come to drive them to another hiding-place. In the happy days of Nata's visits, and of their trysts under the ridge, when even the little gray mother-mouse lived in a paradise with her nest of babies in the box on their cabin-shell, he had almost forgotten, but it came back to him now. It was the old Jolly Roger, the old master come to life again. In the clear stillness of the morning one might have heard that shouting song half a mile away. But McKay was no longer afraid. As the storm seemed to have cleaned the world, so the sun cleared his soul of its last shadow of doubt. It was not merely an omen or a promise, but for him proclaimed a certainty. God was with him, life was with him, his world was opening its arms to him again, and he sang as if Nata was only a mile away from him instead of a thousand. When he went on, after their breakfast, he laughed at the thought of Breaux discovering their trail. The ferret would be more than human to do that after what wind and storm and fire had done for them. This first day of their pilgrimage into the Southland was a day of glory from its beginning until the setting of the sun. There was no cloud in the sky, and it grew warmer until Jolly Roger flung back the hood of his parking and turned up the fur of his cap. That night a million stars lighted the heaven. After this first day and night nothing could break down the hope and confidence of Jolly Roger and his dog. Peter knew they were going south, in which direction lay everything he had ever yearned for, and each night beside their campfire McKay made a note with pencil and paper and measured the distance they had come and the distance they had yet to go. Hope in a little while became certainty. Into his mind urged no thought of changes that might have taken place at Cragg's Ridge, or, if the thought did come, it caused him no uneasiness. Now that Jed Hawkins was dead, Neda would be with the little old missioner in whose care he had left her, and not for an instant did a doubt cloud the growing happiness of his anticipations. Freyó and the hunters of the law were the one worry that lay ahead and behind him. If he outwitted them he would find Neda waiting for him. Day after day they kept south and west until they struck the Thelan, and then, through a country unmapped and at times terrific in its cold and storm, they fought steadily to the frozen regions of the Dubant waterways. Only once in the first three weeks did they seek human company. This was at a small Indian camp where Jolly Roger bartered for caribou meat and moccasins for Peter's feet. Twice between there and God's Lake they stopped at Trappers' Cabins. It was early in March when they struck the lost Lake country three hundred miles from Cragg's Ridge. And here it was, buried under a blind of soft snow that Peter nosed out the frozen carcass of a disemboweled buck which Boillieu, the French trapper, had poisoned for wolves. Jolly Roger had built a fire and was warming half a pint of deer tallow for a baking of bannock when Peter dragged himself in, his rear legs already stiffening with the palsy of Strychnine. In a dozen seconds McKay had the warm tallow down Peter's throat to the last drop of it, and this he followed with another dose as quickly as he could heat it, and in the end Peter gave up what he had eaten. Half an hour later, Boillieu, who was eating his dinner, jumped up in wonderment when the door of his cabin was suddenly opened by a grim and white-faced man who carried the limp body of a dog in his arms. For a long time after this the shadow of death hung over the Frenchman's trapping shack. To Boillieu, with his brotherly sympathy and regret that his poison-bait had brought calamity, Peter was just dog. But when at last he saw the strong shoulders of the grim-faced stranger shaking over Peter's paralyzed body and listening to the sobbing grief that broke in passionate protest from his white lips, he drew back a little odd. It seemed for a time that Peter was dead, and in those moments Jolly Roger put his arms about him and buried his despairing voice in Peter's scraggly neck, calling in a wild fit of anguish for him to come back, to live, to open his eyes again. Boillieu, crossing himself, felt of Peter's body, and Mackay heard his voice over him, saying that the dog was not dead, but that his heart was beating steadily and that he thought the last stiffening blow of the poison was over. To Mackay it was like bringing the dead back to life. He raised his head and drew away his arms and knelt beside the bunk, stunned and mutely hopeful, while Boillieu took his place and began dropping warm condensed milk down Peter's throat. In a little while Peter's eyes opened and he gave a great sigh. Boillieu looked up and shrugged his shoulders. "'That was a good breath, monsieur,' he said. "'What is left of the poison has done its worst. He will live.' A bit stupidly Mackay rose to his feet. He swayed a little and for the first time sensed the hot tears that had blinded his eyes and wet his cheeks. And then there came a sobbing laugh out of his throat and he went to the window of the Frenchman's shack and stared out into the white world, seeing nothing. He had stood in the presence of death many times before, but never had that presence choked up his heart as in this hour when the soul of Peter, his comrade, had stood falteringly for a space half way between the living and the dead. When he turned from the window Boillieu was covering Peter's body with blankets and a warm bare skin. And for many days thereafter Peter was nursed through the slow sickness which followed. An early spring came this year in the Northland. South of the reindeer waterway country the snows were disappearing late in March and ice was rotting the first week in April. Winds came from the south and west and the sun was warmer and clearer than Boillieu had ever known it at the winter's end in lost Lake Country. It was in this first week of April that Peter was able to travel and Mackay pointed his trail once more for Cragg's Ridge. He left a part of his winter donnage at Boillieu's shack and went on light, figuring to reach Cragg's Ridge before the new Goose Moon had worn itself out in the west. But for a week Peter lagged and until the darker red in the rims of his eyes cleared away Jolly Roger checked the impetus of his travel so that the Goose Moon had faded out and the Frog Moon of May was in its full before they came down the last slope that dipped from the height of land to the forests and lakes of the lower country. And now in these days it seemed to Jolly Roger that a great kindness and not tragedy had delayed him so that his homecoming was in the gladness of spring. All about him was the sweetness and mystic whispering of new life just awakening. It was in the sky and the sun. It was underfoot in the fragrance of the mold he tried upon, in the trees about him, and in the mate-chirping of the birds flocking back from the Southland. His friends, the Jays, were raucous and jaunty again, bullying and bluffing in the warmth of sunshine. The black glint of crow's wings flashed across the opens. The wood-sappers and pee-wees and big-eyed moose-birds were a flutter with the excitement of home-planning. Partridges were feasting in the swelling poplar buds, and then one glorious sunset he heard the chirping evening song of his first robin. And the next day they would reach Cragg's Ridge. Half of that last night he sat up awake or smoked in the glow of his fire waiting for the dawn. With the first lifting of darkness he was travelling swiftly ahead of Peter, and the morning was only half gone when he saw far ahead of him the great ridge which shut out Indian Tom Swamp and Nata's Plain and Cragg's Ridge beyond it. It was noon when he stood at the crest of this. He was breathing hard, for to reach this last precious height from which he might look upon the country of Nata's home he had half run up its rock-strewn side. There, with his lungs gasping for air, his eager eyes shot over the country below him and for a moment the significance of the thing which he saw did not strike him. And then, in another instant, it seemed that his heart choked up, like a fist suddenly tightened and stopped its beating. Moving away from him, miles upon miles of it, east, west, and south, was a dead and char-stricken world. Up to the foot of the ridge itself had come the devastation of flame, and where it had swept months ago there was now no sign of the glorious spring that lay behind him. He looked for Indian Tom Swamp, and where it had been there was no longer a swamp but a stricken chaos of ten thousand black stubs, the shriven corpses of the spruce and cedar and jackpines out of which the wolves had howled at night. He looked for the timber on Sucker Creek where the little old missioner's cabin lay and where he had dreamed that Nata would be waiting for him. And he saw no timber there but only the littleness and emptiness of a blackened world. And then he looked to Cragg's ridge, and along the bald crest of it, naked as death, he saw blackened stubs pointing skyward, painting desolation against the blue of the heaven beyond. A cry came from him, a cry of fear and of horror, for he was looking upon the fulfillment of Yellowbird's prediction. He seemed to hear, whispering softly in his ears, the low sweet voice of the sorceress, as on the night when she had told him that if he returned to Cragg's ridge he would find a world that had turned black with ruin and that it would not be there he would ever find Nata. After that one sobbing cry he tore like a madman down into the valley, traveling swiftly through the muck of fire and underfoot tangle with Peter fighting behind him. Half an hour later he stood with a missioner's cabin had been, and he found only a ruin of ash and logs burned down to the earth. Where the trail had run there was no longer a trail. A blight, grim and sickening, lay upon the earth that had been paradise. Peter heard the choking sound in his master's throat and chest. He too sensed the black shadow of tragedy and cautiously he sniffed the air, knowing that at last they were home, and yet it was not home. Instinctively he had faced Cragg's ridge, and Jolly Roger, seeing the dog's stiffened body pointing toward the break beyond which lay Nata's old home, felt a thrill of hope leap up within him. Possibly the farther plane had escaped the scourge of fire. If so, Nata would be there, and the missioner, he started for the break a mile away. As he came nearer to it his hope grew less for he could see where the flame had swept in an inundating sea along Cragg's ridge. They passed over the meadow where the thick young jackpines, the red strawberries, and the blue violets had been, and Peter heard the strange sob when they came to the little hollow, the old tristing place where Nata had first given herself into his master's arms. And there it was that Peter forgot master and caution and sped swiftly ahead to the break that cut the ridge in twain. When Jolly Roger came to that break and ran through it he was staggering from the mad effort he had made. And then all at once the last of his wind came in a cry of gladness. He swayed against a rock and stood there staring wild-eyed at what was before him. The world was as black ahead of him as it was behind. But Jed Hawkins' cabin was untouched. The fire had crept up to its very door and there it had died. He went on the remaining hundred yards, and before the closed door of Nata's old home he found Peter standing stiff-legged and strange. He opened the door and a damp chill touched his face. The cabin was empty, and the gloom and desolation of a grave filled the place. He stepped in, a moaning whisper of the truth coming to his lips. He heard the scurrying flight of a starved wood rat, a flutter of loose papers, and then the silence of death fell about him. The door of Nata's little room was open and he entered through it. The bed was naked and there remained only the skeleton of things that had been. He moved now like a man numbed by a strange sickness and Peter followed gloomily and silently in the footsteps of his master. They went outside and a distance away Jolly Roger saw a thing rising up out of the char of fire, ugly and foreboding like the evil spirit of desolation itself. It was a rude cross made of saplings up which the flames had licked their way, searing it grim and black. His hands clenched slowly, for he knew that under the cross lay the body of Jed Hawkins, the fiend who had destroyed his world. After that he re-entered the cabin and went in Nata's room, closing the door behind him, and for many minutes thereafter Peter remained outside guarding the outer door and hearing no sound or movement from within. When Jolly Roger came out his face was set and white and he looked where the thick forest had stood on that stormy night when he ran down the trail toward Mooney's cabin. There was no forest now, but he found the old tie-cutters road, cluttered as it was with the debris of fire, and he knew when he came to that twist in the trail where long ago Jed Hawkins had lain dead on his back. Half a mile beyond he came to the railroad. Here it was that the fire had burned huddest, for as far as his vision went he could see no sign of life or of forest green alight in the waning sun. And now there fell upon him, along with the desolation of despair, of something grimmer and more terrible, a thing that was fear. About him everywhere reached this graveyard of death, leaving no spot untouched. Was it possible that Nata and the missioner had not escaped its fury? The fear settled upon him more heavily as the sun went down and the gloom of evening came, bringing with it an unpleasant chill and a cloying odor of things burned dead. He did not talk to Peter now. There was a lamp in the cabin and wood behind the stove, and silently he built a fire and trimmed and lighted the wick when darkness came. And Peter, as if hiding from the ghosts of yesterday, slunk into a corner and lay there unmoving and still. And McKay did not get supper nor did he smoke, but after a long time he carried his blankets into Nata's room and spread them out upon her bed. Then he put out the light and quietly laid himself down where, through the night of many a month and year, Nata had slept in the moon glow. The moon was there to-night. The faint glow of it rose in the east and swiftly it climbed over the ragged shoulder of Cragg's Ridge, flooding the blackened world with light and filling the room with a soft and golden radiance. It was a moon undimmed, full and round and yellow, and it seemed to smile in through the window as if some living spirit in it had not yet missed Nata and was embracing her in its glory. And now it came upon Jolly Roger why she had loved it even more than she had loved the sun, for through the little window it shut out all the rest of the world. And sitting up he seemed to hear her heart beating at his side and clearly he saw her face in the light of it and her slim arms outreaching as if to gather it to her breast. Thus many times she had told him had she sat up in her bed to greet the moon and to look for the smiling face that was almost always there, the face of the man in the moon, her friend and playmate in the sky. For a space his heart leaped up, and then as if discovery of the usurper in her room had come a cloud swept over the face of the moon like a mighty hand and darkness crowded him in. But the cloud sailed on and the light drove out the gloom again. Then it was that Jolly Roger saw the old man in the moon was up and awake to-night, for never had he seen his face more clearly. Often had Nata pointed it out to him in her adorable faith that the old man loved her, telling him how this feature changed and that feature changed, how sometimes the old man looked sick and at others well, and how there were times when he smiled and was happy, and other times when he was sad and stern and sat there in his castle in the sky, sunk in a mysterious grief which she could not understand. And always I can tell whether I'm going to be glad or sorry by the look of the man in the moon, she had said to him. He looks down and tells me even when the clouds are thick and he can only peep through now and then. And he knows a lot about you, Mr. Jolly Roger, because I've told him everything. Very quietly Jolly Roger got up from the bed and very strange seemed his manner to Peter as he walked through the outer room and into the night beyond. There he stood making no sound or movement like one of the lifeless stubs left by fire. And Peter looked up as his master was looking, trying to make out what it was he saw in the sky. And nothing was there, nothing that he had not seen many times before, a billion stars and the moon riding king among them all, and fleecy clouds as if made of web and stillness, a great stillness that was like sleep in the lap of the world. For a little Jolly Roger was silent and then Peter heard him saying, Yellow bird was right again. She said we'd find a black world down here and we've found it. And we're going to find Neda where she told us we'd find her. In that place she called the country beyond. The country beyond the forests, beyond the tall trees and the big swamps, beyond everything we've ever known of the wild and open spaces, the country where God lives in churches on Sunday and where people would laugh at some of our queer notions, Piebo. It's there we'll find Neda driven out by the fire and waiting for us now in the settlements. He spoke with a strange and quiet conviction, the haggard look dying out of his face as he stared up into the splendor of the sky. And then he said, We won't sleep tonight, Peter, we'll travel with the moon. Half an hour later, as the lonely figures of man and dog headed for the first settlement a dozen miles away, there seemed to come for an instant the flash of a satisfied smile in the face of the man in the sky. End of Chapter 16. THE COUNTRY BEYOND by James Oliver Kerwood Chapter 17. From the cabin McKay went first to the great rock that jetted from the broken shoulder of Cragg's Ridge, and as they stood there Peter heard the strange something that was like a laugh and yet was not a laugh on his master's lips. But his scraggly face did not look up. There was an answering whimper in his throat. He had been slow in sensing the significance of the mysterious thing that had changed his old home since months ago. During the hours of afternoon and these moonlit hours that followed he tried to understand. He knew this was home, yet the green grass was gone and a million trees had changed into blackened stubs. The world was no longer shut in by deep forests, and Cragg's Ridge was naked where he and Neda had romped in sunshine and flowers, and out of it all rose the mucky death-smell of the flame-swapped earth. These things he understood in his dog-way. But what he could not understand clearly was why Neda was not in the cabin and why they did not find her even though the world was changed. He sat back on his haunches and Jolly Roger heard again the whimpering grief in his throat. It comforted the man to know that Peter remembered and he was not alone in his desolation. Gently he placed a soot-grimmed hand on his comrade's head. Peter, it was from this rock right where we're standing now that I first saw her a long time ago, he said, a bit of forced cheer breaking through the huskiness of his voice. Remember the little jackpine clump down there? You climbed up onto her lap, a little no-nothing thing, and you pawed in her loose curls and growled so fiercely I could hear you. And when I made a noise and she looked up, I thought she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, just a kid with those eyes like the flowers and her hair shining in the sun and tear stains on her cheeks. Tear stains, Piebo, because of that snake who's dead over there. Remember how you growled at me, Peter? Peter wriggled an answer. That was the beginning, said Jolly Roger, and this looks like the end, but he clenched his fists, and there was a sudden fierceness in the grotesque movement of his shadow on the rock. We're going to find her before that end comes, he added defiantly. We're going to find her, Piebo, even if it takes us to the settlements, right up into the face of the law. He set out over the rocks, his boots making hollow sounds in the deadness of the world about them. Again he followed where once had been the trail that led to Mooney's shack over on the wobbly line of rail that rambled for eighty miles into the wilderness from Fort William. The P.D. and W. it was named, Port Arthur, Duluth, and Western, but it had never reached Duluth, and there were those who had nicknamed it Poverty, Destruction, and Want. Many times Jolly Roger had laughed at the queer stories Nata told him about it, how a wrecking outfit was always carried behind on the twice a week train, and how the crew picked berries in season and had their trapping lines, and once chased a bear halfway to Whitefish Lake while the train waited for hours. She called it the cannon-ball, because once upon a time it had made sixty-nine miles in twenty-four hours. But there was nothing of humor about it as Jolly Roger and Peter came out upon it tonight. It stretched out both ways from them, a thin, grim line of tragedy in the moonlight, and from where they stood it appeared to reach into a black and abysmal sea. Once more man and dog paused and looked back at what had been, and the wine came back in Peter's throat again and something tugged inside him, urging him to bark up into the face of the moon, as he had often barked for Nata in the days of his puppyhood and afterward. But his master went on and Peter followed him, stepping the uneven ties one by one. And with the black chaos of the world under and about them, and the glorious light of the moon filling the sky over their heads, the journey they made seemed weirdly unreal. For the silver and gold of the moon and the black muck of the fire refused to mingle, and while over their heads they could see the tiniest clouds and beyond to the farthest stars, all was black emptiness when they looked about them upon what once had been a living earth. Only the two lines of steel caught the moon glow and the charred ends of the fire-shriven stubs that rose up out of the earth shroud and silhouetted themselves against the sky. To Peter it was not what he failed to see, but what he did not hear or smell that oppressed him and stirred him to wide-eyed watchfulness against impending evil. Under many moons he had traveled with his master in their never-ending flight from the law, and many other nights with neither moon nor stars had they felt out their trails together. But always, under him and over him, on all sides of him, there had been life. And to-night there was no life, nor smell of life. There was no chirp of night-bird or flutter of owls' wing, no splash of duck or cry of loon. He listened in vain for the crinkling snap of twig and the whisper of wind and treetops. And there was no smell, no musk of mink that had crossed his path, no taste in the air of the strong-scented fox, no subtle breath of partridge and rabbit and fleshy porcupine. And even from the far distances there came no sound, no howl of wolf, no castanet clatter of stout moose-horns against bending saplings, not even the howl of a trapper's dog. The stillness was of the earth, and yet unearthly. It was even as if some fearsome thing was smothering the sound of his master's feet. To McKay, sensing these same things that Peter sensed, came understanding that brought with it an uneasiness which changed swiftly into the chill of a growing fear. The utter lifelessness told him how vast the destruction of the fire had been. Its obliteration was so great that no life had ventured back into the desolated country, though the conflagration must have passed in the preceding autumn many months ago. The burned country was a grave, and the nearest edge of it, judged from the sepulchral stillness of the night, was many miles away. For the first time came the horror of the thought that in such a fire as this people must have died. It had swept upon them like a tidal wave, galloping the forest with the speed of a racehorse, with only this thin line of rail leading to the freedom of life outside. In places only a miracle could have made escape possible. And here, where Neda had lived, with the pitchwood forests crowding close, the fire must have burned most fiercely. In this moment, when fear of the unspeakable set his heart trembling, his faith fastened itself grimly to the little old gray missioner, Father John, in whose cabin Neda had taken refuge many months ago when Jed Hawkins lay dead in the trail with his one-eyed face turned up to the thunder and lightning in the sky. Father John, on that stormy night when he fled north, had promised to care for Neda, and in silence he breathed the prayer that the missioner had saved her from the red death that had swept like an avalanche upon them. He told himself it must be so. He cried out the words aloud, and Peter heard him, and followed closer so that his head touched his master's leg as he walked. But the fear was there. From a spark it grew into a red-hot spot in Jolly Roger's heart. Twice in his own life he had raced against death in a forest fire, but never had he seen a fire like this must have been. All at once he seemed to hear the roar of it in his ears, the rolling thunder of the earth as it twisted in the cataclysm of flame, the hissing shriek of the flaming pitch-tops as they leapt in lightning fires against the smoke-smothered sky. A few hours ago he had stood where Father John's cabin had been, and the place was a ruin of char and ash. If the fire had hemmed them in, and they had not escaped, his voice cried out in sudden protest. It can't be, Peter. It can't be. They made the rail or the lake, and we'll find them in the settlements. It couldn't happen. God wouldn't let her die like that! He stopped and stared into the moonbroken gloom on his left. Something was there, fifty feet away, that drew him down through the muck which laid knee-deep in the right-of-way ditch. It was what was left of the cutter's cabin, a clutter of burned logs, a wind-scattered heap of ash. Even there, within arm's reach of the railroad, there had been no salvation from the fire. He waited again through the muck of the ditch and went on. Mentally and physically he was fighting the ogre that was striving to achieve possession of his brain. Over and over he repeated his faith that Neda and the Missioner had escaped, and he would find them in the settlements. Less than ever he thought of the law in these hours. What happened to himself was of small importance now, if he could find Neda alive before the menace caught up with him from behind or ambushed him ahead. Yet the necessity of caution impinged itself upon him even in the recklessness of his determination to find her if he had to walk into the arms of the law that was hunting him. For an hour they went on, and as the moon sank westward it seemed to turn its face to look at them, and behind them, when they looked back, the world was transformed into a black pit, while ahead, with the glow of its streaming over their shoulders, ghostly shapes took form, and vision reached farther. Twice they caught the silvery gleams of lakes through the tree stubs, and again they walked with the rippling murmur of a stream that kept for a mile within the sound of their ears. But even here, with water crying out its invitation to life, there was no life. Another hour after that Jolly Rogers' pulse beat a little faster as he strained his eyes to see ahead. Somewhere near, within a mile or two, was the first settlement with its sawmill and its bunkhouses, its one store and its few cabins, with flat mountains of sawdust on one side of it, and the evergreen forest creeping up to its doors on the other. Surely they would find life here, where there had been manpower to hold fire back from the clearing. And it was here he might find Neda and the Missioner, for more than once Father John had preached to the red-cheeked women and children and the clear-eyed men of the Finnish community that thrived there. But as they drew nearer he listened in vain for the bark of a dog, and his eyes quested as futilely for a point of light in the wide canopy of gloom. At last, close together, they rounded a curve in the road and crossed a small bridge with a creek running below, and McKay knew his arm should be able to send a stone to what he was seeking ahead. And then, a minute later, he drew in a great gasping breath of unbelief and horror. For the settlement was no longer in the clearing between him and the rim-glow of the moon. No living tree raised its head against the sky. No sign of cabin or mill shadowed the earth, and where the store had been, and the little church with its white painted cross, was only a chaos of empty gloom. He went down as he had gone to the tie-cutter's cabin, and for many minutes he stared and listened, while Peter seemed to stand without breathing. Then, making a wide megaphone of his hands, he shouted. It was an alarming thing to do, and Peter started as if struck. For there were only ghosts to answer back, and the hollowness of a shriven pit for the cry to travel in. Nothing was there. Even the great sawdust piles had shrunk into the black scars and to the scourge of the fire. A groaning agony was in the breath of Jolly Roger's lips as he went back to the railroad and hurried on. Death must have come here, death, sudden and swift. And if it had fallen upon the finished settlement, with its strong women and its stronger men, what might it not have done in the cabin of the little old gray missioner and Neda? For a long time after that he forgot Peter was with him. He forgot everything but his desire to reach a living thing. At times, where the road-bed was smooth, he almost ran, and at others he paused for a little to gather his breath and listen. And it was Peter, in one of these intervals, who caught the first message of life. From a long distance away came faintly the barking of a dog. Half a mile farther on they came to a clearing where no stubs of trees stood up like question marks against the sky, and in this clearing was a cabin, a dark blotch that was without light or sound. But from behind it the dog barked again and Jolly Roger made quickly toward it. Here there was no ash under his feet and he knew that at last he had found an oasis of life in the desolation. Loudly he knocked with his fist at the cabin door and soon there was a response inside, the heavy movement of a man's body getting out of bed, and after that the questioning voice of a woman. He knocked again and the flare of a lighted match illumined the window. Then came the drawing of a bar at the door and a man stood there in his night attire, a man with a heavy face and bristling beard and a lamp in his hand. I beg your pardon for waking you, said Jolly Roger, but I am just down from the north, hoping to find my friends back here, and I have seen nothing but destruction and death. You are the first living soul I have found to ask about them. Where were they? grunted the man. At Cragg's Ridge. Then God help them, came the woman's voice from back in the room. Cragg's Ridge, said the man, was a burning hell in the middle of the night. Jolly Roger's fingers dug into the wood at the edge of the door. You mean, a lot of them died, said the man stolidly as if eager to rid himself of the one who had broken his sleep? If it was Mooney, he's dead. And if it was Robson, or Jake the Swede, or the Adams family, they're dead too. But it wasn't, said Jolly Roger, his heart choking between fear and hope. It was Father John, the missioner, and Nata Hawkins who lived with him, or with her foster mother in the Hawkins' cabin. The man shook his head and turned down the wick of his lamp. I don't know about the girl, or the old witch who was her mother, he said. But the missioner made it out safe and went to the settlement. And no girl was with him? No, there was no girl, came the woman's voice again, and Peter jerked up his ears at the creaking of a bed. Father John stopped here the second day after the fire had passed, and he said he was gathering up the bones of the dead. Nata Hawkins wasn't with him, and he didn't say who had died and who hadn't. But I think she stopped as the bearded man turned toward her. You think what? demanded Jolly Roger, stepping half into the room. I think, said the woman, that she died along with the others. Anyway, Jed Hawkins' witch-woman was burned trying to make for the lake, and little of her was left. The man with the lamp made a movement as if to close the door. That's all we know, he growled. For God's sake, don't, entreated Jolly Roger, barring the door with his arm. Surely there were some who escaped from Cragg's ridge and beyond. Maybe a half, maybe less, said the man. I tell you, it burned like hell, and the worst of it came in the middle of the night with a wind behind it that blew a hurricane. We've twenty acres cleared here, with the cabin in the center of it, and it singed my beard and burned her hair and scorched our hands, and my pigs died out there from the heat of it. Maybe it's a place to sleep in for the night you want, stranger? No, I'm going on, said Jolly Roger, the blood in this veins running with the chill of water. How far before I come to the end of fire? Ten miles on, it started this side of the next settlement. Jolly Roger drew back and the door closed, and standing on the railroad once more, he saw the light go out, and after that the occasional barking of the settler's dog grew fainter and fainter behind them. He felt a great weariness in his bones and body now, with hope struck down the exhaustion of two nights and a day without sleep seized upon him, and his feet plotted more and more slowly over the uneven ties of the road. Even in his weariness he thought madly against the thought that NATO was dead, and he repeated the word impossible, impossible so often that it ran and sing song through his brain. And he could not keep away from him the white, thin face of the missioner who had promised on his faith in God to care for NATO, and who had passed the settler's cabin alone. Another two hours they went on, and then came the first of the green timber. Under the shelter of some balsams, Jolly Roger found a resting place, and there they waited for the break of dawn. Peter stretched out and slept. But Jolly Roger sat with his head and shoulders against the bowl of a tree, and not until the light of the moon was driven away by the darkness that proceeded dawn by an hour or two did his eyes close in restless slumber. He was roused by the wakening Twitter of birds, and in the cold water of a creek that ran near he bathed his face in hands. Peter wondered why there was no fire and no breakfast this morning. The settlement was only a little way ahead, and it was very early when they reached it. People were still in their beds, and out of only one chimney was smoke rising into the clear calm of the breaking day. From this cabin a young man came and stood for a moment after he had closed the door, yawning and stretching his arms and looking up to see what sort of promise the sky held for the day. After that he went to a stable of logs, and Jolly Roger followed him there. He was unlike the bearded settler and nodded with a youthful smile of cheer. Good morning, he said. You're travelling early, and he looked more keenly as his eyes took in Jolly Roger's boots and clothes and the gray pallor in his face. Just get in, he asked kindly. And from the burnt country? Yes, from the burnt country. I've been away a long time, and I'm trying to find out if my friends are among the living or the dead. Did you ever hear of Father John, the missioner at Cragg's Ridge? The young man's face brightened. I knew him, he said. He helped me to bury my brother three years ago. And if it's him you seek, he is safe. He went up to Fort William a week after the fire, and that was in September, eight months past. And was there with him a girl named Neda Hawkins? Asked Jolly Roger, trying hard to speak calmly as he looked into the other's face. The youth shook his head. No, he was alone. He slept in my cabin overnight. And he said nothing of a girl named Neda Hawkins. Did he speak of others? He was very tired, and I think he was half dead with grief at what had happened. He spoke no names that I remember. Then he saw the gray look in Jolly Roger's face grow deeper and saw the despair which could not hide itself in his eyes. But there were a number of girls who passed here alone or with their friends, he said hopefully. What sort of looking girl was Neda Hawkins? A kid, that's what I called her, said Jolly Roger in a dead, cold voice. Eighteen and beautiful, with blue eyes and brown hair that she couldn't keep from blowing in curls about her face. So like an angel you wouldn't forget her if you'd seen her just once. Gently the youth placed a hand on Jolly Roger's arm. She didn't come this way, he said, but maybe you'll find her somewhere else. Won't you have breakfast with me? I have a stranger in the cabin, still sleeping, who's going into the fire country from which you've come. He's hunting for someone, and maybe you can give him information. He's going to Cragg's Ridge. Cragg's Ridge, exclaimed Jolly Roger. What is his name? Bray-O, said the youth, Sergeant Bray-O of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. Jolly Roger turned to stroke the neck of a horse waiting for its morning feed, but he felt nothing of the touch of flesh under his hand. Cold as iron went his heart, and for half a minute he made no answer. Then, he said, Thanks, friend, I've breakfasted before it was light, and I'm hitting out into the brush west and north, for the rainy river country. Please don't tell this man Bray-O that you saw me, for he'll think badly of me for not wanting to give him information he might want. But you understand, if you love the brother who died, that it's hard for me to talk with anyone just now. The young man's fingers touched his arm again. I understand, he said, and I hope to God you'll find her. Silently they shook hands, and Jolly Roger hurried away from the cabin with the rising spiral of smoke. Three days later a man and a dog came from the burned country into the town of Fort William, seeking for a wandering messenger of God who called himself Father John, and a young and beautiful girl whose name was Nada Hawkins. He stopped first at the old mission in whose shadow the Indians and traders of a century before had bartered their wares, and Father Augustine, the aged patriarch who talked with him, murmured as he went that he was a strange man and a sick one, with a little madness lurking in his eyes. And it was, in fact, a madness of despair eating out the life in Jolly Roger's heart, for he no longer had hope Nada had escaped the fire, even though at no place had he found a conclusive evidence of her death. But that signified little, for there were many of them missing who had not been found between the last of September and these days of May. What he did find, with deadly regularity, was the fact that Father John had escaped and that he had traveled to safety alone. And Father Augustine told him that when Father John stopped to rest for a few days at the mission he was heading north for somewhere on Pashkagogan Lake near the River Albany. There was little rest for Peter and his master at Fort Williamtown, that Breaux must be close on their trail and following it with the merciless determination of the ferret from which he had been named, there was no shadow of doubt in the mind of Jolly Roger McKay. So after outfitting his pack at a little corner shop where Breaux would be slow to inquire about him, he struck north through the bush toward Dog Lake and the river of the same name. Five or six days he thought would bring him to Father John and the truth which he dreaded more and more to hear. The despondency of his master had sunk, in some mysterious way, into the soul of Peter. Without the understanding of language he sensed the oppressive gloom of tragedy behind and about him and there was a wolfish slinking in the manner of his travel now and his confidence was going as he caught the disease of despair of the man who traveled with him. But constantly and vigilantly his eyes and scent were questing about them, suspicious of the very winds that whispered in the treetops. And at night after they had built their little cooking fire in the deepest heart of the bush he would lie half awake during the hours of darkness the watchfulness of his senses never completely dulled in the stupor of sleep. Since the night they had stopped at the settler's cabin Jolly Roger's face had grown greyer and thinner. A number of times he had tried to assure himself what he would do in that moment which was coming when he would stand face to face with Braille the manhunter. His caution after he left Fort William was in a way an automatic instinct that worked for self-preservation in face of the fact that he was growing less and less concerned regarding Braille's appearance. It was not in his desire to delay the end much longer. The chase had been a long one with its thrills and its happiness at times. But now he was growing tired and with Neda gone there was only hopeless gloom ahead. If she were dead he wanted to go to her. That thought was a dawning pleasure in his breast and it was warm in his heart when he tied in a hard knot the buckskin string which locked the flap of his pistol holster. When Braille overtook him the law would know, because of the significance of this knot, that he had welcomed the end of the game. Never in the Northland had there come a spring more beautiful than this of the year in which McKay and his dog went through the deep wilds to Pashkagogan Lake. In a few hours it seemed the last chill died out of the air and there came the soft whispers of those bridal weeks between May and Summer a month ahead of their time. But Jolly Roger, for the first time in his life, failed to respond to the wonder and beauty of the earth's rejoicing. The first flowers did not fill him with the old joy. He no longer stood up straight with expanding chess to drink in the rare sweetness of air waded with the tonic of balsams and cedar spruce. Vainly he tried to lift up his soul with the song and bustle of mating things. There was no longer music for him in the flood time rushing of spring waters. An utter loneliness filled the cry of the loon, and all about him was a vast emptiness from which the spirit of life had fled for him. Thus he came at last to a stream in the Burntwood country which ran into Pashkagogan Lake, and it was this day in the mellow sunlight of late afternoon that they heard coming to them from out of the dense forest the chopping of an axe. Toward this they made their way, with caution and no sound, until in a little clearing in a bend of the stream they saw a cabin. It was a newly built cabin, and smoke was rising from the chimney. But the chopping was nearer them in the heart of a thick cover of evergreen and birch. Into this Jolly Roger and Peter made their way and came within a dozen steps of the man who was wielding the axe. It was then that Jolly Roger rose up with a cry on his lips, for the man was Father John the Missioner. In spite of the tragedy through which he had passed, the little grey man seemed younger than in that month long ago when Jolly Roger had fled to the north. He dropped his axe now and stood as if only half believing, a look of joy shining in his face as he realized the truth of what had happened. McKay, he cried, reaching out his hands. McKay, my boy! A look of pity mellowed the gladness in his eyes as he noted the change in Jolly Roger's face and the despair that had set its mark upon it. They stood for a moment with clasped hands, questioning and answering with the silence of their eyes. And then the Missioner said, You have heard? Someone has told you? No, said Jolly Roger, his head dropping a little. No one has told me. And he was thinking of Neda and her death. Father John's fingers tightened. It is strange how the ways of God bring themselves about, he spoke in a low voice. Roger, you did not kill Jed Hawkins. Dumbly his lips dried of words Jolly Roger stared at him. No, you didn't kill him, repeated Father John. On that same night of the storm when you thought you left him dead in the trail, he stumbled back to his cabin alive. But God's vengeance came soon. A few days later, while drunk, he missed his footing and fell from a ledge to his death. His wife, poor creature, wished him buried in sight of the cabin door. But in this moment Roger McKay was thinking less of Breyot, the ferret and the loosening of the hangman's rope from about his neck than he was of another thing. And Father John was saying in a voice that seemed far away and unreal. We've sent out word to all parts of the North hoping someone would find you and send you back. And she has prayed each night and each hour of the day the same prayer has been in her heart and on her lips. And now someone was coming to them from the direction of the cabin, someone, a girl, and she was singing. McKay's face went whiter than the gray ash of fire. My God! he whispered huskily. I thought she had died. It was only then, Father John understood the meaning of what he had seen in his face. No, she is alive, he cried. I sent her straight north through the bush with an Indian the day after the fire. And later I left word for you with the fire relief committee at Fort William, where I thought you would first inquire. And it was there, said Jolly Roger, that I did not inquire at all. In the edge of the clearing, close to the thickest of timber, Neda had stopped. For across the open space a strange-looking creature had raced at the sound of her voice, a dog with bristling air-dale whiskers and a hound's legs and wild wolf's body hardened and roughened by months of fighting in the wilderness. As in the days of his puppyhood, Peter leaped up against her and a cry burst from Neda's lips, a wild and sobbing cry of, Peter! Peter! Peter! And it was this cry Jolly Roger heard as he tore away from Father John. On her knees, with her arms about Peter's shaggy head, Neda stared wildly at the clump of timber, and in a moment she saw a man break out of it and stand still as if the mellow sunlight blinded him and made him unable to move. And the same choking weakness was at her own heart as she rose up from Peter and reached out her arms toward the gray figure in the edge of the wood, sobbing, trying to speak and yet saying no word. And a little slower, because of his age, Father John came a moment later and peered out with the knowledge of long years from a thicket of young banksions, and when he saw the two in the open, close in each other's arms, and Peter hopping madly about them, he drew out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes and went back then for the axe which he had dropped in the timber clump. There was a great drumming in Jolly Roger's head, and for a time he failed even to hear Peter yelping at their side, for all the world was drowned in those moments by the breaking sobs in Neda's breath and the wild thrill of her body in his arms, and he saw nothing but the upturned face crushed close against his breast and the wide open eyes and the lips to kiss. And even Neda's face he seemed to see through a silvery mist, and he felt her arms strangely about his neck as if it was all half like a dream, a dream of the kind that had come to him beside his campfire. It was a little cry from Neda that drove the unreality away. Roger, you're breaking me! she cried, gasping for her breath in his arms, yet without giving up the clasp of her own arms about his neck in the least. And at that he sensed the brutality of his strength and held her off a little, looking into her face. Pride and happiness and the courage in his heart would have slunk away, could he have seen himself then, as Father John saw him, coming from the edge of the bush, and as Neda saw him, held there at the end of his arms. Since the day he had come with Peter to crags ridge, the blade of a razor had not touched his face, and his beard was like a brush, and with it his hair unkempt and straggling, and his eyes were red from sleeplessness and the haunting of that grim despair which had dogged his footsteps. But these things Neda did not see, or if she did, there must have been something beautiful about them for her. For it was not a little girl, but a woman who was standing there before Jolly Roger now. Neda, grown older, very much older it seemed to McKay, and taller, with her hair no longer rioting free about her, but gathered up in a wonderful way on the crown of her head. This change McKay discovered as she stood there, and it swept upon him all in a moment, and with it the prick of something swift and terrorizing inside him. She was not the little girl of crags ridge. She was a woman. In a year had come this miracle of change, and it frightened him, for such a creature as this that stood before him now, Jed Hawkins would never have dared to curse or beat, and he, Roger McKay, was afraid to gather her back into his arms again. And then, even as his fingers slowly drew themselves away from her shoulders, he saw that which had not changed. The wonderlight in her eyes, the soul that lay is open to him now is on that other day in Indian Tom's cabin, when Mrs. Captain Kidd had bustled and squeaked in the pantry shelf, and Peter had watched them as he lay with his broken leg in the going down of the sun. And as he hesitated it was Neda herself who came into his arms, and laid her head on his breast, and trembled, and laughed, and cried there, while Father John came up and patted her shoulder, and smiled happily at McKay, and then went on to the cabin in the clearing. For a time after that Jolly Roger crushed his face in Neda's hair, and neither said a word, but there was a strange throbbing of their hearts together, and after a little Neda reached up a hand to his cheek and stroked it tenderly, bristly beard and all. I'll never let you run away from me again, Mr. Jolly Roger, she said, and it was the little Neda of Cragg's Ridge who whispered the words, half sobbing. But in the voice there was also something very definite and very sure, and McKay felt the glorious thrill of it as he raised his face from her hair, and saw once more the sun-filled world about him. CHAPTER 18 Following this day Peter was observant of a strange excitement in the cabin on the burnt wood. It was not so much a thing of physical happening, but more the mysterious feel of something impending and very near. The day following their arrival in the Paschagogan country his master seemed to have forgotten him entirely. It was Neda who noticed him, but even she was different, and Father John went about, overseeing two Indians whom he kept very busy, his pale, thin face luminous with an anticipation which roused Peter's curiosity and kept him watchful. He was puzzled, too, by the odd actions of the humans about him. The second morning Neda remained in her room, and Jolly Roger wandered off into the woods without his breakfast, and Father John ate alone, smiling gently as he looked at the tightly closed door of Neda's bedroom. Even Umisisk, the leaf-bud, the sleek-haired Indian woman who cared for the house, was nervously expectant as she watched for Neda, and Mistus, her husband, grunted and grimaced as he carried in from the edge of the forest many loads of soft evergreens on his shoulders. Into the forest Jolly Roger went alone, puffing furiously at his pipe. He was all a tremble, and his blood seemed to quiver and dance as it ran through his veins. Since the first rose flush of dawn he had been awake, fighting against this upsetting of every nerve that was in him. He felt pitiably weak and helpless. But it was the weakness and helplessness of a happiness too vast for him to measure. It was Neda in her ragged shoes and dress, with the haunting torture of Jed Hawkins' brutality in her eyes and face that he had expected to find, if he found her at all, someone to fight for and kill for if necessary. Someone his muscle and brawn would always protect against evil. He had not dreamed that in these many months with Father John she would change from a little kid going on 18 into a woman. He tried to recall just what he had said to her last night, that he was still an outlaw and would always be, no matter how well he lived from this day on, and that she, now that she had Father John's protection, was very foolish to care for him or keep her troth with him, and would be happier if she could forget what had happened to Cragg's Ridge. You're a woman now, he said. A woman, he had emphasized that, and he don't need me any more. And she had looked at him, without speaking, as if reading what was inside him. And then with a sudden little laugh she swiftly pulled her hair down about her shoulders and repeated the very word she had said to him a long time ago. Without you I'd want to die, Mr. Jolly Roger. And with that she turned and ran into the cabin, her hair flying riotously, and he had not seen her again since that moment. Since then his heart had behaved like a thing with a fever, and it was beating swiftly now as he looked at his watch and noted the quick passing of time. Back in the cabin Peter was sniffing at the crack under Nata's door and listening to her movement. For a long time he had heard her, but not once had she opened the door. And he wondered, after that, why Usimus and her husband and Father John piled evergreens all about, until the cabin looked like the little jackpine tristing place down at Cragg's Ridge, even to the soft carpet of grass on the floor, and flowers scattered all about. Hopeless of understanding what it meant, he went outside and waited in the warm May Day sun until his master came back through the clearing. What happened after that puzzled him greatly. When he followed Jolly Roger into the cabin, Mistuce and the leaf-bud were seated in chairs, their hands folded, and Father John stood behind a small table on which lay an open book, and he was looking at his watch when they came in. He nodded and smiled, and very clearly Peter saw his master gulp, as if swallowing something that was in his throat. And the readiness had gone completely out of his smooth, shaven cheeks. It was the first time Peter had seen his master so clearly afraid, and from his burrow in the evergreens he growled under his breath, eyeing the open door with sudden thought of an enemy. And then Father John was tapping at Neda's door. He went back to the table and waited, and as the knob of the door turned very slowly, Jolly Roger swallowed again and took a step toward it. It opened and Neda stood there, and Jolly Roger gave a little cry so low that Peter could just hear it as he held out his hands to her. For Neda was no longer the Neda who had come to him in Father John's clearing. She was the Neda of Cragg's Ridge, the Neda of that wild night of storm when he had fled into the North. Her hair fell about her as in the old days when Peter and she had played together among the rocks and flowers and her wedding dress was faded and torn, for it was the dress she had worn that night of despair when she sent her message to Peter's master. And on her little feet were shoes broken and disfigured by her flight and those last hours of her mighty effort to go with the man she loved. In Father John's eyes, as she stood there, was a great astonishment. But in Jolly Roger's there came such a joy that, in answer to it, Neda went straight into his arms and held up her lips to be kissed. Her cheeks were very pink when she stood beside McKay with Father John before them, the open book in his hands. And then as her long lashes drooped over her eyes and her breath came a little more quickly, she saw Peter staring at her questioningly and made a little motion to him with her hand. He went to her and her fingers touched his head as Father John began speaking. Peter looked up and listened and was very quiet in these moments. Jolly Roger was staring straight at the balsam-decked wall opposite him, but there was something mighty strong and proud in the way he held his head and the fear had gone completely out of his eyes. And Neda stood very close to him so that her brown head lightly touched his shoulder and he could see the silken shimmer of loose tresses with sweet intent she had let fall over his arm. And her little fingers clung tightly to his thumb, as on that blessed night when they had walked together across the plain below Craigs Ridge with the moon lighting their way. Peter, in his dog way, fell a wondering as he stood there, but kept his manners and remained still. When it was all over he felt a desire to show his teeth and growl, for when Father John had kissed Neda and was shaking Jolly Roger's hand, he saw his mistress crying in that strange silent way he had so often seen her crying in his puppyhood days. Only now her blue eyes were wide open as she looked at Jolly Roger, and her cheeks were flushed to the pink of wild rose petals and her lips were trembling a little and there was a tiny something pulsing in her soft white throat. And all at once there came a smile with the tears and Jolly Roger, turning from Father John to find her thus, gathered her close in his arms and Peter wagged his tail and went out into the sun-filled day where he heard a red squirrel challenging him from a stub in the edge of the clearing. A little later he saw Neda and his master come out of the cabin and walk hand in hand across the open into the sweet smelling timber where Father John had been chopping with his axe. On a fresh cut log Neda sat down and McKay sat beside her, still holding her hand. Not once had he spoken in crossing the open and it seemed as though little devils were holding his lips closed now. With her eyes looking down at the greening earth under their feet Neda said very softly, Mr. Jolly Roger, are you glad? Yes, he said. Glad that I am your wife? The word drew a great sobbing breath from him and looking up suddenly she saw that he was staring over the balsam tops into the wonderful blue of the sky. Your wife? she whispered, touching his shoulder gently with her lips? Yes, I am glad, he said, so glad that I am afraid. Then if you are glad, please kiss me again. He stood up and drew her to him and held her face between his hands as he kissed her red lips. And after that he kissed her shining hair again and again and when he let her go her eyes were a glory of happiness. And you will never run away from me again? she demanded, holding him at arm's length. Never, never. Then I want nothing more in this life, she said, nestling against him again. Only you, forever and ever. Jolly Roger made no answer but held her a long time in his arms with the soft beating of her heart against him and listening to the twitter and song of nesting and mating things about them. In this silence she lay content until Peter, growing restless, started quietly into the golden depths of the forest. It was P.A. Bo's going, cautious and soft-footed, as if danger and menace might lurk just ahead of him, that brought another look into McKay's eyes as Nate his hand crept to his cheek and rested there. You love me very much? More than life, he answered, and as he spoke he was watching Peter, questing the soft wind that came whispering from the south. Her finger touched his lips, gentle and sweet. And wherever you go I go, forever and always, she questioned. Yes, forever and always, and his eyes were looking through miles upon miles of deep forest, and at the end he saw the thin and pitiless face of a man who was following his trail. Brayol, the ferret. His arms closed more tightly about her and he pressed her face against him. And I pray, God, you will never be sorry, he said, still looking through the miles of forest. No, no, sorry I shall never be, she cried softly, not if we fly and go hungry and fight and die. Never shall I be sorry, with you. And he felt the tightening of her arms. And then, as he remained silent with his lips on the velvety smoothness of her hair, she told him what Father John had already told him, of her wild effort to overtake him in that night of storm when he had fled from the missioner's cabin at Cragg's Ridge, and in turn he told her how Peter came to him in the break of the morning with the treasure which had saved him heart and soul, and how he had given that treasure into the keeping of Yellowbird on the shores of Wallaston. And thereafter, for an hour, as they wandered through the maytime sweetness of the forest, she would permit him to talk of only Yellowbird and Suncloud, and one thing leading to another, she learned how it was that Yellowbird had been his fairy in childhood days, and how he came to be an outlaw for her in later manhood. Her eyes were shining when he had finished, and her red lips were a tremble with the quickness of her breathing. Some day you'll take me there, she whispered. Oh, I'm so proud of you, my Roger, and I love Yellowbird and Suncloud. Someday we'll go. He nodded, happiness overshadowing the fear of Braille that had grown in his heart. Yes, we'll go. I've dreamed it, and the dream helped to keep me alive. And then he told her of Cassidy and of the paradise he had found with Giselle and her grandfather on the other side of Wallaston. And so it happened the hours passed swiftly, and it was afternoon when they returned to Father John's cabin, and Nada went into her room. In the early waning of the sun, the feast which the leaf-butt had been preparing was ready, and not until then did Nada appear again. And once more the lump rose in Roger's throat at the wonder of her, for very completely she had transformed herself into a woman again, from the softly shining coils of hair and the crown of her head to the coquettish little slippers that set off her dainty feet. And he saw the white gleam of soft shoulders and tender arms, where once had been rags and bruises, and held there by the slim beauty and exquisite daintiness of her, he stared like a fool, until suddenly she laughed joyously at his amaze and ran to him with wide open arms, and kissed him so soundly that Peter cocked up his ears a bit startled. And then she kissed Father John, and after that was Mistress at the table, radiant in her triumph and her eyes starry with happiness. And she was no longer shy in speaking his name, but called him Roger boldly and many times, and twice during that meal of marvellous forgetfulness, though long lashes covered her eyes when she spoke it, she called him my husband. In truth she was a woman, and for the most part Roger McKay, fighting man and very strong though he was, looked at her in dumb worship, speaking little, his heart athrob, and his brain reeling in the marvel of what at last had come into his possession. And yet, even in this hour of supreme happiness that held him half mute, there was always lurking in the back of his brain a thought of braille, the ferret. CHAPTER XIX OF THE COUNTRY BEYOND This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Maline. THE COUNTRY BEYOND by James Oliver Kerwood CHAPTER XIX In the star dusk of evening the time came when he spoke his fears to Father John. Neda had gone into her room, taking Peter with her, and out under the cool of the skies Father John's pale face was turned up to the unending glory of the firmament, and his lips were whispering a prayer of gratitude and blessing when Roger laid a hand gently on his arm. Father, he said, it is a wonderful night. A night of gladness and omen, replied Father John. See the stars, they seem to be alive and rejoicing, and it is not sacrilege to believe they are giving you their benediction. And yet I am afraid. Afraid? Father John looked into his eyes and saw him staring off over the forest tops. Yes, afraid for her. Briefly he told him of what had happened on the barren months ago and how he had narrowly escaped Braille in coming away from the burned country. He is on my trail, he said, and tonight he is not very far away. The missioner's hand rested in a comforting way on his arm. You did not kill Jed Hawkins, my son, and for that we have thanked God each day and night of our lives, Neda and I, and each evening she has prayed for you, kneeling at my side, and through every hour of the day I know she was praying for you in her heart. And I believe in the answer to prayer such as that, Roger. Her faith now is as deep as the sea, and you too must have faith. She is more precious to me than life, a thousand lives if I had them, whispered Jolly Roger. If anything should happen now— Yes, if the thing you fear should happen, what then? cried Father John, faith ringing like a note of inspiration in his low voice. What then, Roger? You did not kill Jed Hawkins. If the law compels you to pay a price for the errors it believes you have committed, will that price be so terribly severe? Prison, Father, probably five years. Father John laughed softly, the star glow revealing a radiance in his face. Five years, he repeated. Oh, my boy, my dear boy, what are five years to pay for such a treasure as that which has come into your possession tonight? Five short years. Only five. And she, waiting for you, proud of you for those very achievements which sent you to prison, planning for all the future that lies beyond those five short years, growing sweeter and more beautiful for you as she waits. Roger, is that a very great sacrifice? Is it too great a price to pay? Five years, and after that, peace, love, happiness for all time? Is it, Roger? Mackay felt his voice tremble as he tried to answer. But she, Father— Yes, yes, I know what you would say, interrupted Father John gently. I argued with her, just as you would have argued, Roger, I appealed to her reason. I told her that if you returned, it would mean prison for you, and strangely I said that same thing, five years. But I found her selfish, Roger, very selfish, and set upon her desire beyond all reason. And it was she who asked first those very questions I have asked you tonight. What are five years, she demanded of me, defying my logic? What are five years, or ten, or twenty, if I know I am to have him after that? Yes, she was selfish, Roger. Just that great is her love for you. Dear God in heaven, breathed Jolly Roger, and stopped, his eyes staring wide at the stars. And after that, after I had given in to her selfishness, Roger, she planned how we, she and I, would live very near to the place where they imprisoned you, and how each day some sight or sign should pass between you and the baby. The baby, Father? Thus it seemed she dreams, Roger, she, in the wilfulness of her desire and selfishness, with a choking cry Roger bowed his face in his hands. For a moment, Father, John was silent. And then he said, so very low that it was almost a whisper, I have passed many years in the wilderness, Roger, many years trying to look into the hearts of people, and of God. And this, this love of natives, is the greatest of all the miracles I have witnessed in a life that is now reaching to its three score and five. Do you see the wonder of its son? And does it make you happy and fearless now? He did not wait for an answer, but turned slowly, and went in the direction of the cabin, leaving Roger alone under the thickening stars. And Mackay's face was like Father John's, filled with a strange and wonderful radiance when he looked up. But with that light of happiness was also the fiercer underglow of a great determination. Fornada, for the baby, the worst should not happen. He breathed the thought aloud, and in the words was a prayer that God might help him, and make unnecessary the sacrifice from which Father John had taken the sting of fear. And yet, if that sacrifice came, he saw clearly now that it would not be a great tragedy, but only a brief shadow cast over the undying happiness in his soul. For they, Neda and the baby, would be waiting, waiting. Suddenly he was conscious of a sound very near, and he beheld Neda, taller and slimmer and more beautiful than ever, it seemed to him, in the starlight. I have told him, Father John had whispered to her only a moment before, I have told him so that he will not fear prison, either for himself or for you. And she had come to him quietly, all of the pretty triumph and playfulness gone, so that she stood like an angel in the soft glow of the skies, much older than he had ever seen her before, and smiled at him with a new and wonderful tenderness as she held out her hands to him. Not until she lay in his arms, looking up at him from under a long lashes, did he dare to speak. And then, Is it true what Father John has told me, he asked? It is true, she whispered, and the silken lashes covered her eyes. Her hand crept up to his face in the silence that followed, and rested there, and with no desire to hear more than the three words he had spoken, he crushed his lips in the sweet coils of her hair, and together, in that peace and understanding, they listened to the gentle whisperings of the night. Roger, she whispered at last. Yes, my Neewa. What does that mean, Roger? It means, beloved wife, then I like it, but I shall like the others, one of the others, best. My wife. That, that makes me happiest, Roger, your wife. Oh, it is the sweetest word in the world. That, and— He felt her warm face hide itself softly against his neck. Mother, he added. Yes, mother, she repeated after him in an odd little voice. Oh, I have dreamed of mother since I've been old enough to dream, Roger. My mother. I never had one that I can remember, except in her dream. It must be wonderful to—to have a mother, Roger. And yet I think not quite so wonderful as to be a mother, my Neda. Listen, she whispered. It is the leaf-bud singing. A love song? Yes, in Cree. She raised her head so that her eyes were wide open and looking at him. Since we came up here, all this wonderful world has been promising song for me, Roger. And since you came back to me, it has been singing, singing, singing every hour of night and day. Have you ever dreamed of leaving it, Roger, of going down into that world of towns and cities of which Father John has told me so much? Would you like to go there, Neda? Only to look upon it and come away. I want to live in the forests where I found you, always and always, Roger. She raised herself on tiptoe and kissed him. I want to live near Yellowbird and Suncloud. Please, Mr. Jolly Roger, I do. And Father John will go with us, and will be so happy there all together, Yellowbird and Suncloud and Giselle and I— Oh! His arms had tightened so suddenly that the little cry came from her. And yet I may have to leave you for a little time, Neda, but it will not be for long. What are five years when all life reaches out a paradise before us? They are nothing, nothing, and will pass swiftly. Yes, they will pass swiftly, she said, so gently that scarce did he hear. But on his breast she gave a little sob which could not choke itself back, a sob which bravely she smiled through a moment later, and which he, knowing that it was best, made as if he had not heard. And so this night, while Father John and Peter waited and watched in the cabin, did they plan their future in the company of the stars. End of Chapter 19 Recording by Roger Maline Chapter 20 OF THE COUNTRY BEYOND This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Maline THE COUNTRY BEYOND By James Oliver Kerwood Chapter 20 The Sabbath was a day of glory and peace in the Burntwood Country. The sun rose warm and golden, the birds were singing, and never had the air seemed sweeter to Father John when he came out quietly from the cabin and breathed it in the early break of dawn. Best of all he loved this very beginning of day, before darkness was quite gone, when the world seemed to be awakening mid-sleepy whisperings, and sounds came clearly from a long distance. This morning he heard the barking of a dog, a mile away it must have been, and Peter, who followed close behind him, pricked up his ears at the sound of it. Father John had noted Peter's vigilance, the cautious expectancy with which he was always sniffing the air, and the keen alertness of his eyes and ears. McKay had explained the reason for it, and this morning, as they made their way down to the pool at the creek side, Peter's ceaseless watching for danger held a deeper significance for Father John. All through the night, in spite of his faith and his words of consolation, he was thinking of the menace which was following McKay, and which eventually must catch up with him. And yet how short a time was five years? Looking backward, each five years of his life seemed buddy-yesterday. It was eight times five years ago that a sweet-faced girl had first filled his life, as Nada filled Jolly Rogers now, and through the thirty years since he had lost her, he could still hear her voice as clearly as though he had held her in his arms only a few hours ago, so swift had been the passing of time. But looking ahead, and not backward, five years seemed an eternity of time, and the dread of it was in Father John's heart as he stood at the side of the pool with the first pink glow of sunrise coming to him over the forest tops. Five years, and he was an old man now, a long and dreary weight it would be for him. But for youth, the glorious youth of Roger and Nada, it would seem very short when in later years they looked back upon it. And for a time, as he contemplated the long span of life that lay behind him, and the briefness of that which lay ahead, a yearning selfishness possessed the soul of Father John, an almost savage desire to hold those five years away from the violation of the law, not alone for Nada's sake and Roger McKay's, but for his own. In this twilight of a tragic life a great happiness had come to him in the love of these two, and thought of its menace, its desecration by a pitiless and mistaken justice, roused in him something that was more like the soul of a fighting man than the spirit of a missioner of God. Vainly he tried to stamp out the evil of this resentment, for evil he believed it to be, and shame possessed him when he saw the sweet glory in Nada's face later that morning, and the happiness that was in Roger McKay's. Yet was that aching place in his heart and the hidden fear which he could not vanquish. And that day, it seemed to him, his lips gave voice to lies. For being Sunday the wilderness folk gathered from miles about, and he preached to them in the little mission house which they had helped him to build of logs in the clearing. Partly he spoke in Cree, and partly in English, and his message was one of hope and inspiration, pointing out the silver linings that always lay beyond the darkness of clouds. To McKay, holding Nada's hand in his own as they listened, Father John's words brought a great and comforting faith. And in Nada's eyes and voice, as she led in Cree the song, nearer my God to thee, he heard and saw the living fire of that faith, and had Brayow come in through the open doorway then, he would have accepted him calmly as the beginning of that sacrifice which he had made up his mind to make. In the afternoon, when the wilderness people had gone, Father John heard again the story of Yellowbird, for Nada was ever full of questions about her, and for the first time the missioner learned of the inspiration which the Indian woman sorcery had been to Jolly Roger. It was foolish, McKay apologized, in spite of the certainty and faith which he was shining in Nada's eyes, but it helped me. It wasn't foolish, replied Nada quickly, Yellowbird did come to me, and she knew. No true faith is folly, said Father John, in his soft, low voice. The great fact is that Yellowbird believed. She was inspired by a great confidence, and confidence and faith give to the mind a power which it is utterly incapable of possessing without them. I believe in the mind, children. I believe that in some day to come it will reach those heights where it will unlock the mystery of life itself to us. I have seen many strange things in my forty-odd years in the wilderness, and not the least of these have been the achievements of the primitive mind, and it seems to me, Roger, that Yellowbird told you much that has come true, and has it occurred to you he stopped knowing that the cloud of unrest which was almost fear in his heart was driving him to say these things. What, Father? questioned Nada, bending toward him. I was about to express a thought which suggests an almost childish curiosity, and you will laugh at me, my dear. I am wondering if it has occurred to Roger the mysterious country beyond of which Yellowbird dreamed might be the great country down there, south, beyond the border. The United States? Something which he could not control seemed to drive the words from his lips, and in an instant he saw that Nada had seized upon their significance. Her eyes widened. The blue in them grew darker, and Roger observed her fingers grip suddenly in the softness of her dress as she turned from Father John to look at him. Or it might be China, or Africa, or the South Seas, he tried to laugh remembering his old visions. It might be anywhere. Nada's lips trembled as if she were about to speak, and then very quietly she sat with her hands tightly clasped in her lap, and Father John knew she was not expressing the thought in her heart when she said, Someday I want to tell Yellowbird how much I love her. Now in these hours since he and his master had come to the burnt wood, it seemed to Peter that he had lost something very great, for in his happiness McKay had taken but scant notice of him, and Nada seemed to have found a greater joy than that which a long time ago she had found in his comradeship. So now, as she saw him lying in his loneliness a short distance away, Nada suddenly ran to him, and together they went into the thick screen of the balsams, Peter yipping joyously, and Nada without so much as turning her head in the direction of Roger and Father John. But even in that bird-like swiftness with which she had left them, Father John had caught the look in her eyes. I have made a mistake, he confessed humbly. I have sinned, because in her I have roused the temptation to urge you to fly away with her, down there, south. She is a woman, and being a woman she has infinite faith in Yellowbird, for Yellowbird helped to give you to her. She believes, and I, I also believe, said McKay, staring at the green balsams, and yet it is better for you to remain. God means that judgment and happiness should come in their turn. Jolly Roger rose to his feet, facing the south. It is a temptation, Father. It would be hard to give her up now. If Breo would only wait a little while, but if he comes now, he walked away slowly, following through the balsams where Nada and Peter had gone. Father John watched him go, and a trembling smile came to his lips when he was alone. In his heart he knew he was a coward, and that these young people had been stronger than he. For in their happiness and the faith which he had falsely built up in them, they had resigned themselves to the inevitable, while he, in these moments of cowardice, had shown them the way to temptation. And yet as he stood there, looking in the direction they had gone, he felt no remorse because of what he had done, and a weight seemed to have lifted itself from his shoulders. For a time the more selfish instincts of the man rose in him, fighting down the sacrificial humility of the great faith of which he was a messenger. The new sensation thrilled him, and in its thrill he felt his heart beating a little faster and hope rising in him. Five years were a long time, for him. That was the thought which kept repeating itself over and over in his brain, and with it came that other thought that self-preservation was the first law of existence and therefore could not be a sin. Thus did Father John turn traitor to his spoken words, though his calm and smiling face gave no betrayal of it when Neda and Roger returned to the cabin an hour later, their arms filled with red Baknish vines and early wildflowers. Neda's cheeks were as pink as the Baknish, and her eyes as blue as the rock violet she wore in her breast. And Father John knew that Jolly Roger was no longer oppressed by the fear of a menace which he was helpless to oppose, for there was something very confident in the look of his eyes and the manner in which they rested upon Neda. Peter alone saw the mysterious thing which happened in the early evening. He was with Neda in her room, and she was the old Neda again, hugging his shaggy head in her arms and whispering to him in the old excited way. And strange memory of a bundle came back to Peter, for very quietly, as if unseen ears might be listening to her, Neda gathered many things in a pile on the table and made another bundle. This bundle she thrust under her bed, just as a long time ago she had thrust a similar bundle under a banksion clump in the Meadowland below Craigs Ridge. Father John went to his bed very early, and he was thinking of Braille. The Hudson's Bay Company post was only twelve miles away, and Braille would surely go there before questing from cabin to cabin for his victim. So it happened that a little after midnight he rose without making a sound, and by the light of a candle wrote a note for Neda, saying he had business at the post that day and without wakening them had made an early start. This note Neda read to McKay when they sat at breakfast. Quite frequently he has gone like that, Neda explained. He loves the forests at night in the light of the moon. But last night there was no moon, said Roger. Yes. And when Father John left the cabin the sky was clouded and it was very dark. You heard him go? Yes, and saw him. There was a worried look in his face when he wrote that note in the candle glow. Roger, what do you mean? McKay went behind her chair and tilted up her face and kissed her shining hair and questioning eyes. It means, precious little wife, that Father John is hurrying to the post to get news of Breyant, if he can. It means that deep in his heart he wants us to follow Yellowbird's advice to the end, for he is sure that he knows what Yellowbird meant by the country beyond. It is the great big world outside the forests. A world so big that, if need be, we can put ourselves ten thousand miles away from the trails of the mounted police. That is the thought which is urging him to the post to look for Breyant. Her arms crept up to his neck and in a little voice trembling with eagerness, she said, Roger, my bundle is ready. I prepared it last night and it is under the bed. He held her more closely. Are you willing to go with me anywhere? Yes, anywhere. To the end of the earth? Her crumpled head nodded against his breast. And leave, Father John? Yes, for you, but I think sometime he will come to us. Her fingers touched his cheek. And there must be forests, big, beautiful forests in some other part of the world, Roger. Or a desert where they would never think of looking for us, he laughed happily. I'd love the desert, Roger. Or an uninhabited island? Against him, her head nodded again. I'd love life anywhere with you. Then we'll go, he said, trying to speak very calmly in spite of the joy that was consuming him like a fire. And then he went on, steadying his voice until it was almost cold. But it means giving up everything you've dreamed of, Neda, these forests you love. Father John, Yellowbird, Sun Cloud. I have only one dream, she interrupted him softly. And five years will pass very quickly, he continued. Possibly it will not be as bad as that, and afterward all this land we love will be free to us forever. Gladly will I remain and take my punishment if, in the end, it will make us happier, Neda. I have only one dream, she repeated, caressing his cheek with her hand. And that is you, Roger. Wherever you take me, I shall be the happiest woman in the world. Woman, he laughed, scarcely breathing the word aloud. Yes, I am a woman now. And yet, forever and ever, the little girl of Cragg's Ridge, he cried with sudden passion, crushing her close to him. I'd lose my life sooner than I would lose her, Neda, the little girl with flying hair and strawberry stain on her nose, and who believed so faithfully in the man in the moon. Always I shall worship her as the little goddess who came down to me from somewhere in heaven. Yet all through that day, as they waited for Father John's return, he saw more and more of the wonder of woman that had come to crown the glory of Neda's wifehood, and his heart trembled with joy at the miracle of it. There was something vastly sweet in the change of her. She was no longer the utterly dependent little thing, possibly caring for him because he was big and strong and able to protect her. She was a woman, and loved him as a woman, and not because of fear or helplessness. And then came the thrilling mystery of another thing. He found himself, in turn, beginning to depend upon her, and in their planning, her calm decision and quiet reasoning strengthened him with new confidence and made his heart sing with gladness. With his eyes on the smooth and velvety coils of hair which she had twisted womanlike on her head, he said, With your hair like that you are my Margaret of Anjou, and the other way, with it down, you are my little Neda of Cragg's Ridge. And I don't quite understand why God should be so good to me. And this day Peter was trying in his dumb way to analyze the change. The touch of Neda's hand thrilled him, as it did a long time ago, and still he sensed the difference. Her voice was even softer when she put her cheek down to his whiskered face and talked to him, but in it he missed that which he could not quite bring back clearly through the lapse of time, the childish comradeship of her. Yet he began to worship her anew, even more fiercely than he had loved the Neda of old. He was content now to lie with his nose touching her foot or dress, but when in the sunset of early evening she went into her room and came out a little later with her curling hair clouding her shoulders and breast, and tied with a faded ribbon she had brought from Cragg's Ridge, he danced about her, yelping joyously, and she accepted the challenge in a wild race with him to the edge of the clearing. Panting and flushed she ran back to Jolly Roger and rested in his arms. And it was McKay, with his face half hidden in her riotous hair, who saw a figure come suddenly out of the forest at the far end of the clearing. It was Father John. He saw him pause for an instant and then staggered toward them, swaying as if about to fall. The sudden stopping of his breath, the tightening of his arms, drew Neda's shining eyes to his face, and then she too saw the little old missioner as he swayed and staggered across the clearing. With a cry she was out of McKay's arms and running toward him. Father John was leaning heavily upon her when McKay came up. His face was tense and his breath came in choking gasps, but he tried to smile as he clutched a hand at his breast. I have hurried, he said, making a great effort to speak calmly, and I am winded. He drew in a deep breath and looked at Jolly Roger. Roger, I have hurried to tell you, Breaux is coming. He cannot be far behind me, possibly half a mile or a mile. In the thickening dusk he took Neda's white face between his hands. I find, at last, that I was mistaken, child. He said very calmly now. I believe it is not God's will that you remain to be taken by Breaux. You must go. There is no time to lose. If Breaux does not stumble off the trail in this gloom he will be here in a few minutes. Come! Not a word did Neda say as they went to the cabin, and McKay saw her tense face as pale as an ivory cameo in the twilight. But something in the up tilt of her chin and the poise of her head assured him that she was prepared and unafraid. In the cabin the leaf-bud met them, and to her Neda spoke quickly. There was understanding between them, and Usimus dragged in a filled pack from the kitchen while Neda ran into her room and came out with the bundle. Suddenly she was standing before McKay and Father John, her breast throbbing with excitement. There is nothing more to make ready, she said. Yellowbird has been with me all this day, and her spirit told me to prepare. We have everything we need. And then she saw only Father John, and put her arms closely about his neck, and with wide, tearless eyes looked into his face. Father, you will come to us? she whispered. You promise that? The missioner's arms closed about her, and he bowed his face against her lips and cheek. I pray, God, that it may be so, he said. Neda's arms tightened convulsively, and in that moment there came a warning growl from outside the cabin door. Peter! she cried. In another moment Father John had extinguished the light. Go, my children! he commanded. You must be quick. Twenty paces below the pool is a canoe. I had one of my Indians leave it there yesterday, and it is ready. Roger! Neda! He groped out, and the hands of the three met in the darkness. God bless you both, and go south, always south. Now go! go! I think I hear footsteps. He thrust them to the door, Neda with her bundle, and Roger with his pack. Suddenly he felt Peter at his side, and reaching down he fastened his fingers in the scruff of his neck and held him back. Good-bye! he whispered huskily. Good-bye, Neda! Roger! A sob came back out of the gloom. Good-bye, Father! And then they listened, Peter and Father John, until the swift footsteps of the two they loved passed beyond their hearing. Peter whimpered and struggled a little, but Father John held him as he closed the door. It's best for you to stay, Peter, he tried to explain. It's best for you to stay with me, for I think they are going a far distance and will come to a land where you would shrivel up and die. Besides, you cannot go in the canoe, so be good and remain with me, Peter, with me. And the leaf-bud, standing wide-eyed and motionless, heard a strange little choking laugh come from Father John as he groped in darkness for a light. End of Chapter 20. Recording by Roger Maline