The country beyond; a romance of the wilderness

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In Memory of
Dr. William H. Sheldon

The Gift of
His Associates

The COUNTRY BEYOND

Books b\f Mr. CuTVoood:

THE COUNTRY BEYOND

The Trilogy^

of the

Three-River

Country

THE FLAMING FOREST

THE VALLEY OF SILENT MEN

THE river's END

god's country, THE TRAIL TO HAPPINESS

BAREE, SON OF KAZAN

THE COURAGE OF CAPTAIN PLUM

THE COURAGE OF MARGE o'DOONE

THE DANGER TRAIL

FLOWER OF THE NORTH

god's COUNTRY AND THE WOMAN

THE GOLD HUNTERS

THE GOLDEN SNARE

THE GREAT LAKES

THE GRIZZLY KING

THE HONOR OF THE BIG SNOWS

THE HUNTED WOMAN

ISOBEL

KAZAN

NOMADS OF THE NORTH

STEELE OF THE ROYAL MOUNTED

THE WOLF HUNTERS

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We'll make it, Peter," she whispered. (See page 28)

The COUNTRY BEYOND

of ^mance of the IVildemess by

JAMES OLIVER
CURWOOD

With Illustrations by

WALT LOUDERBACK

opolltii Book (Somtloi

'n&lV YO%K

1922

Copyright, igii, by Cosmopolitan Book Corporation,

New York All rights reserved, including that

of translation into foreign languages,

including the Scandinavian,

fZ5

Printed in the United States of America

THE ILLUSTRATIONS

**We*ll make it. Peter," she whispered Frontispiece

FACING
PAGE

'TVE COME TO TELL YOU THINGS, NaDA. I'VE

been livin' a lie'* 86

They hurried to the camp, the children rac-
ing AHEAD TO TELL THE NEWS 1 50

-A SQUAW NAMED YeLLOW BiRD SENT WORD

THAT YOU WOULD BE WELCOME" 338

A glass of Tvlne once lost a kingdom, a nail
turned the tide of a mighty battle^ and a woman's
smile once upon a time destroyed the homes of a
million people. Thus hove trivial things played
their potent parts in the history of human lives; yet
these things Peter did not ^noip.

The COUNTRY BEYOND

THE COUNTRY BEYOND

CHAPTER I

"^J OT far from the rugged and storm-whipped north
-^ ^ shore of Lake Superior, and south of the Kam-
inistiqua, yet not as far south as the Rainy River water-
way, there lay a paradise lost in the heart of a wilder-
ness world — and in that paradise "a little corner of

That was what the girl had called it once upon a
time, when sobbing out the shame and the agony of it
to herself. That was before Peter had come to leaven
the drab of her life. But the hell was still there.

One would not have guessed its existence, standing at
the bald top of Cragg's Ridge this wonderful thirtieth
day of May. In the whiteness of winter one could look
off over a hundred square miles of freezing forest and
swamp and river country, with the gleam of ice-covered
lakes here and there, fringed by their black spruce and
cedar and balsam — a country of storm, of deep snows,
of men and women whose blood ran red with the thrill
and the hardship and the never-ending adventure of
the wild.

3

4 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

But this was spring. And such a spring as had not
come to the Canadian north country in many years.
Until three days ago there had been a deluge of warm
rains, and since then the sun had inundated the land
with the golden warmth of summer. The last chill
was gone from the air, and the last bit of frozen earth
and muck from the deepest and blackest swamps.
North, south, east and vv^est the wilderness world was
a glory of bursting life, of springtime mellowing into
summer. Ridge upon ridge of yellows and greens and
blacks swept away into the unknown distances like the
billows of a vast sea; and between them lay the valleys
and swamps, the lakes and waterways, glad with the
rippling song of running waters, the sweet scents of
early flowering time, and the joyous voice of all mating
creatures.

Just imder Cragg's Ridge lay the paradise, a
meadow-like sweep of plain that reached down to the
edge of Clearwater Lake, with clumps of poplars and
white birch and darker tapestries of spruce and bal-
sams dotting it like islets in a sea of verdant green.
The flowers were two weeks ahead of their time and
the sweet perfumes of late June, instead of May, rose
up out of the plain, and already there was nesting in
the velvety splashes of timber.

In the edge of a clump of this timber, flat on his
belly, lay Peter. The love of adventure was in him,
and today he had sallied forth on his most desperate
enterprise. For the first time he had gone alone to

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 5

the edge of Clearwater Lake, half a mile away; boldly
he had trotted up and down the white strip of beach
where the girl's footprints still remained in the sand,
and defiantly he had yipped at the shimmering vastness
of the water, and at the white gulls circling near him
in quest of dead fish flung ashore. Peter was three
months old. Yesterday he had been a timid pup,
shrinking from the bigness and strangeness of every-
thing about him; but today he had braved the lake
trail on his own nerve, and nothing had dared to come
near him in spite of his yipping, so that a great cour-
age and a great desire were born in him.

Therefore, in returning, he had paused in the edge
of a great clump of balsams and spruce, and lay flat
on his belly, his sharp little eyes leveled yearningly at
the black mystery of its deeper shadows. The bit of
forest filled a cup-like depression in the plain, and was
possibly half a rifle-shot distance from end to end —
but to Peter it was as vast as life itself. And some-
thing urged him to go in.

And as he lay there, desire and indecision struggling
for mastery within him, no power could have told
Peter that destinies greater than his own were work-
ing through the soul of the dog that was in him, and
that on his decision to go in or not to go in — on the
triumph of courage or cowardice — there rested the
fates of lives greater than his own, of men, and women,
and of little children still unborn. A glass of wine
once lost a kingdom, a nail turned the tide of a mighty

6 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

battle, and a woman's smile once upon a time destroyed
the homes of a million people. Thus have trivial
things played their potent parts in the history of hu-
man lives, yet these things Peter did not know — nor
that his greatest hour had come.

At last he rose from his squatting posture, and stood
upon his feet. He was not a beautiful pup, this Peter
Pied-Bof — or Peter Club-foot, as Jolly Roger McKay
— ^who lived over in the big cedar swamp — had named
him when he gave Peter to the girl. He was, in a
way, an accident and a homely one at that. His father
was a blue-blooded fighting Airedale who had broken
from his kennel long enough to commit a mesalliance
with a huge big footed and peace-loving Mackenzie
hound — and Peter was the result. He wore the fiercely
bristling whiskers of his Airedale father at the age
of three months; his ears were flappy and big, his tail
was knotted, and his legs were ungainly and loose,
with huge feet at the end of them — so big and heavy
that he stumbled frequently, and fell on his nose. One
pitied him at first — and then loved him. For Peter,
in spite of his homeliness, had the two best bloods of
all dog creation in his veins. Yet in a way it was like
mixing nitro-glycerin with olive oil, or dynamite and
saltpeter with milk and honey.

Peter's heart was thumping rapidly as he took a
step toward the deeper shadows. He swallowed hard,
as if to clear a knot out of his scrawny throat. But
he had made up his mind. Something was compelling

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 7

him, and he would go in. Slowly the gloom engulfed
him, and once again the whimsical spirit of fatalism
had chosen a trivial thing to work out its ends in the
romance and tragedy of human lives.

Grim shadows began to surround Peter, and his
ears shot up, and a scraggly brush stood out along his
spine. But he did not bark, as he had barked along
the shore of the lake, and in the green opens. Twice
he looked back to the shimmer of simshine that was
growing more and more indistinct. As long as he
could see this, and knew that his retreat was open,
there still remained a bit of that courage which was
swiftly ebbing in the thickening darkness. But the
third time he looked back the light of the sun was
utterly gone ! For an instant the knot rose up in his
throat and choked him, and his eyes popped, and grew
like little balls of fire in his intense desire to see through
the gloom. Even the girl, who was afraid of only one
thing in the world, would have paused whei'e Peter
stood, with a little quickening of her heart. For all
the light of the day, it seemed to Peter, had suddenly
died out. Over his head the spruce and cedar and
balsam tops grew so thick they w^ere like a canopy of
night. Through them the snow never came in winter,
and under them the light of a blazing sun was only a
ghostly twilight.

And now, as he stood there, his whole soul burning
with a desire to see his way out, Peter b^an to hear
strange sounds. Strangest of all, and most fearsome,

8 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

was a hissing that came and went, sometimes very near
to him, and always accompanied by a grating noise
that curdled his blood. Twice after that he saw the
shadow of the great owl as it swooped over him, and
he flattened himself down, the knot in his throat grow-
ing bigger and more choking. And then he heard the
soft and uncanny movement of huge feathered bodies
in the thick shroud of boughs overhead, and slowly and
cautiously he wormed himself around, determined to
get back to sunshine and day as quickly as he could.
It was not until he had made this movement that the
real chill of horror gripped at his heart. Straight
behind him, directly in the path he had traveled, he
saw two little green balls of flame!

It was instinct, and not reason or experience, which
told Peter there was menace and peril in these two
tiny spots blazing in the gloom. He did not know that
his own eyes, popping half out of his head, were
equally terrifying in that pit of silence, nor that from
him emanated a still more terrifying thing — the scent
of dog. He trembled on his wobbly legs as the green
eyes stared at him, and his back seemed to break in
the middle, so that he sank helplessly down upon the
soft spruce needles, waiting for his doom. In another
flash the twin balls of green fire were gone. In a
moment they appeared again, a little farther aw^ay.
Then a second time they were gone, and a third time
they flashed back at him — so distant they appeared
like needle-points in the darkness. Something stupen-

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 9

dous rose up in Peter. It was the soul of his Airedale
father, telling him the other thing was running away!
And in the joy of triumph Peter let out a yelp.

In that night-infested place, alive with hiding things,
the yelp set loose weird rustlings in the tangled tree-
tops, strange murmurings of chortling voices, and the
nasty snapping of beaks that held in them the power
to rend Peter's skinny body into a hundred bits. From
deeper in the thicket came the sudden crash of a heavy
body, and with it the chuckling notes of a porcupine,
and a hoo-hoo-Jwo-ee of startled inquiry that at first
Peter took for a human voice. And again he lay
shivering close to the foot-deep carpet of needles under
him, while his heart thumped against his ribs, and his
whiskers stood out in mortal fear. There followed a
weird and appalling silence, and in that stillness Peter
quested vainly for the sunlight he had lost. And then,
indistinctly, but bringing with it a new thrill, he heard
another sound. It was a soft and distant rippling of
running water. He knew that sound. It was friendly.
He had played among the rocks and pebbles and sand
where it was made. His courage came back, and he
rose up on his legs, and made his way toward it. Some-
thing inside him told him to go quietly, but his feet
were big and clumsy, and half a dozen times in the
next two minutes he stumbled on his nose. At last he
came to the stream, scarcely wider than a man might
have reached across, rippling and plashing its way
through the naked roots of trees. And ahead of hinx

lo THE COUNTRY BEYOND

Peter saw light. He quickened his pace, until at the
last he was running when he came out into the edge
of the meadowy plain, with its sweetness of flowers
and green grass and song of birds, and its glory of
blue sky and sun.

If he had ever been afraid, Peter forgot it now. The
choking went out of his throat, his heart fell back in
its place, and the fierce conviction that he had van-
quished everything in the world possessed him. He
peered back into the dark cavern of evergreen out of
which the streamlet gurgled, and then trotted straight
away from it, growling back his defiance as he ran.
At a safe distance he stopped, and faced about. Noth-
ing was following him, and the importance of his
achievements grew upon him. He began to swell; his
fore-legs he planted pugnaciously, he hollowed his
back, and began to bark with all the puppyish ferocity
that was in him. And though he continued to yelp,
and pounded the earth with his paws, and tore up the
green grass with his sharp little teeth, nothing dared
to come out of the black forest in answer to his chal-
lenge !

His head was high and his ears cocked jauntily as he
trotted up the slope, and for the first time in his three
months of existence he yearned to give battle to some-
thing that was alive. He was a changed Peter, no
longer satisfied with the thought of gnawing sticks or
stones or mauling a rabbit skin. At the crest of the
slope he stopped, and yelped down, almost determined

THE COUNTRY BEYOND ii

to go back to that black patch of forest and chase out
everything that was in it. Then he turned toward
Cragg's Ridge, and what he saw seemed slowly to
shrink up the pugnaciousness that was in him, and his
stiffened tail drooped until the knotty end of it touched
the ground.

Three or four hundred yards away, out of the heart
of that cup-like paradise which ran back through a
break in the ridge, rose a spiral of white smoke, and
with the sight of that smoke Peter heard also the chop-
ping of an axe. It made him shiver, and yet he made
his way toward it. He was not old enough — nor was
it in the gentle blood of his Mackenzie mother — to
know the meaning of hate; but something was growing
swiftly in Peter's shrewd little head, and he sensed
impending danger whenever he heard the sound of
the axe. For always there was associated with that
sound the cat-like, thin-faced man with the red bristle
on his upper lip, and the one eye that never opened
but was always closed. And Peter had come to fear
this one eyed man more than he feared any of the
ghostly monsters hidden in the black pit of the forest
he had braved that day.

But the owls, and the porcupine, and the fiery-eyed
fox that had run away from him, had put into Peter
something which was not in him yesterday, and he did
not slink on his belly when he came to the edge of the
cup between the broken ridge, but stood up boldly on
his crooked legs and looked ahead of him. At the far

12 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

edge of the cup, under the western shoulder of the
ridge, was a thick scattering of tall cedars and green
poplars and white birch, and in the shelter of these was
a cabin built of logs. A lovelier spot could not have
been chosen for the home of man. The hollow, from
where Peter stood, was a velvety carpet of green,
thickly strewn with flowers and ferns, sweet with the
scent of violets and wild honey-suckle, and filled with
the song of birds. Through the middle of it purled a
tiny creek which disappeared between the ragged shoul-
ders of rock, and close to this creek stood the cabin,
its log walls smothered under a luxuriant growth of
woodvine. But Peter's quizzical little eyes were not
measuring the beauty of the place, nor were his ears
listening to the singing of birds, or the chattering of
a red-squirrel on a stub a few yards away. He was
looking beyond the cabin, to a chalk-white mass of rock
that rose like a giant mushroom in the edg^e of the
trees — ^and he was listening to the ringing of the axe,
and straining his ears to catch the sound of a voice.

It was the voice he wanted most of all, and when
this did not come he choked back a whimper in his
throat, and went down to the creek, and waded through
it, and came up cautiously behind the cabin, his eyes
and ears alert and his loosely jointed legs ready for
flight at a sign of danger. He wanted to set up his
sharp yipping signal for the girl, but the menace of the
axe choked back his desire. At the very end of the
cabin, where the woodvine grew thick and dense, Peter

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 13

had burrowed himself a hiding-place, and into this he
skulked with the quickness of a rat getting away from
its enemies. From this protecting screen he cautiously
poked forth his whiskered face, to make what inven-
tory he could of his chances for supper and a safe
home-coming.

And as he looked forth his heart gave a sudden
jump.

It was the girl, and not the man who was using the
axe today. At the big wood-pile half a stone's throw
away he saw the shimmer of her brown curls in the
sun, and a glimpse of her white face as it was turned
for an instant toward the cabin. In his gladness he
would have leaped out, but the curse of a voice he had
learned to dread held him back.

A man had come out of the cabin, and close be-
hind the man, a woman. The man was a long, lean,
cadaverous- faced creature, and Peter knew that the
devil was in him as he stood there at the cabin door.
His breath, if one had stood close enough to smell it,
was heavy with whiskey. Tobacco juice stained the
corners of his mouth, and his one eye gleamed with
an animal-like exultation as he nodded toward the girl
with the shining curls.

"Mooney says he'll pay seven-fifty for .her when he
gets his tie-money from the Government, an' he paid
me fifty down," he said. "It'll help pay for the brat's
board these last ten years — an' mebby, when it comes
to a show-down, I can stick him for a thousand."

14 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

The woman made no answer. She was, in a way,
past answering with a mind of her own. The man,
as he stood there, was wicked and cruel, every Hne in
his ugly face and angular body a line of sin. The
woman was bent, broken, a wreck. In her face there
was no sign of a living soul. Her eyes were dull, her
heart burned out, her hands gnarled with toil under
the slavedom of a beast. Yet even Peter, quiet as a
mouse where he lay, sensed the difference between
them. He had seen the girl and this woman sobbing
in each other's arms. And often he had crawled to
the woman's feet, and occasionally her hand had
touched him, and frequently she had given him things
to eat. But it was seldom he heard her voice when
the man was near.

The man was biting off a chunk of black tobacco.
Suddenly he asked,

^^How old is she, Liz?''

And the woman answered in a strange and husky
voice.

"Seventeen the twelfth day of this month."

The man spat.

"Mooney ought to pay a thousand. We've had her
better'n ten years — an' Mooney's crazy as a loon to
git her. He'll pay!"

"Jed " The woman's voice rose above its

hoarseness. "Jed — it ain't right !"

The man laughed. He opened his mouth wide, until
his yellow fangs gleamed in the sun, and the girl with

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 15

the axe paused for a moment In her work, and flung
back her head, staring at the two before the cabin
door.

"Right ?'^ jeered the man. "Right? That's what
you been preachin' me these last ten years 'bout whis-
key-runnin,' but it ain't made me stop selHn' whiskey,
has it? An' I guess it ain't a word that'll come be-
tween Mooney and me — not if Mooney gits his thou-
sand.'' Suddenly he turned upon her, a hand half
raised to strike. "An' if you whisper a word to her
— if y' double-cross me so much as the length of your
little finger — I'll break every bone in your body, so
'elp me God ! You understand ? You won't say any-
thing to her?"

The wom.an's uneven shoulders drooped lower.

"I won't say ennything, Jed. I — promise."

The man dropped his uplifted hand with a harsh
grunt.

"I'll kill y' if you do," he warned.

The girl had dropped her axe, and was coming
toward them. She was a slim, bird-like creature, with a
poise to her head and an up-tilt to her chin which
warned that the man had not yet beaten her to the
level of the woman. She was dressed in a faded
calico, frayed at the bottom, and with the sleeves
bobbed off just above the elbows of her slim white
arms. Her stockings were mottled w^ith patches and
mends, and her shoes were old, and worn out at the
toes.

16 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

But to Peter, worshipping her from his hiding place,
she was the most beautiful thing in the world. Jolly
Roger had said the same thing, and most men — and
women, too — would have agreed that this slip of a girl
possessed a beauty which it would take a long time
for unhappiness and torture to crush entirely out of
her. Her eyes were as blue as the violets Peter had
thrust his nose among that day. And her hair was a
glory, loosed by her exertion from its bondage of
faded ribbon, and falling about her shoulders and
nearly to her waist in a mass of curling brown tresses
that at times had made even Jed Hawkins' one eye
light up with admiration. And yet, even in those
times, he hated her, and more than once his bony fin-
gers had closed viciously in that mass of radiant hair,
but seldom could he wring a scream of pain from
Nada. Even novN^, when she could see the light of the
devil in his one gleaming eye, it was only her flesh —
and not her soul — that was afraid.

But the strain had begun to show its mark. In the
blue of her eyes was the look of one who was never
free of haunting visions, her cheeks w^ere pallid, and
a little too thin, and the vivid redness of her lips was
not of health and happiness, but a touch of the color
which should have been in her face, and which until
now had refused to die.

She faced the man, a little out of the reach of his
arm.

*'I told you never again to raise your hand to strike

THE COUNTRY BEYOND ly

her," she cried in a fierce, suppressed little voice, her
blue eyes flaming loathing and hatred at him. **If
you hit her once more — something is going to happen.
If you want to hit anyone, hit me. I kin stand it. But
— look at her! You've broken her shoulder, you've
crippled her — an' you oughta die !"

The man advanced half a step, his eye ablaze. Deep
down in him Peter felt something he had never felt
before. For the first time in his life he had no desire
to run away from the man. Something rose up from
his bony little chest, and grew in his throat, until it
was a babyish snarl so low that no human ears could
hear it. And in his hiding-place his needle-like fangs
gleamed under snarling lips.

But the man did not strike, nor did he reach out to
grip his fingers in the silken mass of Nada's hair. He
laughed, as if something was choking him, and turned
away with a toss of his arms.

"You ain't seein' me hit her any more, are you,
Nady?" he said, and disappeared around the end of the
cabin.

The girl laid a hand on the woman's arm. Her eyes
softened, but she was trembling.

"I've told him what'll happen, an' he won't dare hit
you any more," she comforted. "If he does, I'll end
him. I will ! I'll bring the police. I'll show 'em the
places where he hides his whiskey. I'll — I'll put him
in jail, if I die for it!"

The woman's bony hands clutched at one of Nada's.

i8 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

*'No, no, you mustn't do that," she pleaded. "He
was good to me once, a long time ago, Nada. It ain't
Jed that's bad — it's the whiskey. You mustn't tell on
him, Nada — you mustn't !"

"I've promised you I won't — if he don't hit you any
more. He kin shake me by the hair if he wants to.
But if he hits you "

She drew a deep breath, and also passed around the
end of the cabin.

For a few moments Peter listened. Then he slipped
back through the tunnel he had made under the wood-
bine, and saw Nada walking swiftly toward the break
in the ridge. He followed, so quietly that she was
through the break, and was picking her way among
the tumbled masses of rock along the farther foot of
the ridge, before she discovered his presence. With a
glad cry she caught him up in her arms and hugged
him against her breast.

"Peter, Peter, where have you been?" she demanded.
"I thought something had happened to you, and I've
been huntin' for you, and so has Roger — I mean Mister
Jolly Roger."

Peter was hugged tighter, and he hung limply until
his mistress came to a thick little clump of dwarf bal-
sams hidden among the rocks. It was their "secret
place," and Peter had come to sense the fact that its
mystery was not to be disclosed. Here Nada had made
her little bower, and she sat down now upon a thick
rug of balsam boughs, and held Peter out in front of
her, squatted on his haunches. A new light had come

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 19

into her eyes, and they were shining like stars. There
was a flush in her cheeks, her red Hps were parted, and
Peter, looking up — and being just dog — could scarcely
measure the beauty of her. But he knew that some-
thing had happened, and he tried hard to understand.

*Teter, he was here ag'in today — Mister Roger —
Mister Jolly Roger," she cried softly, the pink in her
cheeks growing brighter. "And he told me I was
pretty !"

She drew a deep breath, and looked out over the
rocks to the valley and the black forest beyond. And
her fingers, under Peter's scrawny armpits, tightened
until he grunted.

"And he asked me if he could touch my hair — mind
you he asked me that, Peter! — And when I said ^y^^'
he just put his hand on it, as if he was afraid, anr*. he
said it was beautiful, and that I must take wonderful
care of it!"

Peter saw a throbbing in her throat.

"Peter — he said he didn't want to do anything wrong
to me, that he'd cut off his hand first. He said that!
And then he said — if I didn't think it was wrong — he'd
like to kiss me "

She hugged Peter up close to her again.

"And — I told him I guessed it wasn't wrong, because
I liked him, and nobody else had ever kissed me, and
— Peter — he didn't kiss mt ! And when he went away
he looked so queer — so white-like — ^and somethin' in-
side me has been singing ever since. I don't know
what it is, Peter. But it's there!'*

20 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

And then, after a moment.

'Teter," she whispered, "I wish Mister Jolly Roger
would take us away!"

The thought drew a tightening to her lips, and the
pucker of a frown between her eyes, and she sat Peter
down beside her and looked over the valley to the black
forest, in the heart of which was Jolly Roger's cabin.

*'It's funny he don't want anybody to know he's
there, ain't it — I mean — isn't it, Peter?" she mused.
"He's livin* in the old shack Indian Tom died in last
winter, and I've promised not to tell. He says it's a
great secret, and that only you, and I, and the Mis-
sioner over at Sucker Creek know anything about it.
I'd like to go over and clean up the sliack for him. I
sure would."

Peter, beginning to nose among the rocks, did not
see the flash of fire that came slowly into the blue of
the girl's eyes. She was looking at her ragged shoes,
at the patched stockings, at the poverty of her faded
dress, and her fingers clenched in her lap.

"I'd do it — I'd go away — somewhere — and never
come back, if it wasn't for her," she breathed. *'She
treats me like a witch most of the time, but Jed Haw-
kins made her that way. I kin remember — — "

Suddenly she jumped up, and flung back her head
defiantly, so that her hair streamed out in a sun-filled
cloud in a gust of wind that came up the valley.

"Some day, I'll kill 'im," she cried to the black forest
across the plain. "Some day — I will!"

CHAPTER II

Q HE followed Peter. For a long time the stomi had
^ been gathering in her brain, a storm which she
had held back, smothered under her unhappiness, so
that only Peter had seen the lightning-flashes of it. But
today the betrayal had forced itself from her lips, and
in a hard little voice she had told Jolly Roger — the
stranger who had come into the black forest — how her
mother and father had died of the same plague more
than ten years ago, and how Jed Hawkins and his
woman had promised to keep her for three silver fox
skins which her father had caught before the sickness
came. That much the woman had confided in her,
for she was only six when it happened. And she had
not dared to look at Jolly Roger when she told him
of what had passed since then, so she saw little of the
hardening in his face as he listened. But he had
blown his nose — hard. It was a way with Jolly
Roger, and she had not known him long enough to
understand what it meant. And a little later he had
asked her if he might touch her hair — and his big hand
had lain for a moment on her head, as gently as a
woman's.

Like a warm glow in her heart still remained the

21

22 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

touch of that hand. It had given her a new courage,
and a new thrill, just as Peter's vanquishment of un-
known monsters that day had done the same for him.
Peter was no longer afraid, and the girl was no longer
afraid, and together they went along the slope of the
ridge, until they came to a dried-up coulee which was
choked with a wild upheaval of rock. Here Peter sud-
denly stopped, with his nose to the ground, and then
his legs stiffened, and for the first time the girl heard
the babyish growl in his throat. For a moment she
stood very still, and listened, and faintly there came
to her a sound, as if someone was scraping rock against
rock. The girl drew in a quick breath; she stood
straighter, and Peter — ^looking up — saw her eyes flash-
ing, and her lips apart. And then she bent down, and
picked up a jagged stick.

"We'll go up, Peter," she whispered. "It's one of
his hiding-places!"

There was a wonderful thrill in the knowledge that
she was no longer afraid, and the same thrill was in
Peter's swiftly beating little heart as he followed her.
They went \try quietly, the girl on tip-toe, and Peter
making no sound with his soft footpads, so that Jed
Hawkins was still on his knees, with his back toward
them, when they came out into a square of pebbles and
sand between two giant masses of rock. Yesterday,
or the day before, both Peter and Nada would have
slunk back, for Jed was at his devil's work, and only
evil could come to the one who discovered him at it.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 23

He had scooped out a pile of sand from under the
edge of the biggest rock, and was filling half a dozen
grimy leather flasks from a jug which he had pulled
from the hole. And then he paused to drink. They
could hear the liquor gurgling down his throat.

Nada tapped the end of her stick against the rock,
and like a shot the man whirled about to face them.
His face turned livid when he saw who it was, and he
drew^ himself up until he stood on his feet, his two big
fists clenched, his yellow teeth snarling at her.

"You damned — spy!" he cried chokingly. "If you
w^as a man — I'd kill you!"

The girl did not shrink. Her face did not whiten.
Two bright spots flamed in her cheeks, and Hawkins
saw the triumph shining in her eyes. And there was
a new thing in the odd twist of her red lips, as she
said tauntingly.

"If I w^as a man, Jed Hawkins — you'd run!"

He took a step toward her.

"You'd run," she repeated, meeting him squarely,
and taking a tighter grip of her stick. "I ain't ever
seen you hit anything but a woman, an' a girl, or some
poor animal that didn't dare bite back. You're a
coward, Jed Hawkins, a low-down, sneakin,' whiskey-
sellin' coward — and you oughta die!"

Even Peter sensed the cataclysmic change that had
come in this moment between the two big rocks. It
held something in the air, like the impending crash of
dynamite, or the falling down of the world. He forgot

24 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

himself, and looked up at his mistress, a wonderful,
slim little thing standing there at last unafraid before
the future — and in his dog heart and soul a part of the
truth came to him, and he planted his big feet squarely
in front of Jed Hawkins, and snarled at him as he
had never snarled before in his life.

And the bootlegger, for a moment, was stunned.
For a while back he had humored the girl a little, to
hold her in peace and without suspicion until Mooney
was able to turn over her body-money. After that —
after he had delivered her to the other's shack — it
would all be up to Mooney, he figured. And this was
what had come of his peace-loving efforts! She was
taking advantage of him, defying him, spying upon
him — the brat he had fed and brought up for ten
years ! Her beauty as she stood there did not hold him
back. It was punishment she needed, a beating, a
hair-pulling, until there was no breath left in her im-
pudent body. He sprang forward, and Peter let out
a wild yip as he saw Nada raise her stick. But she
was a moment too slow. The man's hand caught it,
and his right hand shot forward and buried itself in
the thick, soft mass of her hair.

It was then that something broke loose in Peter.
For this day, this hour, this minute the gods of destiny
had given him birth. All things in the world were
blotted out for him except one — the six inches of naked
shank between the bootlegger's trouser-leg and his
shoe. He dove in. His white teeth, sharp as stiletto-

THE COUNTRY, BEYOND 25

points, sank into it. And a wild and terrible yell came
from Jed Hawkins as he loosed the girl's hair. Peter
heard the yell, and his teeth sank deeper in the flesh
of the first thing he had ever hated. It was the girl,
more than Peter, who realized the horror of what
followed. The man bent down and his powerful fin-
gers closed round Peter's scrawny neck, and Peter felt
his wind suddenly shut ofif, and his mouth opened.
Then Jed Hawkins drew back the arm that held him,
as he would have drawn it back to fling a stone.

With a scream the girl tore at him as his arm
straightened out, and Peter went hurtling through the
air. Her stick struck him fiercely across the face, and
in that same moment there was a sickening, crushing
thud as Peter's loosely-jointed little body struck
against the face of the great rock. When Nada turned
Peter was groveling in the sand, his hips and back
broken down, but his bright eyes were on her, and
without a whimper or a whine he was struggling to
drag himself toward her. Only Jolly Roger could tell
the story of how Peter's mother had died for a woman,
and in this moment it must have been that her spirit
entered into Peter's soul, for the pain of his terrible
hurt was forgotten in his desire to drag himself back
to the feet of the girl, and die facing her enemy — the
man. He did not know that he was dragging his
broken body only an inch at a time through the sand.
But the girl saw the terrible truth, and with a cry of
agony which all of Hawkin's torture could not have

26 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

wrung from her she ran to him, and fell upon her
knees, and gathered him tenderly in her arms. Then,
in a flash, she was on her feet, facing Jed Hawkins
like a little demon.

"For that— I'll kill you!" she panted. "I will. I'll
kill you!"

The blow of her stick had half blinded the boot-
legger's one eye, but he was coming toward her. Swift
as a bird Nada turned and ran, and as the man's foot-
steps crunched in the gravel and rock behind her a
wild fear possessed her — fear for Peter, and not for
herself. Very soon Hawkins was left behind, cursing
at the futility of the pursuit, and at the fate that had
robbed him of an eye.

Down the coulee and out into the green meadow-
land of the plain ran Nada, her hair streaming brightly
in the sun, her arms clutching Peter to her breast.
Peter was whimpering now, crying softly and pite-
ously, just as once upon a time she had heard a baby
cry — 2. little baby that was dying. And her soul cried
out in agony, for she knew that Peter, too, was dying.
And as she stumbled onward — on toward the black
forest, she put her face down to Peter and sobbed over
and over again his name.

"Peter— Peter— Peter "

And Peter, joyous and grateful for her love and the
sound of her voice even in these moments, thrust out
his tongue and caressed her cheek, and the girl's breath
came in a great sob as she staggered on.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 27

*'It's all right now, Peter," she crooned. "It's all
right, baby. He won't hurt you any more, an' we're
goin' across the creek to Mister Roger's cabin, an'
you'll be happy there. You'll be happy "

Her voice choked full, and her mother-heart seemed
to break inside her, just as life had gone out of that
other mother's heart when the baby died. For their
grief, in God's reckoning of things, was the same; and
little Peter, sensing the greatness of this thing that
had made them one in flesh and blood, snuggled his
wiry face closer in her neck, crying softly to her, and
content to die there close to the warmth of the creature
he loved.

*'Don't cry, baby," she soothed. *'Don't cry, Peter,

dear. It'll soon be all right — all right " And the

sob came again into her throat, and clung there like a
choking fist, until they came to the edge of the big
forest.

She looked down, and saw that Peter's eyes were
closed; and not until then did the miracle of under-
standing come upon her fully that there was no dif-
ference at all between the dying baby's face and dying
Peter's, except that one had been white and soft, and
Peter's was different — ^and covered with hair.

"God'll take care o' you, Peter," she whispered.
"He will — God, 'n' me, and Mister Roger "

She knew there was untruth in what she was say-
ing for no one, not even God, would ever take care
of Peter again — in life. His still little face and the

28 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

terrible grief in her own heart told her that. For
Peter's back was broken, and he was going — going
even now — as she ran moaningly witli him through
the deep aisles of the forest. But before he died, be-
fore his heart stopped beating in her arms, she wanted
to reach Jolly Roger's friendly cabin, in the big swamp
beyond the creek. It was not that he could save Peter,
but something told her that Jolly Roger's presence
would make Peter's dying easier, both for Peter and
for her, for in this first glad spring of her existence
the stranger in the forest shack had brought sunshine
and hope and new dreams into her life; and they had
set him up, she and Peter, as they would have set up
a god on a shrine.

So she ran for the fording place on Sucker Creek,
which was a good half mile above the shack in which
the stranger was living. She was staggering, and short
of wind, when she came to the ford, and when she
saw the whirl and rush of water ahead of her she re-
membered what Jolly Roger had said about the flood-
ing of the creek, and her eyes w^idened. Then she
looked down at Peter, piteously limp and still in her
arms, and she drew a quick breath and made up her
mind. She knew that at this shallow place the water
could not be more than up to her waist, even at the
flood-tide. But it was runninsf like a mill-race.

She put her lips down to Peter's fuzzy little face,
and held them there for a moment, and kissed him.

''We'll make it, Peter," she whispered. "We ain't

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 2g

afraid, are we, baby? We'll make it — sure — sure — *
we'll make it "

She set out bravely, and the current swished about
her ankles, to her knees, to her hips. And then, sud-
denly, unseen hands under the water seemed to rouse
themselves, and she felt them pulling and tugging at her
as the water deepened to her waist. In another mo-
ment she was fighting, fighting to hold her feet, strug-
gling to keep the forces from driving her downstream.
And then came the supreme moment, close to the shore
for which she was striving. She felt herself giving
away, and she cried out brokenly for Peter not to be
afraid. And then something drove pitilessly against
her body, and she flung out one arm, holding Peter
close with the other — and caught hold of a bit of stub
that protruded like a handle from the black and slip-
pery log the flood-water had brought down upon her.

"We're all right, Peter," she cried, even in that mo-
ment when she knew she had lost. "We're all ri "

And then suddenly the bright glory of her head went
down, and with her went Peter, still held to her breast
under the sweeping rush of the flood.

Even then it was thought of Peter that filled her
brain. Somehow she was not afraid. She was not
terrified, as she had often been of the flood-rush of
waters that smashed down the creeks in springtime.
An inundating roar was over her, under her, and all
about her; it beat in a hissing thunder against the
drums of her ears, yet it did not frighten her as she

%

30 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

had sometimes been frightened. Even in that black
chaos which was swiftly suffocating the life from her,
unspoken words of cheer for Peter formed in her
heart, and she struggled to hold him to her, while with
her other hand she fought to raise herself by the stub
of the log to which she clung. For she was not think-
ing of him as Peter, the dog, but as something greater
— something that had fought for her that day, and be-
cause of her had died.

Suddenly she felt a force pulling her from above. It
was the big log, turning again to that point of equi-
librium which for a space her weight had destroyed.
In the edge of a quieter pool where the water swirled
but did not rush, her brown head appeared, and then
her white face, and with a last mighty effort she thrust
up Peter so that his dripping body was on the log.
Sobbingly she filled her lungs with air. But the drench
of water and her hair blinded her so that she could
not see. And she found all at once that the strength
had gone from her body. Vainly she tried to drag her-
self up beside Peter, and in the struggle she raised her-
self a little, so that a low-hanging branch of a tree
swept her like a mighty arm from the log.

With a cry she reached out for Peter. But he was
gone, the log was gone, and she felt a vicious pulling
at her hair, as Jed Hawkins himself had often pulled
it, and for a few moments the current pounded against
her body and the tree-limb sv/ayed back and forth as
it held her there by her hair.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 31

If there was pain from that tugging, Nada did not
feel it. She could see now, and thirty yards below her
was a wide, quiet pool into which the log was drifting.
Peter was gone. And then, suddenly, her heart seemed
to stop its beating, and her eyes widened, and in that
moment of astounding miracle she forgot that she was
hanging by her hair in the ugly lip of the flood, with
slippery hands beating and pulling at her from below.
For she saw Peter — Peter in the edge of the pool —
making his way toward the shore! For a space she
could not believe. It must be his dead body drifting.
It could not be Peter — swimming ! And yet — his head
was above the water — he was moving shoreward — ^he
was struggling

Frantically she tore at the detaining clutch above
her. Something gave way. She felt the sharp sting of
it, and then she plunged into the current, and swept
down with it, and in the edge of the pool struck out
with all her last strength until her feet touched bot-
tom, and she could stand. She wiped the water from
her eyes, sobbing in her breathless fear — her mighty
hope. Peter had reached the shore. He had dragged
himself out, and had crumpled down in a broken heap
— but he was facing her, his bright eyes wide open
and questing for her. Slowly Nada went to him.
Until now, when it was all over, she had not realized
how helplessly weak she was. Something was turning
round and round in her head, and she was so dizzy
that the shore swam before her eyes, and it seemed

32 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

quite right to her that Peter should be ahve — ^and not
dead. She Avas still in a foot of water when she fell
on her knees and dragged herself the rest of the way
to him, and gathered him in her arms again, close up
against her wet, choking breast.

And there the sun shone down upon them, without
the shade of a twig overhead; and the water that a
little while before had sung of death rippled with its
old musical joy, and about them the birds sang, and
very near to them a pair of mating red-squirrels chat-
tered and played in a mountain-ash tree. And Nada's
hair brightened in the sun, and began to ripple into
curls at the end, and Peter's bristling whiskers grew
dry — so that half an hour after she had dragged her-
self out of the water there was a new light in the girl's
eyes, and a color in her cheeks that was like the first
dawning of summer pink in the heart of a rose.

"We're a'most dry enough to go to Mister Jolly
Roger, Peter," she whispered, a little thrill in her voice.

She stood up, and shook out her half dry hair, and
then picked up Peter — and winced when he gave a
little moan.

*'He'n fix you, Peter," she comforted. "An' it'll be
so nice over here — ^with him."

Her eyes were looking ahead, down through the
glory of the sun- filled forest, and the song of birds
and the beauty of the world filled her soul, and a new
and wonderful freedom seemed to thrill in the touch
of the soft earth under her feet.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 33

**Flowers," she cried softly. "Flowers, an' birds,
an' the sun, Peter — '' She paused a moment, as if
listening to the throb of light and life about her. And
then, ''I guess we'll go to Mister Jolly Roger now," she
said.

She shook her hair again, so that it shone in a soft
and rebellious glory about her, and the violet light
grew a little darker in her eyes, and the color a bit
deeper in her cheeks as she walked on into the forest
over the faintly worn foot-trail that led to the old
cabin where Jolly Roger was keeping himself away
from the eyes of men.

CHAPTER III

T7 ROM the little old cabin of dead Indian Tom, built
•^ in a grassy glade close to the shore of Sucker
Creek, came the sound of a man's laughter. In this
late afternoon the last flooding gold of the sun filled
the open door of the poplar shack. The man's laugh-
ter, like the sun on the mottled tapestry of the poplar-
wood, was a heart-lightening thing there on the edge
of the great swamp that swept back for miles to the
north and west. It was the sort of laughter one sel-
dom hears from a man, not riotous or over-bold, but a
big, clean laughter that came from the soul out. It
was an infectious thing. It drove the gloom out of the
blackest night. It dispelled fear, and if ever there
were devils lurking in the edge of old Indian Tom's
swamp they slunk away at the sound of it. And more
than once, as those who lived in tepee and cabin and
far-away shack could testify, that laugh had driven
back death itself.

In the shack, this last day of May afternoon, stood
leaning over a rough table the man of the laugh — >
Roger McKay, known as Jolly Roger, outlaw extraor-
dinary, and sought by the men of every Royal North-
west Mounted Police patrol north of the Height of
Land.

34

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 35

It was incongruous and inconceivable to think of
him as an outlaw, as he stood there in the last glow
of the sun — an outlaw with the weirdest and strangest
record in all the northland hung up against his name.
He was not tall, and neither was he short, and he was
as plump as an apple and as rosy as its ripest side.
There was something cherubic in the smoothness and
the fullness of his face, the clear gray of his eyes, the
fine-spun blond of his short-cropped hair, and the
plumpness of his hands and half -bared arms. He was
a priestly, well-fed looking man, was this Jolly Roger,
rotund and convivial in all his proportions, and some
in great error would have called him fat. But it was
a strange kind of fatness, as many a man on the trail
could swear to. And as for sin, or one sign of out-
lav/ry, it could not be found in any mark upon him — ■
unless one closed his eyes to all else and guessed it by
the belt and revolver holster which he wore about his
rotund waist. In every other respect Jolly Roger ap-
peared to be not only a harmless creature, but one espe-
cially designed by the Creator of things to spread cheer
and good-will wherever he went. His age, if he had
seen fit to disclose it, was thirty- four.

There seemed, at first, to be nothing that even a
contented man might laugh at in the cabin, and even
less to bring merriment from one on whose head a
price was set — unless it was the delicious aroma of a
supper just about ready to be served. On a little stove
in the farthest corner of the shack the breasts of two

36 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

spruce partridges were turning golden brown in a
skittle, and from the broken neck of a coffee pot a rich
perfume was rising with the steam. Piping hot in the
open oven half a dozen baked potatoes were waiting
in their crisp brown jackets.

From the table Jolly Roger turned, rubbing his
hands and chuckling as he went for a third time to a
low shelf built against the cabin wall. There he care-
fully raised a mass of old papers from a box, and at
the movement there came a protesting squeak, and a
little brown mouse popped up to the edge of it and
peered at him with a pair of bright little questioning
eyes.

"You little devil!" he exulted. ''You nervy little
devil !'*

He raised the papers higher, and again looked upon
his discovery of half an hour ago. In a soft nest lay
four tiny mice, still naked and blind, and as he lowered
the mass of papers the mother burrowed back to them,
and he could hear her squeaking and chirruping to the
little ones, as if she was trying to tell them not to be
afraid of this man, for she knew him very well, and
it wasn't in his mind to hurt them. And Jolly Roger,
as he returned to the setting of his table, laughed again
— and the laugh rolled out into the golden sunset, and
from the top of a spruce at the edge of the creek a big
blue- jay answered it in a riotous challenge.

But at the bottom of that laugh, if one could have
looked a bit deeper, was something more than the

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 37

naked little mice in the nest of torn-up paper. Today
happiness had strangely come this gay-hearted free-
booter's way, and he might have reached out, and
seized it, and have kept it for his own. But in the
hour of his opportunity he had refused it — ^because he
was an outlaw — because strong within him was a pe-
culiar code of honor all his own. There was nothing
of man-made religion in the soul of Roger McKay.
Nature was his god; its manifestations, its life, and the
air it gave him to breathe were the pages which made
up the Book that guided him. And within the last
hour, since the sun load begun to drop behind the tips
of the tallest trees, these things had told him that he
was a fool for turning away from the one great thing
in all life — simply because his own humors of exist-
ence had made him an outcast and hunted by the laws
of men. So the change had come, and for a space his
soul was filled with the thrill of song and laughter.

Half an hour ago he believed that he had definitely
made up his mind. He had forced himself into for-
get fulness of laws he had broken, and the scarlet-coated
men who were ever on the watch for his trail. They
would never seek him here, in the wilderness country
close to the edge of civilization, and time, he had told
himself in that moment of optimism, would blot out
both his identity and his danger. Tomorrow he would
go over to Cragg's Ridge again, and then —

His mind was crowded with a vision of blue eyes, of
brown curls glowing in the pale sun, of a wistful, wide-

38 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

eyed little face turned up to him, and red lips that said
falteringly, *'I don't think it's wrong for you to kiss
me — if you want to, Mister Jolly Roger!"

Boldly he had talked about it to the bright-eyed little
mother-mouse who peered at him now and then over
the edge of her box.

"You're a httle devil of iniquity yourself," he told
her. ^'You're a regular Mrs. Captain Kidd, and you've
eaten my cheese, and chawed my snowshoe laces, and
robbed me of a sock to make your nest. I ought to
catch you in a trap, or blow your head off. But I don't.
I let you live — ^and have a fam'ly. And it's you who
have given me the Big Idea, Mrs. Captain Kidd. You
sure have! You've told me I've got a right to have a
nest of my own, and I'm going to have it — ^an' in that
nest is going to be the sweetest, prettiest little angel
that God Almighty ever forgot to make into a flower!
Yessir. And if the law comes "

And then, suddenly, the vision clouded, and there
came into Jolly Roger's face the look of a man who
knew — when he stood the truth out naked — that he
was facing a world with his back to the wall.

And now, as the sun went down, and his supper
waited — that cloud which came to blot out his picture
grew deeper and more sinister, and the chill of it en-
tered his heart. He turned from his table to the open
door, and his fingers drew themselves slowly into
clenched fists, and he looked out quietly and steadily
into his world. The darkening depths of the forest
reached out before his eyes, mottled and painted in the

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 39

fading glory of the sun. It was his world, his every-
thing— father, mother, God. In it he was born, and in
it he knew that some day he would die. He loved it,
understood it, and night and day, in sunshine and
storm, its mighty spirit was the spirit that kept him
company. But it held no message for him now. And
his ears scarcely heard the raucous scolding of the
blue- jay in the fire-tipped crest of the tall black spruce.

And then that something which was bigger than
desire came up within him, and forced itself in words
between his grimly set lips.

"She's only a — a kid," he said, a fierce, low note of
defiance in his voice. "And I — Fm a damned pirate,
and there's jails waiting for me, and they'll get me
sooner or later, sure as God lets me live!'*

He turned from the sun to his shadowing cabin, and
for a moment a ghost of a smile played in his face as
he heard the little mother-mouse rustling among her
papers.

"We can't do it," he said. "We simply can't do it,
Mrs. Captain Kidd. She's had hell enough without me
taking her into another. And it'd be that, sooner or
later. It sure would, Mrs. Captain Kidd. But I'm
glad, mighty glad, to think she'd let me kiss her — if I
wanted to. Think of that, Mrs. Captain Kidd! — if I
wanted to. Oh, Lord !"

And the humor of it crept in alongside the tragedy
in Jolly Roger's heart, and he chuckled as he bent over
his partridge breasts.

"If I wanted to," he repeated. "Why, if I had a

40 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

life to give, I'd give it — to kiss her just once! But,
as it happens, Mrs. Captain Kidd "

Jolly Roger's breath cut itself suddenly short, and
for an instant he grew tense as he bent over the stove.
His philosophy had taught him one thing above all
others, that he was a survival of the fittest — only so
long as he survived. And he was always guarding
against the end. His brain was keen, his ears quick,
and every fibre in him trained to its duty of watchful-
ness. And he knew, without turning his head, that
someone was standing in the doorway behind him.
There had come a faint noise, a shadowing of the fad-
ing sun-glow on the wall, the electrical disturbance of
another presence, gazing at him quietly, without mo-
tion, and without sound. After that first telegraphic
shock of warning he stabbed his fork into a partridge
breast, flopped it over, chuckled loudly — and then with
a lightning movement was facing the door, his forty-
four Colt leveled waist-high at the intruder.

Almost in the same movement his gun-arm dropped
limply to his side.

"Well, ril be "

He stared. And the face in the doorway stared
back at him.

"Nada!" he gasped. "Good Lord, I thought — I
thought — " He swallowed as he tried to lie. *T
thought — it might be a bear !"

He did not, at first, see that the slim, calico-dressed
little figure of Jed Hawkins' foster-girl was almost

THE COUNTRY. BEYOND 41

dripping wet. Her blue eyes were shining at him,
wide and startled. Her cheeks were flushed. A strange
look had frozen on her parted red lips, and her hair
was falling loose in a cloud of curling brown tresses
about her shoulders. Jolly Roger, dreaming of her
in his insane happiness of a few minutes ago, sensed
nothing beyond the beauty and the unexpectedness of
her in this first moment. Then — swiftly — he saw
the other thing. The last glow of the sun glistened in
her wet hair, her dress was sodden and clinging, and
little pools of w^ater wxre widening slowly about her
ragged shoes. These things he might have expected,
for she had to cross the creek. But it was the look in
her eyes that startled him, as she stood there with
Peter, the mongrel pup, clasped tightly in her arms.

''Nada, what's happened?" he asked, laying his gun
on the table. "You fell in the creek "

*Tt — it's Peter," she cried, with a sobbing break in
her voice. "We come on Jed Hawkins when he v^^as
diggin' up some of his whiskey, and he was mad, and
pulled my hair, and Peter bit him — and then he picked
up Peter and threw him against a rock — and he's ter-
ribly hurt ! Oh, Mister Jolly Roger "

She held out the pup to him, and Peter whimpered
as Jolly Roger took his wiry little face between his
hands, and then lifted him gently. The girl was sob-
bing, with passionate little catches in her breath, but
there were no tears in her eyes as they turned for an
instant from Peter to the gun on the table.

42 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

«^

If rd had that/' she cried, 'I'd hev killed him!"

Jolly Roger's face was coldly gray as he knelt down
on the floor and bent over Peter.

"He — pulled your hair, you say?"

"I — forgot," she whispered, close at his shoulder.
"I wasn't goin' to tell you that. But it didn't hurt. It
was Peter "

He felt the damp caress of her curls upon his neck
as she bent over him.

"Please tell me, Mister Jolly Roger — is he hurt —
bad?"

With the tenderness of a woman Jolly Roger worked
his fingers over Peter's scrawny little body. And Peter,
whimpering softly, felt the infinite consolation of their
touch. He was no longer afraid of Jed Hawkins, or
of pain, or of death. The soul of a dog is simple in
its measurement of blessings, and to Peter it was a
great happiness to lie here, broken and in pain, with
the face of his beloved mistress over him and Jolly
Roger's hands working to mend his hurt. He whim-
pered when Jolly Roger found the broken place, and
he cried out like a little child when there came the
sudden quick snapping of a bone — ^but even then he
turned his head so that he could thrust out his hot
tongue against the back of his man-friend's hand. And
Jolly Roger, as he worked, was giving instructions to
the girl, who was quick as a bird to bring him cloth
which she tore into bandages, so that at the end of
ten minutes Peter's right hind leg was trussed up so

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 43

tightly that it was as stiff and as useless as a piece of
wood.

"His hip was dislocated and his leg-bone broken,'*
said Jolly Roger when he had finished. *'He is all
right now, and inside of three weeks will be on his
feet again."

He lifted Peter gently, and made him a nest among
the blankets in his bunk. And tjien, still with that
strange, gray look in his face, he turned to Nada.

She was standing partly facing the door, her eyes
straight on him. And Jolly Roger saw in them that
wonderful something which had given his storm-beaten
soul a glimpse of paradise earlier that day. They were
blue, so blue that he had never seen violets like them
— and he knew that in her heart there was no guile
behind which she could hide the secret they were be-
traying. A yearning such as had never before come
into his life urged him to open his arms to her, and he
knew that she would have come into them; but a still
mightier will held them tense and throbbing at his side.
Her cheeks were aflame as she looked at him, and he
told himself that God could not have made a lovelier
thing, as she stood there in her worn dress and her
ragged shoes, with that light of glory in her face, and
her damp hair waving and curling about her in the
last light of the day.

"I knew you'd fix him, Mister — Roger," she whis-
pered, a great pride and faith and worship in the low
thrill of her voice. "I knew it!"

44 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

Something choked Jolly Roger, and he turned to the
stove and began spearing the crisp brawn potatoes on
the end of a fork. And he said, with his back toward
her,

"You came just in time for supper, Nada. We'll
eat — and then I'll go home with you, as far as the
Ridge."

Peter watched them. His pain was gone, and it was
nice and comfortable in Jolly Roger's blanket, and with
his whiskered face on his fore-paws his bright eyes
followed every movement of these two who so com-
pletely made up his world. He heard that sweet little
laugh which came only now and then from Nada's lips,
when for a moment she was happy; he saw her shake
out her hair in the glow of the lamp which Jolly Roger
lighted, and he observed Jolly Roger standing at the
stove — looking at her as she did it — a worship in his
face which changed the instant her eyes turned toward
him. In Peter's active little brain this gave birth to
nothing of definite understanding, except that in it all
he sensed happiness, for — somehow — there was always
that feeling when they were with Jolly Roger, no mat-
ter whether the sun was shining or the day was dark
and filled with gloom. Many times in his short life he
had seen grief and tears in Nada's face, and had seen
her cringe and hide herself at the vile cursing and
witch-like voice of the man and woman back in the
other cabin. But there was nothing like that in Jolly
Roger's company. He had two eyes, and he was not

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 45

always cursing, and he did not pull Nada's hair — and
Peter loved him from the bottom of his soul. And he
knew that his mistress loved him, for she had told him
so, and there was always a different look in her eyes
when she was with Jolly Roger, and it was only then
that she laughed in that glad little way — as she was
laughing now.

Jolly Roger was seated at the table, and Nada stood
behind him, her face flushed joyously at the wonder-
ful privilege of pouring his coffee. And then she sat
d©wn, and Jolly Roger gave her the nicest of the part-
ridge breasts, and tried hard to keep his eyes calm and
quiet as he looked at the adorable sweetness of her
across the table from him. To Nada there was noth-
ing of shame in what lay behind the happiness in the
violet radiance of her eyes. Jolly Roger had brought
to her the only happiness that had ever come into her
life. Next to her God, which Jed Hawkins and his
witch-woman had not destroyed within her, she
thought of this stranger who for three months had
been hiding in Indian Tom's cabin. And, like Peter,
she loved him. The innocence of it lay naked in her
eyes.

'Nada,'' said Jolly Roger. "You're seventeen "

'Goin' on eighteen," she corrected quickly. "I was
seventeen two weeks ago!"

The quick, undefined little note of eagerness in her
voice made his heart thump. He nodded, and smiled.

"Yes, going on eighteen," he said. "And pretty soon

"]

46 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

some young fellow will come along, and see you, and
marry you "

"0-o-o-h-h-h !"

It was a little, strange cry that came to her lips, and
Jolly Roger saw a quick throbbing in her bare throat,
and her eyes were so wide-open and startled as .she
looked at him that he felt, for a moment, as if the
resolution in his soul was giving way.

*'Where are you goin', Mister Roger ?'^

"Me? Oh, I'm not going anywhere — not for a time,
at least. But you — you'll surely be going away with
some one — some day."

"I won't," she denied hotly. *1 hate men! I hate
all but you. Mister Jolly Roger. And if you go
away "

"Yer '^ ^ -

'Yes, if I go away-

I'li kill Jed Hawkins !"

Involuntarily she reached out a slim hand to the big
gun on the corner of the table.

*'ril kill 'im, if you go away," she threatened again.
"He's broken his wife, and crippled her, and if it wasn't
for her I'd have gone long ago. But I've promised,
and I'm goin' to stay — until something happens. And
if you go — now "

At the choking throb in her throat and the sudden
quiver that came to her lips, Jolly Roger jumped up
for the coffee pot, though his cup was still half full.

"I won't go, Nada," he cried, trying to laugh. "I
promise — cross my heart and hope to die ! I won't go
— until you tell me I can."

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 47

And then, feeling that something had almost gone
wrong for a moment, Peter yipped from his nest in the
bunk, and the gladness in Nada's eyes thanked Jolly
Roger for his promise when he came back with the
coffee pot. Standing behind her, he made pretense of
refilling her cup, though she had scarcely touched it,
and all the time his eyes were looking at her beautiful
head, and he saw again the dampness in her hair.

**What happened in the creek, Nada?" he asked.

She told him, and at the mention of his name Peter
drew his bristling little head erect, and waited expec-
tantly. He could see Jolly Roger's face, now staring
and a bit shocked, and then with a quick smile flashing
over it; and when Nada had finished. Jolly Roger
leaned a little toward her in the lamp-glow, and said,

"You've got to promise me something, Nada. If
Jed Hawkins ever hits you again, or pulls your hair,
or even threatens to do it — will you tell me ?"

Nada hesitated.

"If you don't — I'll take back my promise, and won't
stay," he added.

"Then— I'll promise," she said. "If he does it, I'll
tell you. But I ain't — I mean I am not afraid, except
for Peter. Jed Hawkins will sure kill him if I take him
back. Mister Roger. Will you keep him here? And
— o-o-o-h! — if I could only stay, too — "

The words came from her in a frightened breath,
and in an instant a flood of color rushed like fire into
her cheeks. But Jolly Roger turned again to the stove,
and made as if he had not seen the blush or heard her

48 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

last words, so that the shame of her embarrassment
was gone as quickly as it had come.

"Yes, I'll keep Peter," he said over his shoulder.
And in his heart another voice which she could not
hear, was crying, "And I'd give my life if I could keep
you!"

Devouring his bits of partridge breast, Peter
watched Jolly Roger and Nada out of the corner of his
eye as they left the cabin half an hour later. It was
dark when they went, and Jolly Roger closed only the
mosquito-screen, leaving the door wide open, and Peter
could hear their footsteps disappearing slowly into the
deep gloom of the forest. It was a little before moon-
rise, and under the spruce and cedar and thick balsam
the world was like a black pit. It was very still, and
except for the soft tread of their own feet and the
musical ripple of water in the creek there was scarcely
a sound in this first hour of the night. In Jolly Roger
there rose something of exultation, for Nada's warm
little hand lay in his as he guided her through the dark-
ness, and her fingers had clasped themselves tightly
round his thumb. She was very close to him when he
paused to make sure of the unseen trail, so close that
her cheek rested against his arm, and — bending a little
— his lips touched the soft ripples of her hair. But he
could not see her in the gloom, and his heart pounded
fiercely all the way to the ford.

Then he laughed a strange little laugh that was not
at all like Jolly Roger.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 49

"I'll try and not let you get wet again, Nada/' he
said.

Her fingers still held to his thumb, as if she was
afraid of losing him there in the blackness that lay
about them like a great ink-blotch. And she crept
closer to him, saying nothing, and all the power in his
soul fought in Jolly Roger to keep him from putting
his arms about her slim little body and crying out the
worship that was in him.

**I ain't — I mean I'm not afraid of gettin' wet," he
heard her whisper then. "You're so big and strong,
Mister Roger ''

Gently he freed his thumb from her fingers, and
picked her up, and held her high, so that she was
against his breast and above the deepest of the water.
Lightly at first Nada's arms lay about his shoulders,
but as the flood began to rush higher and she felt him
straining against it, her arms tightened, until the clasp
of them was warm and thrilling round Jolly Roger's
neck. She gave a big gasp of relief when he stood her
safely down upon her feet on the other side. And
then again she reached out, and found his hand, and
twined her fingers about his big thumb — and Jolly
Roger went on with her over the plain toward Cragg's
Ridge, dripping wet, just as the rim of the moon be-
gan to rise over tlie edge of the eastern forests.

CHAPTER IV

T T seemed an interminable wait to Peter, back in the
-■- cabin. Jolly Roger had put out the light, and when
the moon came up the glow of it did not come into the
dark room where Peter lay, for the open door was to
the west, and curtains were drawn closely at both win-
dows. But through the door he could see the first
mellowing of the night, and after that the swift com-
ing of a soft, golden radiance which swallowed all
darkness and filled his world with the ghostly shadows
which seemed alive, yet never made a sound. It was a
big, splendid moon this night, and Peter loved the
moon, though he had seen it only a few times in his
three months of life. It fascinated him more than the
sun, for it was always light when the sun came, and he
had never seen the sun eat up darkness, as the moon
did. Its mystery awed him, but did not frighten. He
could not quite understand the strange, still shadows
which were always unreal when he nosed into them,
and it puzzled him why the birds did not fly about in
the moon glow, and sing as they did in the day-time.
And something deep in him, many generations older
than himself, made his blood run faster when this thing
that ate up darkness came creeping through the sky,

50

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 51

and he was filled with a yearning to adventure out into
the strange glow of it, quietly and stealthily, watching
and listening for things he had never seen or heard.

In the gloom of the cabin his eyes remained fixed
steadily upon the open door, and for a long time he
listened only for the returning footsteps of Jolly Roger
and Nada. Twice he made efforts to drag himself to
the edge of the bunk, but the movement sent such a
cutting pain through him that he did not make a third.
And outside, after a time, he heard the Night People
rousing themselves. They were very cautious, these
Night People, for unlike the creatures of the dawn,
waking to greet the sun with song and happiness, most
of them were sharp- fanged and long-clawed — rovers
and pirates of the great wilderness, ready to kill. And
this, too, Peter sensed through the generations of
northland dog that w^as in him. He heard a wolf howl,
coming faintly through the night from miles away,
and something told him. it was not a dog. From nearer
came the call of a moose, and that same sense told him
he had heard a monster bear which his eyes had never
seen. He did not know of the soft-footed, night-eyed
creatures of prey — the fox, the lynx, the fisher-cat, the
mink and the ermine, nor of the round-eyed, feathered
murderers in the tree-tops — yet that same something
told him they were out there among the shadows, under
the luring glow of the moon. And a thing happened,
all at once, to stab the truth home to him. A baby
snowshoe rabbit, a third grown, hopped out into the

52 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

open close to the cabin door, and as it nibbled at the
green grass, a gray catapult of claw and feathers shot
out of the air, and Peter heard the crying agony of
the rabbit as the owl bore it off into the thick spruce
tops. Even then — unafraid — Peter wanted to go out
into the moon glow !

At last, there was an end to his wait. He heard
footsteps, and Jolly Roger came from out of the yellow
moon-mist of the night and stopped in front of the
door. There he stood, making no sound, and looking
into the ^vest, where the sky was ablaze with stars over
the tree-tops. There w^as a glad little yip in Peter's
throat, but he choked it back. Jolly Roger was
strangely quiet, and Peter could not hear Nada, and as
he sniffed, and gulped the lump in his throat, he seemed
to catch the breath of something impending in the air.
Then Jolly Roger came in, and sat down in darkness
near the table, and for a long time Peter kept his eyes
fixed on the shadowy blotch of him there in the gloom,
and listened to his breathing, until he could stand it no
longer, and whined.

The sound stirred Jolly Roger. He got up, struck a
match — and then blew the match out, and came and
sat down beside Peter, and stroked him with his
hand.

*Teter," he said in a low voice, *T guess weVe got
a job on our hands. You began it today — and I've got
to finish it. We're goin' to kill Jed Hawkins!"

Peter snuggled closer.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 53

*'Mebby Fm bad, and mebby the law ought to have
me," Jolly Roger went on in the darkness, "but until
tonight I never made up my mind to kill a man. I'm
ready — now. If Jed Hawkins hurts her again we're
goin' to kill him! Understand, Pied-Botf"

He got up, and Peter could hear him undressing.
Then he made a nest for Peter on the floor, and
stretched himself out in the bunk; and after that, for
a long time, there seemed to be som.ething heavier than
the gloom of night in the cabin for Peter, and he
listened and waited and prayed in his dog way for
Nada's return, and wondered why it was that she left
him so long. And the Night People held high carnival
under the yellow moon, and there was flight and terror
and slaughter in the glow of it — and Jolly Roger slept,
and the wolf howled nearer, and the creek chortled its
incessant song of running water, and in the end Peter's
eyes closed, and a red-eyed ermine peeped over the sill
into the man- and dog-scented stillness of the outlaw's
cabin.

For many days after this first night in the cabin,
Peter did not see Nada. There was more rain, and
the creek flooded higher, so that each time Jolly Roger
went over to Cragg's Ridge he took his life in his
hands in fording the stream. Peter saw no one but
Jolly Roger, and at the end of the second w^eek he was
going about on his mended leg. But there would al-
ways be a limp in his gait, and always his right hind-
foot v/ould leave a peculiar mark in the trail.

54 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

These two weeks of helplessness were an education
in Peter's life and were destined to leave their mark
upon him always. He learned to know Jolly Roger,
not alone from seeing events, but through an intuitive
instinct that grew swiftly somewhere in his shrewd
head. This instinct, given widest scope in these weeks
of helplessness, developed faster than any other in
him, until in the end, he could judge Jolly Roger's
humor by the sound of his approaching footsteps.
Never was there a waking hour in which he was not
fighting to comprehend the mystery of the change that
had come over his life. He knew that Nada was
gone, and each day that passed put her farther away
from him, yet he also sensed the fact that Jolly Roger
went to her, and when the outlaw returned to the
cabin Peter was filled with a yearning hope that Nada
was returning with him.

But gradually Peter came to think less about Nada,
and more about Jolly Roger, until at last his heart
beat with a love for this man which was greater than
all other things in his world. And in these days Jolly
Roger found in Peter's comradeship and growing un-
derstanding a comforting outlet for the things which
at times consumed him. Peter saw it all — hours when
Jolly Roger's voice and laughter filled the cabin with
cheer and happiness, and others when his face was set
in grim lines, with that hard, far-away look in his
eyes that Peter could never quite make out. It was at
such times, when Jolly Roger held a choking grip on

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 55

the love in his heart, that he told Peter things which
he had never revealed to a human soul.

In the dusk of one evening, as he sat wet with the
fording of the creek, he said to Peter,

*'We ought to go, Peter. We ought to pack up —
and go tonight. Because — sometimes I'm afraid of
myself, Pied-Bot. Fd kill for her. I'd die for her.
I'd give up the whole world, and live in a prison cell
— if I could have her with me. And that's dangerous,
Peter, because we can't have her. It's impossible, boy.
She doesn't guess why I'm here. She doesn't know
I've been outlawin' it for years, and that I'm hiding
here because the Police would never think of looking
for Jolly Roger McKay this close to civilization. If
I told her, she would think I was worse than Jed Haw-
kins, and she wouldn't believe me if I told her I've
outlawed with my wits instead of a gun, and that I've
never criminally hurt a person in my life. No, she
wouldn't believe that, Peter. And she — she cares for
me, Pied-Bot. That's the hell of it! And she's got
faith in me, and would go with me to the Missioner's
tomorrow. I know it. I can see it, feel it, and I "

His fingers tightened in the loose hide of Peter's
neck.

'Teter," he v/hispered in the thickening darkness.
'T believe there's a God, but He's a different sort of
God than most people believe in. He lives in the trees
out there, in the flowers, in the birds, the sky, in every-
thing— and I hope that God will strike me dead if I

56 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

do what isn't right with her, Peter ! I do. I hope he
strikes me dead!'*

And that night Peter knew that Jolly Roger tossed
about restlessly in his bunk, and slept but little.

But the next morning he was singing, and the warm
sun flooding over the wilderness was not more cheerful
than his voice as he cooked their breakfast. That, to
Peter, was the most puzzling thing about this man.
With gloom and oppression fastened upon him he
would rise up suddenly, and start whistling or singing,
and once he said to Peter,

"I take my cue from the sun, Peter Clubfoot. It's
always shining, no matter if the clouds are so thick
underneath that we can't see it. A laugh never hurts
a man, unless he's got a frozen lung."

Jolly Roger did not cross the ford that day.

CHAPTER V

T T was In the third week after his hurt that Peter saw
-*■ Nada. By that time he could easily follow Jolly
Roger as far as the fording-place, and there he would
wait, sometimes hours at a stretch, while his com-
rade and master went over to Cragg's Ridge. But fre-
quently Jolly Roger would not cross, but remained with
Peter, and would lie on his back at the edge of a grassy
knoll they had found, reading one of the little old-
fashioned red books which Peter knew were very pre-
cious to him. Often he wondered what was between the
faded red covers that was so interesting, and if he could
have read he would have seen such titles as ** Margaret
of Anjou," "History of Napoleon," "History of Peter
the Great," "Caesar,'' "Columbus the Discoverer," and
so on through the twenty volumes which Jolly Roger
had taken from a wilderness mail two years before, and
which he now prized next to his life.

This afternoon, as they lay in the sleepy quiet of
June, Jolly Roger answered the questioning inquisitive-
ness in Peter's face and eyes.

"You see, Pied-Bot, it was this way," he said, begin-
ning a little apologetically. "I was dying for some-
thing to read, and I figgered there'd be something on

57

58 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

the Mail — newspapers, you know. So I stopped it,
and tied up the driver, and found these. And I swear
I didn't take anything else — that time. There's twenty
of them, and they weigh nine pounds, and in the last
two years I've toted them five thousand miles. I
wouldn't trade them for my weight in gold, and I'm
pretty heavy. I named you after one of them — Peter.
I pretty near called you Christopher Columbus. And
some day we've got to take these books to the man they
were going to, Peter. I've promised myself that. It
seems sort of like stealing the soul out of someone. I
just borrowed them, that's all. And I've kept the address
of the owner, away up on the edge of the Barrens.
Some day weVe going to make a special trip to take
the books home."

Peter, all at once, had become interested in something
else, and following the direction of his pointed nose
Jolly Roger saw Nada standing quietly on the opposite
side of the stream, looking at them. In a moment
Peter knew her, and he was trembling in every muscle
when Jolly Roger caught him up under his arm, and
with a happy laugh plunged through the creek with
him. For a good five minutes after that Jolly Roger
stood aside watching Peter and Nada, and there was
a glisten of dampness in his eyes when he saw the wet
on Nada's cheeks, and the whimpering joy of Peter as
he caressed her face and hands. Three weeks had been
a long time to Peter, but he could see no difference in
the little mistress he worshipped. There were still the

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 59

radiant curls to hide his nose in, the gentle hands, the
sweet voice, the warm thrill of her body as she hugged
him in her arms. He did not know that she had new
shoes and a new dress, and that some of the color had
gone from her red lips, and that her cheeks were paler,
and that she could no longer hide the old haunted look
in her eyes.

But Jolly Roger saw the look, and the growing pallor,
and had noted them for two weeks past. And later
that afternoon, when Nada returned to Cragg's Ridge,
and he re-crossed the stream with Peter, there was a
hard and terrible look in his eyes which Peter had
caught there more and more frequently of late. And
that evening, in the twilight of their cabin, Jolly Roger
said,

"It's coming soon, Peter. I'm expecting it. Some-
thing is happening which she w^on't tell us about. She
is afraid for me. I know it. But I'm going to find out
— soon. And then, Pied-Bot, I think we'll probably kill
Ted Hawkins, and hit for the North."

The gloom of foreboding that Vv^as in Jolly Roger's
voice and words seemed to settle over the cabin for
many days after that, and more than ever Peter sensed
the thrill and warning of that mysterious something
which was impending. He was developing swiftly, in
flesh and bone and instinct, and there began to possess
him now the beginning of that subtle caution and
shrewdness w^hich were to mean so much to him later
on. An instinct greater than reason, if it was not rea-

6o THE COUNTRY BEYOND

son itself, told him that his master was constantly
watching for something which did not come. And that
same instinct, or reason, impinged upon him the fact
that it was a thing to be guarded against. He did not
go blindly into the mystery of things now. He cir-
cumvented them, and came up from behind. Craft and
cunning replaced mere curiosity and puppyish egoism.
He was quick to learn, and Jolly Roger's word became
his law, so that only once or twice was he told a thing,
and it became a part of his understanding. While the
keen, shrewd brain of his Airedale father developed
inside Peter's head, the flesh and blood development of
his big, gentle, soft-footed Mackenzie hound mother
kept pace in his body. His legs and feet began to lose
their grotesqueness. Flesh began to cover the knots
in his tail. His head, bristling fiercely with wiry whis-
kers, seemed to pause for a space to give his lanky
body a chance to catch up with it. And in spite of his
big feet, so clumsy that a few weeks ago they had
stumbled over every^thing in his way, he could now
travel v/ithout making a sound.

So it came to pass, after a time, that when Peter
heard footsteps approaching the cabin he made no
effort to reveal himself until he knew it was Jolly Roger
who was coming. And this was strangely in spite of
the fact that in the five weeks since Nada had brought
him from Cragg's Ridge no one but Jolly Roger and
Nada had set foot within sight of the shack. It was an
inborn caution, growing stronger in him each day.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 6i

There came one early evening when Peter made a dis-
covery. He had returned with Jolly Roger from a fish-
ing trip farther dov;n the creek, and scarcely had he
set nose to the little clearing about the cabin when he
caught the presence of a strange scent. He investigated
it swiftly, and found it all about the cabin, and very
strong close up against the cabin door. There were
no doubts in Peter's mind. A man had been there, and
this man had gone around and around the cabin, and
had opened the door, and had even gone inside, for
Peter found the scent of him on the floor. He tried, in
a way, to tell Jolly Roger. He bristled, and whined,
and looked searchingly into the darkening edge of the
forest. Jolly Roger quested with him for a few mo-
ments, and -when he failed to find marks in the ground
he began cleaning a fish for supper, and said.

*Trobably a wolverine, Pied-Bot. The rascal came
to see what he could find while we were away."

But Peter was not satisfied. He Vvas restless all that
nig-ht. Sounds which had been familiar now held a
new significance for him. The next day he was filled
with a quiet but brooding expectancy. He resented
the intrustion of the strange footprints. It was, in his
process of instinctive reasoning, an encroachment upon
the property rights of his master, and he was — true to
the law of his species — the guardian of those rights.

The fourth evening after the stranger's visit to the
cabin Jolly Roger was later than usual in returning
from Cragg's Ridge. Peter had been on a hunting

62 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

adventure of his own, and came to the cabin at sunset.
But he never came out of cover now without standing
quietly for a few moments, getting the wind, and listen-
ing. And tonight, poking his head between some bal-
sams twenty yards from the shack, he was treated to
a sudden thrill. The cabin door was open. And stand-
ing close to this door, looking quietly and cautiously
about, stood a stranger. He was not like Jed Hawkins,
•was Peter's first impression. He was tall, with a wide-
brimmed hat, and wore boots with striped trousers
tucked into them, and on his coat were bits of metal
which caught the last gleams of the sun. Peter knew
nothing of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. But
he sensed danger, and he remained very quiet, without
moving a muscle of his head or body, while the stranger
looked about, with a hand on his unbuttoned pistol
holster. Not until he entered the cabin, and closed the
door after him, did Peter move back into the deeper
gloom of the forest. And then, silent as a fox, he
skulked through cover to the foot-trail, and down the
trail to the ford, across which Jolly Roger would come
from Cragg's Ridge.

There was still half an hour of daylight when Jolly
Roger arrived. Peter did not, as usual, run to the edge
of the bank to meet him. He remained sitting stolidly
on his haunches, with his ears flattened, and in his
whole attitude no sign of gladness at his master's com-
ing. With every instinct of caution developed to the
highest degree within him. Jolly Roger was lightning

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 6z

quick to observe the significance of small things. He
spoke to Peter, caressed him with his hand, and moved
on along the foot-trail toward the cabin. Peter fell in
behind him moodily, and after a few moments stopped,
and squatted on his haunches again. Jolly Roger was
puzzled.

"What is it, Peter?" he asked. "Are you afraid of
that wolverine "

Peter whined softly; but even as he whined, his
ears were flat, and his eyes filled with a red light as
they glared down the trail beyond the outlaw. Jolly
Roger turned and went on, until he disappeared around
a twist in the path. There he stopped, and peered back.
Peter was not following him, but still sat where he had
left him. A quicker breath came to Jolly Roger's lips,
and he went back to Peter. For fully a minute he
stood beside him, watching and listening, and not once
did the reddish glare in Peter's eyes leave the direction
of the cabin. Jolly Roger's eyes had grown very bright,
and suddenly he dropped on his knees beside Peter, and
spoke softly, close up to his flattened ear.

"You say it isn't a wolverine, Peter? Is that what
you're trying to tell me?"

Peter's teeth clicked, and he whimpered, never taking
his eves from ahead.

There was a cold light in Jolly Roger's eyes as he
rose to his feet, and he turned swiftly and quietly into
the edge of the forest, and in the gloom that was gath-
ering there his hand carried the big automatic. Peter

64 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

followed him now, and Jolly Roger swung in a wide
circle, so that they came up on that forest side of the
cabin where there was no window. And here Jolly
Roger knelt down beside Peter again, and whispered
to him.

"You stay here, Pied-Bot. Understand? You stay
here.''

He pressed him down gently with his hand, so that
Peter understood. Then, slinking low, and swift as
a cat. Jolly Roger ran to the end of the cabin where
there was no window. With his head close to the
ground he peered out cautiously at the door. It w^as
closed. Then he looked at the windows. To the west
the curtains were up, as he had left them. And to
the east

A whimsical smile played at the corners of his mouth.
Those curtains he had kept tightly drawn. One of
them was down now. But the other was raised two
inches, so that one hidden within the cabin could watch
the approach from the trail!

He drew back, and under his breath he chuckled. He
recognized the sheer nerve of the thing, the clever handi-
work of it. Someone was inside the cabin, and he was
ready to stake his life it was Cassidy, the Irish blood-
hound of **M" Division. If anyone ferreted him out
way down here on the edge of civilization he had
gambled with himself that it would be Cassidy. And
Cassidy had come — Cassidy, who had hung like a wolf
to his trails for three years, who had chased him across

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 65

the Barren Lands, who had followed him up the Mac-
kenzie, and back again — ^who had fought with him, and
starved with him, and froze with him, yet had never
brought him to prison. Deep down in his heart Jolly
Roger loved Cassidy. They had played, and were still
playing, a thrilling game, and to win that game had
become the life's ambition of each. And now Cassidy
was in there, confident that at last he had his man, and
waiting for him to step into the trap.

To Jolly Roger, in the face of its possible tragedy,
there was a deep-seated humor in the situation. Three
times in the last year and a half had he turned the tables
on Cassid}^, leaving him floundering in the cleverly
woven webs which the man-hunter had placed for his
victim. This was the fourth time. And Cassidy would
be tremendously upset !

Praying that Peter would remain quiet. Jolly Roger
took off his shoes. After that he made no more sound
than a ferret as he crept to the door. An inch at a time
he raised himself, until he was standing up, with his ear
half an inch from the crack that ran lengthwise of the
frame. Holding his breath, he listened. For an inter-
minable time, it seemed to him, there was no sound
from within. He guessed what Cassidy was doing —
peering through that slit of window under the curtain.
But he was not absolutely sure. And he knew the
necessity of making no error, with Cassidy in there,
gripping the butt of his gun.

Suddenly he heard a movement. A man's steps, sub-

66 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

dued and yet distinct, were moving from the window
toward the door. Half way they paused, and turned
to one of the windows looking westward. But it was
evident the watcher was not expecting his game from
that direction, for after a moment's silence he returned
to the window through w^hich he could see the trail.
This time Jolly Roger w^as sure. Cassidy was again
peering through the window, with his back toward him,
and every muscle in the forest rover's body gathered
for instant action. In another moment he had flung
open the door, and the watcher at the window whirled
about to find himself looking straight into the muzzle
of Jolly Roger's gun.

For several minutes after that last swift movement
of Jolly Roger's, Peter lay where his master had left
him, his eyes fairly popping from his head in his eager-
ness to see what v/as happening. He heard voices, and
then the wild thrill of Jolly Roger's laughter, and re-
straining himself no longer he trotted cautiously to the
open door of the cabin. In a chair sat the stranger with
the broad-brimmed hat and high boots, with his hands
securely tied behind him. And Jolly Roger was hust-
ling about, filling a shoulder-pack in the last light of
the day.

**Cassidy, I oughta kill you," Jolly Roger was saying
as he worked, an exultant chuckle in his voice. "You
don't give me any peace. No matter where I go you're
sure to come, and I can't remember that I ever invited
you. I oughta put you out of the way, and plant flowers

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 67

over you, now that I've got the chance. But I'm too
chicken-hearted. Besides, I like you. By the time
you get tired of chasing me you should be a pretty good
man-hunter. But just now you lack finesse, Cassidy —
you lack finesse." And Jolly Roger's chuckle broke
into another laugh.

Cassidy heaved out a grunt.

'It's luck — just damned luck!" he growled.

If it is, I hope it keeps up," said Jolly Roger. "Ncnv,
look here, Cassidy! Let's make a man's bet of it. If
you don't get me next time — if you fail, and I turn the
trick on you once more — will you quit?"

Cassidy's eyes gleamed in the thickening dusk.

"If I don't get you next time — I'll hand in my resig-
nation !"

The laughter went out of Jolly Roger's voice.

"I believe you, Cassidy. You've played square —
always. And now — if I free your hands — will you
swear to give me a two hours' start before you leave
this cabin?"

*'ril give you the start," said Cassidy.

His lean face was growing indistinct in the gloom.

Jolly Roger came up behind him. There was the
slash of a knife. Then he picked up his shoulder-
pack. At the door he paused.

"Look at your watch when I'm gone, Cassidy, and
be sure you make it a full two hours.'*

"I'll make it two hours and five minutes," said Cas-
sidy. "Hittin' north are you. Jolly Roger ?'*

58 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

*'Vm hittin' — ^bushward," replied the outlaw. 'Tm
going where it's plenty thick and hard to travel, Cas-
sidy. Goodby- "

He was gone. He hit straight north, making noise
as he went, but once in the timber he swung southward,
and plunged through the creek with Peter under his
arm. Not until they had traveled a good half mile
over the plain did Jolly Roger speak. Then he said,
speaking directly at Peter,

"Cassidy thinks I'll sure hit for the North country
again, Pied-Bot. But we're foolin' him. I've sort of
planned on something like this happening, and right
now we're hittin' for the tail-end of Cragg's Ridge
where there's a mess of rock that the devil himself can
hardly get into. We've got to do it, boy. We can't
leave the girl — just now. We can't leave — her '*

Jolly Roger's voice choked. Then he paused for a
moment, and bent over to put his hand on Peter.

*Tf it hadn't been for you, Peter — Cassidy would
have got me — sure. And I'm wondering, Peter — I'm
v^^ondering — why did God forget to give a dog speech ?"

Peter whined in answer, and through the darkness of
the night they went on together.

CHAPTER VI

A FROSTY mist dulled the light of the stars, but
•^ ^ this cleared away as Jolly Roger and Peter crossed
the plain between the creek and.Cragg's Ridge.

They did not hurry, for McKay had faith in Cas-
sidy's word. He knew the red-headed man-hunter
would not break his promise — he would wait the full
two hours in Indian Tom's cabin, and another five min-
utes after that. In Jolly Roger, as the minutes passed,
exultation at his achievement died away, and there
filled him again the old loneliness — the loneliness which
called out against the fate which had made of Cassidy
an enemy instead of a friend. And yet — what an
enemy !

He reached down, and touched Peter's bushy head
with his hand.

''Why didn't the Law give another man the assign-
ment to run us down," he protested. ''Someone we
could have hated, and who would have hated us ! Why
did they send Cassidy — the fairest and squarest man
that ever wore red? We can't do him a dirty turn — '
we can't hurt him, Pied-Bot, even at the worst. And if
ever he takes us in to Headquarters, and looks at us

through the bars, I feel it's going to be like a knife in

69

70 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

his heart. But he'll do it, Peter, if he can. If s his
job. And he's honest. We've got to say that of Cas-
sidy."

The Ridge loomed up at the edge of the level plain,
and for a few moments Jolly Roger paused, while he
looked off through the eastward gloom. A mile in that
direction, beyond the cleft that ran like a great furrow
through the Ridge, was Jed Hawkins' cabin, still and
dark under the faint glow of the stars. And in that
cabin was Nada. He felt that she was sitting at her
little window, looking out into the night, thinking of
him — and a great desire gripped at his heart, tugging
him in its direction. But he turned toward the west.

"We can't let her know what has happened, boy," he
said, feeling the urge of caution. "For a little while
we must let her think we have left the country. If
Cassidy sees her, and talks with her, something in those
blue-flower eyes of hers might give us away if she knew
we were hiding up among the rocks of the Stew-Kettle.
But I'm hopin' God A'mighty won't let her see Cas-
sidy. And I'm thinking He won't, Pied-Bot, because
I've a pretty good hunch He wants us to settle with Jed
Hawkins before we go."

It w^as a habit of his years of aloneness, this talking
to a creature that could make no answer. But even in
the darkness he sensed the understanding of Peter.

Rocks grew thicker and heavier under their feet, and
they went more slowly, and occasionally stumbled in
the gloom. But, after a fashion, they knew their way

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 71

even in darkness. More than once Peter had wondered
why his master had so carefully explored this useless
mass of upheaved rock at the end of Cragg's Ridge.
They had never seen an animal or a blade of grass in
all its gray, sun-blasted sterility. It was like a hostile
thing, overhung v/ith a half-dead, slow-beating some-
thing that was like the dying pulse of an evil thing.
And now darkness added to its mystery and its un-
friendliness as Peter nosed close at his master's heels.
Up and up they picked their way, over and between
ragged upheavals of rock, twisting into this broken
path and that, feeling their w^ay, partly sensing it, and
always ascending toward the stars. Roger McKay did
not speak again to Peter. Each time he came out
where the sky was clear he looked toward the solitary
dark pinnacle, far up and ahead, strangely resembling a
giant tombstone in the star-glow, that was their guide.
And after many minutes of strange climbing, in which
it seemed to Jolly Roger the nail-heads in the soles of
his boots made weirdly loud noises on the rocks, they
came near to the top.

There they stopped, and in a deeply shadowed place
where there was a carpet of soft sand, with walls of
rock close on either side. Jolly Roger spread out his
blankets. Then he went out from the black shadow,
so that a million stars seemed not far away over their
heads. Here he sat down, and began to smoke, think-
ing of what tomorrow would hold for him, and of the
many days destined to follow that tomorrow. Nowhere

y2 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

in the world was there to be — for him — the peace of an
absolute certainty. Not until he felt the cold steel of
iron bars with his two hands, and the fatal game had
been played to the end.

There was no corrosive bitterness of the vengeful
in Jolly Roger's heart. For that reason even his ene-
mies, the Police, had fallen into the habit of using
the nickname which the wilderness people had given
him. He did not hate these police. Curiously, he loved
them. Their type was to him the living flesh and blood
of the finest manhood since the Crusaders. And he did
not hate the law. At times the Law, as personified in
all of its unswerving majesty, amused him. It was
so terribly serious over such trivial things — like him-
self, for instance. It could not seem to sleep or rest
until a man was hanged, or snugly put behind hard
steel, no matter how well that man loved his human-
kind— and the world. And Jolly Roger loved both.
In his heart he believed he had not committed a crime
by achieving justice where otherwise there would have
been no justice. Yet outwardly he cursed himself for
a lawbreaker. And he loved life. He loved the stars
silently glowing down at him tonight. He loved even
the gray, lifeless rock, which recalled to his imagina-
tive genius the terrific and interesting life that had
once existed — he loved the ghostly majesty of the
grave-like pinnacle that rose above him, and beyond
that he loved all the world.

But most of all, more than his own life or all that
a thousand lives might hold for him, he loved the violet-

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 73'

eyed girl who had come into his life from the desola-
tion and unhappiness of Jed Hawkins' cabin.

Forgetting the law, forgetting all but her, he went
at last into the dungeon-like gloom between the rocks,
and after Peter had wallowed himself a bed in the car-
pet of sand they fell asleep.

They awoke with the dawn. But for three days
thereafter they went forth only at night, and for three
days did not show themselves above the barricade of
rocks. The Stew-Kettle was what Jolly Roger had
called it, and when the sun was straight above, or de-
scending with the last half of the day, the name fitted.

It was a hot place, so hot that at a distance its piled-
up masses of white rock seemed to simmer and broil
in the blazing heat of the July stin. Neither man nor
beast would look into the heart of it. Jolly Roger had
assured Peter, unless the one was half-witted and the
other a fool. Looking at it from the meadowy green
plain that lay between the Ridge and the forest their
temporary retreat was anything but a temptation to the
eye. Something had happened there a few thousand
centuries before, and in a moment of evident spleen
and vexation the earth had vomited up that pile of
rock debris, and Jolly Roger good humoredly told
himself and Peter that it was an act of Providence
especially intended for them, though planned and
erupted some years before they were born.

The third afternoon of their hiding. Jolly Roger
decided upon action.

This afternoon all of the caloric guns of an un-

74 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

clouded sun had seemed to concentrate themselves on
the gigantic rock-pile. Though it was now almost sun-
set, a swirling and dizzying incandescence still hovered
about it. The huge masses of stone were like baked
things to the touch of hand and foot, and one breathed
a smoldering air in between their gray and white walls.

Thus forbidding looked the Stew-Kettle, when
viewed from the plain. But from the top-most crag
of the mass, which rose a hundred feet high at the
end of the Ridge, one might find his reward for a blis-
tering climb. On all sides, a paradise of green and
yellow and gold, stretched the vast wilderness, studded
with shimmering lakes that gleamed here and there
from out of their rich dark frames of spruce and cedar
and balsam. And half way between the edge of the
plain and this highest pinnacle of rock, utterly hidden
from the eyes of both man and beast, nestled the hiding
place which Jolly Roger and Peter had found.

It was a cool and cavernous spot, in spite of the
Sahara-like heat of the great pile. In the very heart
of it two gigantic masses of rock had put their shoul-
ders together, like Gog and Magog, so that under their
ten thousand tons of weight was a crypt-like tunnel as
high as a man's head, into which the light and the glare
of the sun never came.

Peter, now that he had grown accustomed to the
deadness of it, liked this change from Indian Tom's
cabin. He liked his wallow of soft sand during the
day, and he liked still more the aloneness and the aloof-

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 75

ness of their ramparted stronghold when the cool of
evening came. He did not, of course, understand just
what their escape from Cassidy had meant, but instinct
was shrewdly at w^ork within him, and no wolf could
have guarded the place more carefully than he. And he
had all creation in mind when he guarded the rock-pile.

All but Nada. Many times he whimpered for her,
just as the great call for her was in Jolly Roger's own
heart. xA.nd on this third afternoon, as the hot July
sun dipped half way to the western forests, both Peter
and his master were looking yearningly, and with the
same thought, toward the east, where over the back-
bone of Cragg's Ridge Jed Hawkins' cabin lay.

*'We*ll let her know tonight," Roger McKay said
at last, with something very slow and deliberate in his
voice. **We'll take the chance — and let her know.''

Peters bristling Airedale whiskers, standing out like
a bunch of broom splints about his face, quivered sym-
pathetically, and he thumped his tail in the sand. He
was an artful hypocrite, was Peter, because he always
looked as if he understood, whether he did or not.
And Jolly Roger, staring at the gray rock-backs out-
side their tunnel door, went on.

**We must play square with her, Pied-Bot, and it's a
crime worse than murder not to let her know the truth.
If she wasn't a kid, Peter! But she's that — just a kid
— the sweetest, purest thing God A'mighty ever made,
and it isn't fair to live this lie any longer, no matter
how we love her. And we do love her, Peter."

j(> THE COUNTRY BEYOND

Peter lay very quiet, watching the strange gray look
that had settled in Jolly Roger's face.

"I've got to tell her that I'm a damned highway-
man," he added, in a moment. "And she won't under-
stand, Peter. She can't. But I'm going to do it. I'm
going to tell her — today. And ''then — I think we'll be
hittin' north pretty soon, Pied-Bot. If it wasn't for
Jed Hawkins "

He rose up out of the sand, his hands clenched.

"We ought to kill Jed Hawkins before we go. It
would be safer for her," he iinished.

He went out, forgetting Peter, and climbed a rock-
splintered path until he stood on the knob of a mighty
boulder, looking ofi into the northern wilderness. Off
there, a hundred, five hundred, a thousand miles — was
home. It w^as all his home, from Hudson's Bay to the
Rockies, from the Height of Land to the Arctic plains,
and in it he had lived the thrill of life according to his
own peculiar code. He knew that he had loved life as
few had ever loved it. He had worshipped the sun and
the moon and the stars. The world had been a glorious
place in which to live, in spite of its ceaseless peril for
him.

But there was nothing of cheer left in his heart now
as he stood in the blaze of the setting sun. Paradise
had come to him for a little while, and because of it he
had lived a lie. He had not told Jed Hawkins' foster-
girl that he was an outlaw, and that he had come to
the edge of civilization because he thought it was the

THE COUNTRY BEYOND yy

last place the Royal Mounted would look for him.
When he went to her this evening it would probably
be for the last time. He would tell her the truth. He
would tell her the police were after him from one end
of the Canadian northland to the other. And that
same night, with Peter, he would hit the trail for the
Barren Lands, a thousand miles away. He was sure
of himself now — sure — even as the dark wall of the
forest across the plain faded out, and gave place to a
pale, girlish face with eyes blue as flowers, and brown
curls filled with the lustre of the sun — a face that had
taken the place of mother, sister and God deep down
in his soul. Yes, he was sure of himself — even with
that face rising to give battle to his last great test of
honor. He was an outlaw, and the police wanted him,
but

Peter was troubled by the grimness that settled in
his master's face. They waited for dusk, and when
deep shadows had gathered in the valley j\IcKay led
the way out of the rock-pile.

An hour later they came cautiously through the dark-
ness that lay between the broken shoulders of Cragg's
Ridge. There was a light in the cabin, but Nada's
window was dark. Peter crouched down under the
warning pressure of McKay's hand.

*T'll go on alone," he said. "You stay here."

It seemed a long time that he waited in the dark-
ness. He could not hear the low tap, tap, tap of his
master's fingers against the glass of Nada's darkened

78 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

window. And Jolly Roger, in response to that signal-
tapping, heard nothing from within, except a monotone
of voice that came from the outer room. For half an
hour he waited, repeating the signals at intervals. At
last a door opened, and Nada stood silhouetted against
the light of the room beyond.

McKay tapped again, very lightly, and the door
closed quickly behind the girl. In a moment she was
at the window, which was raised a little from the bot-
tom.

''Mister — Roger — " she whispered. "Is it — youf

"Yes," he said, finding a little hand in the darkness.
It s me.

The hand was cold, and its fingers clung tightly to
his, as if the girl was frightened. Peter, restless with
waiting, had come up quietly in the dark, and he heard
the low, trembling whisper of Nada's voice at the
window. There was something in the note of it, and
in the caution of Jolly Roger's reply, that held him
stifif and attentive, his ears wide-open for approaching
sound. For several minutes he stood thus, and then
the whispering voices at the window ceased and he
heard his master retreating very quietly through the
night. When Jolly Roger spoke to him, back under
the broken shoulder of the ridge, he did not know
that Peter had stood near the window.

McKay stood looking back at the pale glow of light
in the cabin.

"Something happened there tonight — something she

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 79

wouldn't tell me about," he said, speaking half to Peter
and half to himself. *'I could feel it. I wish I could
have seen her face."

He set out over the plain; and then, as if remember-
ing that he must explain the matter to Peter, he said :

"She can't get out tonight, Pied-Bot, but she'll come
to us in the jackpines tomorrow afternoon. We'll
have to wait."

He tried to say the thing cheerfully, but between
this night and tomorrow afternoon seemed an inter-
minable time, now that he was determined to make a
clean breast of his affairs to Nada, and leave the coun-
try. Most of that night he walked in the coolness of the
moonlit plain, and for a long time he sat amid the
flower-scented shadows of the try sting-place in the
heart of the jackpine clump, where Nada had a hidden
place all her own. It was here that Peter discovered
something which Jolly Roger could not see in the
deep shadows, a bundle warm and soft and sweet with
the presence of Nada herself. It was hidden under a
clump of young banksians, very carefully hidden, and
tucked about with grass and evergreen boughs. When
McKay left the jackpines he wondered why it was
that Peter showed no inclination to follow him until
he was urged.

They did not return to the Stew-Kettle until dawn,
and most of that day Jolly Roger spent in sleep be-
tween the two big rocks. It was late afternoon when
they made their last meal. In this farewell hour

8o THE COUNTRY BEYOND

McKay climbed up close to the pinnacle, where he
smoked his pipe and measured the shadows of the
declining sun until it was time to leave for the jack-
pines.

Retracing his steps to the hiding place under Gog
and j\Iagog he looked for Peter. But Peter's sand-
wallow was empty, and Peter was gone.

CHAPTER VII

PETER was on his way to the mystery of' the
bundle he had found in the jackpines.

At the foot of the ridge, where the green plain
fought with the blighting edge of the Stew-Kettle,
he stood for many minutes before he started east-
ward. With keen eyes gleaming behind his mop of
scraggly face-bristles he critically surveyed both land
and air, and then, with the slight limp in his gait which
would always remain as a mark of Jed Hawkins'
brutality, he trotted dehberately in the direction of
the whiskey-runner's cabin home.

A bitter memory of Jed Hawkins flattened his ears

when he came near the rock-cluttered coulee in which

he had fought for Nada, and had suffered his broken

bones, and today — even as he obeyed the instinctive

caution to stop and listen — Jed Hawkins himself came

out of the mouth of the coulee, bearing a brown jug

in one hand and a thick cudgel in the other. His one

wicked eye gleamed in the waning sun. His lean and

scraggly face was alight with a sinister exultation as

he paused for a moment close to the rock behind which

Peter was hidden, and Peter's fangs lay bare and his

body trembled while the man stood there. Then he

8i

82 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

moved on, and Peter did not stir, but waited until
the jug and the cudgel and the man were out of
sight.

Low under his breath he was snarling when he went
on. Hatred, for a moment, had flamed hot in his
soul. Then he turned, and buried himself in a clump
of balsams that reached out into the plain, and a few
moments later came to the edge of a tiny meadow in
the heart of them, where a warbler was bursting its
throat in evening-song.

Around the edge of the meadow Peter circled, his
feet deep in buttercups and red fire-flowers, and crush-
ing softly ripe strawberries that grew in scarlet pro-
fusion in the open, until he came to a screen of young
jackpines, and through these he quietly and apologeti-
cally nosed his way. Then he stood wagging his tail,
with Nada sitting on the grass half a dozen steps from
him, wiping the strawberry stain from her finger-tips.
And the stain was on her red lips, and a bit of it
against the flush of her cheek, as she gave a little
cry of gladness and greeting to Peter. Her eyes
flashed beyond him, and every drop of blood in her
slim, beautiful little body seemed to be throbbing with
an excitement new to Peter as she looked for Jolly
Roger.

Peter went to her, and dropped down, with his head
in her lap, and looking up through his bushy eye-brows
he saw a livid bruise just under the ripples of her brown
hair, where there had been no mark yesterday, or the

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 83

day before. Nada's hands drew him closer, until he
was half in her lap, and she bent her face down to
him, so that her thick, shining hair fell all about him.
Peter loved her hair, almost as much as Jolly Roger
loved it, and he closed his eyes and drew a deep breath
of content as the smothering sweetness of it shut out
the sunlight from him.

'Teter," she whispered, "I'm almost scared to have
him come today. I've promised him. You remember
— I promised to tell him if Jed Hawkins struck me
again. And he has! He made that mark, and if
Jolly Roger kno^vs it he'll kill him. I've got to lie-
lie "

Peter wriggled, to show his interest, and his hard
tail thumped the ground. For a space Nada said
nothing more, and he could hear and feel the beating
of her heart close down against him. Then she raised
her head, and looked in the direction from which
she would first hear Jolly Roger as he came through
the young jackpines. Peter, with his eyes half closed
in a vast contentment, did not see or sense the change
in her today — that her blue eyes were brighter, her
cheeks flushed, and in her body a strange and sub-
dued throbbing that had never been there before. Not
even to Peter did she whisper her secret, but waited and
listened for Jolly Roger, and when at last she heard
him and he came through the screen of jackpines, the
color in her cheeks was like the stain of strawberries
crimsoning her finger-tips. In an instant, looking down

84 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

upon her, Jolly Roger saw what Peter had not dis-
covered, and he stopped in his tracks, his heart thump-
ing like a hammer inside him. Never, even in his
dreams, had the girl looked lovelier than she did now,
and never had her eyes met his eyes as they met them
today, and never had her red lips said as m.uch to him,
without uttering a word. In the same instant he saw
the livid bruise, half hidden under her hair — and then
he saw a big bundle behind her, partly screened by a
dwarfed banksian. After that his eyes went back to
the bruise.

'7ed Hawkins didn't do it," said Nada, knowing
what was in his mind. ''It was Jed's woman. And
you can't kill her!" she added a little defiantly.

Jolly Roger caught the choking throb in her throat,
and he knew she was lying. But Nada thrust Peter
from her lap, and stood up, and she seemed taller and
more like a woman than ever before in her life as she
faced Jolly Roger there in the tiny open, with violets
and buttercups and red strawberries in the soft grass
under their feet. And behind them, and very near, a
rival to the warbler in the meadow began singing.
But Nada did not hear. The color had rushed hot
into her cheeks at first, but now it was fading out as
swiftly, and her hands trembled, clasped in front of her.
But the blue in her eyes was as steady as the blue in the
sky as she looked at Jolly Roger.

'Tm not going back to Jed Hawkins* any more,
Mister Roger," she said.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 85

A soft breath of wind lifted the tress of hair from
her forehead, reveaHng more clearly the mark of Jed
Hawkins' brutality, and Nada saw gathering in Jolly
Roger's eyes that cold, steely glitter which alw^ays
frightened her when it cam.e. His hands clenched,
and when she reached out and touched his arm the flesh
of it was as hard as white birch. Even in her fear
there was glory in the thought that at a word from
her he would kill the man who had struck her. Her
fingers crept up his arm, timidly, and the blue in
her eyes darkened, and there was a pleading tremble
in the curve of her lips as she looked straight at him.

"I'm not going back," she repeated.

Jolly Roger, looking beyond her, saw the significance
of the bundle. His eyes met her steady gaze again, and
his heart seemed to swell in his chest, and choke him.
He tried to let his tense muscles relax. He tried to
smile. He struggled to bring up the courage w'hich
would make possible the confession he had to make.
And Peter, sitting on his haunches in a patch of
violets, watched them both, wondering what was going
to happen between these two.

''Where are you going?" Jolly Roger asked.

Nada's fingers had crept almost to his shoulder.
They w^ere twisting at his flannel shirt nervously, but
not for the tenth part of a second did she drop her
eyes, and that strange, v/onderful something which he
saw looking at him so clearly out of her soul brought
the truth to Jolly Roger, before she had spoken.

86 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

"I'm goin' with you and Peter.'*

The low cry that came from Jolly Roger was almost
a sob as he stepped back from her. He looked away
from her— at Peter. But her pale face, her parted
red lips, her wide-open, wonderful eyes, her radiant
hair stirred by the wind — came between them. She
was no longer the little girl — "past seventeen, goin' on
eighteen." To Jolly Roger she was all that the world
held of glorious womanhood.

"But — you can't !" he cried desperately. "Fve come
to tell you things, Nada. I'm not fit. I'm not what
you think I am. I've been livin' a lie "

He hesitated, and then lashed himself on to the
truth.

"You'll hate me when I tell you, Nada. You think
Jed Hawkins is bad. But the law thinks I'm worse.
The police want me. They've wanted me for years.
That's why I came down here, and hid over in Indian
Tom's cabin — near where I first met you. I thought
they wouldn't find me away down here, but they did.
That's why Peter and I moved over to the big rock-
pile at the end of the Ridge. I'm — an outlaw. I've
done a lot of bad things — in the eyes of the law, and
I'll probably die with a bullet in me, or in jail. I'm
sorry, but that don't help. I'd give my life to be
able to tell you what's in my heart. But I can't. It
wouldn't be square."

He wondered why no change came into the steady
blue of her eyes as he went on with the truth. The

I've come to tell you things, Nada. I've been livin' a lie."

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 87

pallor was gone from her cheeks. Her lips seemed
redder, and what he was saying did not seem to startle
her, or frighten her.

''Don't you understand, Nada?" he cried. "Fm
bad. The police want me. I'm a fugitive — ^always
running away, always hiding — an outlaw "

She nodded.

"I know it. Mister Roger,** she said quietly. '*I
heard you tell Peter that a long time ago. And Mister
Cassidy was at our place the day after you and Peter
ran away from Indian Tom's cabin, and I showed
him the way to Father John's, and he told me a lot
about you, and he told Father John a lot more, and
it made me awful proud of you, Mister Roger — and I
want to go with you and Peter !'^

"Proud!" gasped Jolly Roger. *Troud, of me "

She nodded again.

''Mister Cassidy — the policeman — he used just the
word you used a minute ago. He said you was square,
even when you robbed other people. He said he had
to get you in jail if he could, but he hoped he never
would. He said he'd like to have a man like you for
a brother. And Peter loves you. And I '*

The color came into her white face.

*T'm goin' with you and Peter," she finished.

Something came to relieve the tenseness of the
moment for Jolly Roger. Peter, nosing in a thick
patch of bunch-grass, put out a huge snowshoe rabbit,
and the two crashed in a startling avalanche through

88 THE COUNTRY BEYOND •

the young jackpines, Peter's still puppyish voice yell-
ing in a high staccato as he pursued. Jolly Roger
turned from Nada, and stared where they had gone.
But he was seeing nothing. He knew the hour of his
mightiest fight had come. In the reckless years of
his adventuring he had more than once faced death.
He had starved- He had frozen. He had run the
deadliest gantlets of the elements, of beast, and of
man. Yet was the strife in him now the greatest of
all his life. His heart thumped. His brain was
swirling in a vague and chaotic struggle for the mastery
of things, and as he fought with himself — his unseeing
eyes fixed on the spot where Peter and the sno\vshoe
rabbit had disappeared — he heard Nada's voice behind
him, saying again that she was going with him and
Peter. In those seconds he felt himself giving way,
and the determined action he had built up for himself
began to crumbk like sand. He had made his confes-
sion and in spite of it this young girl he worshipped — •
iweeter and purer than the flowers of the forest — was
urging herself upon him! And his soul cried out for
him to turn about, and open his arms to her, and
gather her into them for as long as God saw fit to give
him freedom and life.

But still he fought against that mighty urge, drag-
ging reason and right back fragment by fragment,
while Nada stood behind him, her wide-open, child-
ishly beautiful eyes beginning to comprehend the strug-
gle that was disrupting the heart of this man who.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 89

was an outlaw — and her god among men. And when
Jolly Roger turned, his face had aged to the grayness
of stone, and his eyes were dull, and there was a
terribly dead note in his voice.

*'You can't go with us,'' he said. "You can't. It's
wrong — all wrong. I couldn't take care of you in
jail, and some day — that's where I'll be."

More than once when she had spoken of Jed Haw-
kins he had seen the swift flash of lightning come into
the violet of her eyes. And it came now, and her little
hands grew tight at her sides, and bright spots burned
in her cheeks.

*'You won't !" she cried. ''I won't let you go to jail.
I'll fight for you — if you'll let me go with you and
Peter!"
She came a step nearer.

"And if I stay here Jed Hawkins is goin' to sell me
to a tie-cutter over on the railroad. That's what it
is — sellin' me. I ain't — I mean I haven't — told you
before, because I was afraid of what you'd do. But it's
goin' to happen, unless you let me go with you and
Peter. Oh, Mister Roger — Mister Jolly Roger "

Her fingers crept up his arms. They reached his
shoulders, and her blue eyes, and her red lips, and the
w^oman's soul in her girl-body were so close to him he
could feel their sweetness and thrill, and then he saw
a slow-gathering mist, and tears

"I'll go wherever you go," she was whispering, "And
we'll hide w^here they won't ever find us, and I'll be

90 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

happy, so happy, Mister Roger — ^and if you won't
take me I want to die. Oh ''

She was ciying, with her head on his breast, and her
shm, half bare arms around his neck, and Jolly Roger
listened like a miser to the choking words that came
with her sobs. And where there had been tumult and
indecision in his heart there came suddenly the clear-
ness of sunshine and joy, and with it the happiness of a
new and mighty possession as his arms closed about
her, and he turned her face up, so that for the first time
he kissed the soft red lips that for some inscrutable
reason the God of all things had given into his keeping
this day.

And then, holding her close, with her arms still
tighter about his neck, he cried softly,

'Tm goin' to take you, little girl. You're goin' with
Peter and me, for ever — and ever. And we'll go-
tonight !"

When Peter came back, just in the last sunset glow
of the evening, he found his master alone in the bit of
jackpine opening, and Nada was swiftly crossing the
larger meadow that lay between them and the break
in Cragg's Ridge, beyond which was Jed Hawkins'
cabin. It was not the same Jolly Roger whom he had
left half an hour before. It was not the man of the
hiding-place in the rock-pile. Jolly Roger McKay,
standing there in the last soft glow of the day, was
no longer the fugitive and the outcast. He stood with
silent lips, yet his soul was crying out its gratitude to all

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 91

that God of Life which breathed its sweetness of
summer evening about him. He was the First Posses-
sor of the earth. In that hour, that moment, he would
not have sold his place for all the happiness of all
the remaining people in the world. He cried out
aloud, and Peter, squatted at his feet with his red
tongue lolling out, listened to him.

*'She is mine, mine, mine," he was saying, and he
repeated that word over and over, until Peter quirked
his ears, and wondered what it meant. And then,
seeing Peter, Jolly Roger laughed softly, and bent
over him, with a look of awe and wonderment mingling
with the happiness in his face.

"She's mine — ours," he cried boyishly. **God
A'mighty took a hand, Pied-Bot, and she's going with
usl We're going tonight, when the moon comes up.
And Peter — Peter — -we're going straight to the Mis-
sioners, and he'll marry us, and then we'll hit for a
place where no one in the world will ever find us. The
law may want us, Pied-Bot, but God — this God all
around— is good to us. And we'll try and pay Him
back. We will, Peter !"

He straightened himself, and faced the west. Then
he picked up the bundle Nada had brought, and dived
through the jackpines, with Peter at his heels. Swiftly
they moved through the shadowing dusk of the plain,
and came at last to the Stew-Kettle, and to their
hiding-place under the shoulders of Gog and Magog.
There was still a faint twilight in the tunnel, and in

92 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

this twilight Jolly Roger McKay packed his posses-
sions; and then, with fingers that trembled as if they
were committing a sacrilege, he drew Nada's few
treasures from her bundle and placed them tenderly
with his own. And all the time Peter heard him saying
things under his breath, so softly that it was like the
whispered drone of song.

In darkness they went down through the rocks to
the plain, and half an hour later they came to the
break in the Ridge, and went through it, and stopped
in the black shadow of a great rock, with Jed Haw-
kins' cabin half a rifle-shot away. Here Nada was to
come to them with the first rising of the moon.

It was very still all about, and Peter sensed a signifi-
cance in the silence, and lay very quietly watching the
light in the cabin, and the shadowy form of his m.aster.
Also he knew that somewhere in the distance a storm
was gathering. The breath of it was in the air,
though the sky was clear of cloud overhead, except for
the haze of a gray and ghostly mist that lay between
them and the yellow stars. Jolly Roger counted the
seconds between then and moonrise. It seemed hours
before the golden rim of it rose in the east. Shadows
grew swiftly after that. Grotesque things took shape.
The rock-caps of the ridge began to light up, like timid
signal-fires. Black spruce and balsam and cedar glis-
tened as if bathed in enamel. And the moon came on,
and mellow floods of light played in the valleys and
plains, and danced over the forest-tops, and in voice-

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 93

less and soundless miracle called upon all living things
to look upon the glory of God. In his soul Jolly Roger
McKay felt the urge and the call of that voiceless
Master Power, and through his lips came an uncon-
scious whisper of prayer — of gratitude.

And he watched the light in Jed Hawkins' cabin,
and strained his ears to hear a sound of footsteps com-
ing through the moonlight.

But there was no change. The light did not move.
A door did not open or close. There w^as no sound,
except the growing whisper of the wind, the call of a
night bird, and the howl of the old gray wolf that
always cried out to the moon from the tangled depths
of Indian Tom's swamp.

A thrill of ner^'ousness S'wept through Jolly Roger.
He waited half an hour, three-quarters, an hour —
after the moon had risen. And Nada did not come.
The nervousness grew in him, and he moved out into
the moonglow, and slowly and watchfully followed
the edge of the rock-shadows until he came to the
fringe of cedars and spruce behind the cabin. Peter,
careful not to snap a tvv^ig under his paws, followed
closely. They came to the cabin, and there — ^very
distinctly — Jolly Roger McKay heard the low moaning
of a voice.

He edged his way to the window, and looked in.

Crouched beside a chair in the middle of the floor
was Jed Hawkins's woman. She was moaning, and
her thin body was rocking back and forth, and wath

94 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

her hands clasped at her bony breast she was staring at
the open door. With a shock Jolly Roger saw that ex-
cept for the strangely cr^^ing old woman the cabin was
empty. Sudden fear chilled his blood — a fear that
scarcely took form before he was at the door, and in
the cabin. The woman's eyes were red and wild as
she stared at him, and she stopped her moaning, and
her hands unclasped. Jolly Roger went nearer and
bent over her and shivered at the half-mad terror he
saw in her face.

"Where is Nada?" he demanded. "Tell me — where
is she?"

"Gone, gone, gone," crooned the woman, clutch-
ing her hands at her breast again. "Jed has taken her
— taken her to Mooney's shack, over near the railroad.
Oh, my God 1 — I tried to keep her, but I couldn't. He
dragged her away, and tonight he's sellin' her to
Mooney — the devil — the black brute — the tie-cutter

)y

She choked, and began rocking herself back and
forth, and the moaning came again from her thin lips.
Fiercely McKay gripped her by the shoulder.

"Mooney's shack — where ?" he cried. "Quick ! Tell

me

(t

I"

A thousand — a thousand — he's givin' a thousand
dollars to git her in the shack — alone," she cried in
a dull, sing-song voice. "The road out there leads
straight to it. Near the railroad. A mile. Two miles.
I tried to keep him from doin' it, but I couldn't — I
couldn't "

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 95

Jolly Roger heard no more. He was out of the
door, and running across the open, with Peter racing
close behind him. They struck the road, and Jolly
Roger swung into it, and continued to run until the
breath was out of his lungs. And all that time the
things Nada had told him about Jed Hawkins and
the tie-cutter were rushing madly through his brain.
An hour or two ago, when the words had come from
her lips in the jackpine thicket, he had believed that
Nada was frightened, that a distorted fear possessed
her, that such a thing as she had half confessed to
him was too monstrous to happen. And now he
cried out aloud, a groaning, terrible cry as he went on.
Hawkins and Nada had reached Mooney's shack long
before this, a shack buried deep in the wilderness, a
shack from w^hich no cries could be heard

Peter, trotting behind, whined at what he heard in
Jolly Roger McKay's panting voice. And the moon
shone on them as they staggered and ran, and here
and there dark clouds were racing past the face of it,
and the slumberous whisper of storm grew nearer in the
air. And then came the time when one of the dark
clouds rode under the moon and the two ran on in
darkness. The cloud passed, and the moon flooded the
road again with light — and suddenly Jolly Roger
stopped in his tracks, and his heart almost broke in the
strain of that moment.

Ahead of them, staggering toward them, sobbing as
she came, was Nada. Jolly Roger's blazing eyes saw
everything in that vivid light of the moon. Her hair

96 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

was tangled and twisted about her shoulders and over
her breast. One arm was bare where the sleeve had
been tern away, and her girlish breast gleamed white
where her waist had been stripped half from her body.
And then she saw Jolly Roger in the trail, with wide-
open, reaching arms, and wuth a cry such as Peter had
never heard come from her lips before she ran into
them, and held up her face to him in the yellow moon-
light. In her eyes — great, tearless, burning pools — he
saw the tragedy and yet it was only that, and not horror,
not despair, not the other thing. His arms closed
crushingly about her. Her slim body seemed to be-
come a part of him. Her hot lips reached up and clung
to his.

And then,

"Did — he get you — to — IMooney's shack "

He felt her body stiffen against him.

"No," she panted. "I fought — every inch. He
dragged me, and hit me, and tore my clothes — but I
fought. And up there — in the trail — he turned his
back for a moment, when he thought I was done, and
I hit him with a club. And he's there, now, on his
back ''

She did not finish. Jolly Roger thrust her out from
him, arm's length. A cloud under the moon hid his
face. But his voice was low, and terrible.

"Nada, go to the Missioner's as fast as you can,*' he
said, fighting to speak coolly. "Take Peter — and go.
You will make it before the storm breaks. I am going

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 97

back to have a few words with Jed Hawkins — alone.
Then I will join you, and the Missioner will marry
us "

The cloud was gone, and he saw joy and radiance
in her face. Fear had disappeared. Her eyes were
luminous with the golden glow of the night. Her red
lips were parted, entreating him with the lure of their
purity and love, and for a moment he held her close
in his arms again, kissing her as he might have kissed
an angel, while her little hands stroked his face, and
she laughed softly and strangely in her happiness—
the wonder of a woman's soul rising swiftly out of
the sweetness of her girlhood.

And then Jolly Roger set her firmly in the direction
she was to go.

"Hurry, little girl,'' he said. "Hurry — before the
storm breaks !"

She went, calling Peter softly, and Jolly Roger
strode down the trail, not once looking back, and bent
only upon the vengeance he would this night wreak
upon the two lowest brutes in creation. Never before
had he felt the desire to kill. But he felt that desire
now. Before the night was much older he would do
unto Hawkins and Mooney as Hawkins had done unto
Peter. He would leave them alive, but broken and
crippled and forever punished.

And then he stumbled over something in another
darkening of the moon. He stopped, and the light
came again, and he looked down into the upturned

98 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

face of Jed Hawkins. It was a distorted and twisted
face, and its one eye was closed. The body did not
move. And close to the head was the club which Nada
had used.

Jolly Roger laughed grimly. Fate was kind to him
in making a half of his work so easy. But he wanted
Hawkins to rouse himself first. Roughly he stirred
him with the toe of his boot.

"Wake up, you fiend," he said. "I'm going to
break your bones, your arms, your legs, just as you
broke Peter — and that poor old woman back in the
cabin. Wake up !"

Jed Hawkins made no stir. He was strangely
limp. For many seconds Jolly Roger stood looking
down at him, his eyes growing wider, more staring.
Darkness came again. It was an inky blackness this
time, like a blotter over the world. Low thunder came
out of the west. The tree-tops whispered in a fright-
ened sort of way. And Jolly Roger could hear his
heart beating. He dropped upon his knees, and his
hands moved over Jed Hawkins. For a space not even
Peter could have heard his movement or his breath.

In the ebon darkness he rose to his feet, and the
i night — lifelessly still for a moment — heard the one
choking word that came from his lips.

"Deadr

And there he stood, the heat of his rage changing
to an icy chill, his heart dragging within him like a
chunk of lead, his breath choking in his throat. Jed

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 99

Hawkins was dead ! He was growing stiff there in the
black trail. He liad ceased to breathe. He had ceased
to be a part of life. And the wind, rising a little with
the coming of storm, seemed to whisper and chortle
over the horrible thing, and the lone wolf in Indian
Tom's swamp howled weirdly, as if he smelled death.

Jolly Roger McKay's finger-nails dug into the flesh
of his palms. If he had killed the human viper at his
feet, if his own hands had meted out his punishment,
he would not have felt the clammy terror that wrapped
itself about him in the darkness. But he had come
too late. It was Nada who had killed Jed Hawkins.
Nada, with her w^oman's soul just born in all its
glory, had taken the life of her foster-father. And
Canadian law knew no excuse for killing.

The chill crept to his finger-tips, and unconsciously,
in a childish sort of w^ay, he sobbed between his
clenched teeth. The thunder was rolling nearer, and
it was like a threatening voice, a deep-toned booming
of a thing inevitable and terrible. He felt the air
shivering about him, and suddenly something moved
softly against his foot, and he heard a questioning
whine. It w^as Peter — come back to him in this hour
when he needed a living thing to give him courage.
With a groan he dropped on his knees again, and
clutched his hands about Peter.

"My God," he breathed huskily. "Peter, she's killed
him. And she mustn't know. We mustn't let anyone
know "

100 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

And there he stopped, and Peter felt him growing
rigid as stone, and for many moments Jolly Roger's
body seemed as lifeless as that of the man who lay with
up-turned face in the trail. Then he fumbled in a
pocket and found a pencil and an old envelope. And
on the envelope, w^th the darkness so thick he could not
see his hand, he scribbled, ''I killed Jed Hawkins,"
and after that he signed his name firmly and fully — •
"Jolly Roger McKay."

Then he tucked the envelope under Jed Hawkins'
body, where the rain could not get at it. And after
that, to make the evidence complete, he covered the
dead man's face with his coat.

''We've got to do it, Peter," he said, and there was
a new note in his voice as he stood up on his feet
again. "We've got to do it — for her. We'll ^tell her
w^e caught Jed Hawkins in the trail and killed him."

Caution, cleverness, his old mental skill returned
to him. He dragged the boot-legger's body to a new
spot, turned it face down, threw the club away, and
kicked up the earth with his boots to give signs of a
struggle.

The note in his voice was triumph — triumph in spite
of its heartbreak — as he turned back over the trail
after he had finished, and spoke to Peter.

"We may have done some things we oughtn't to,
Pied-Bot/' he said, "but tonight I sort o' think we've
tried to make — restitution. And if they hang us,
which they probably will some time, I sort o' think it'll

THE COUNTRY BEYOND loi

make us happy to know we've done it — for her. Eh,
Pied-Botr

And the moon sailed out for a space, and shone on
the dead whiteness of Jolly Roger's face. And on the
lips of that face was a strange, cold smile, a smile of
mastery, of exaltation, and the eyes were looking
straight ahead — the eyes of a man who had made his
sacrifice for a thing more precious to him than his
God.

Only now and then did the moon gleam through the
slow-moving masses of black cloud when he came
to the edge of the Indian settlement clearing three
miles away, where stood the cabin of the Missioner.
The storm had not broken, but seemed holding back
its forces for one mighty onslaught upon the world.
The thunder was repressed, and the lightning held in
leash, with escaping flashes of it occasionally betray-
ing the impending ambuscades of the sky.

The clearing itself was a blot of Stygian darkness,
with a yellow patch of light in the center of it — the
window of the Missioner' s cabin. And Jolly Roger
stood looking at it for a space, as a carven thing of
rock might have stared. His heart was dead. His soul
crushed. His dream broken. There remained only his
brain, his mind made.'up, his worship for the girl — a
love that had changed from a thing of joy to a fire of
agony within him. Straight ahead he looked, knowing
there was only one thing for him to do. And only
one. There was no alternative. No hope. No change

102 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

of fortune that even the power of God might bring
about. What lay ahead of him was inevitable.

After all, there is something unspeakable in the
might and glory of dying for one's country' — or for a
great love. And Jolly Roger McKay felt that strength
as he strode through the blackness, and knocked at
the door, and went in to face Nada and the little old
gray-haired Missioner in the lampglow.

Swift as one of the flashes of lightning in the sky
the anxiety and fear had gone out of Nada's face, and
in an instant it was flooded with the joy of his coming.
She did not mark the strange change in him, but
went to him as she had gone to him in the trail, and
Jolly Roger's arms closed about her, but gently this
time, and very tenderly, as he might have held a little
child he was afraid of hurting. Then she felt the chill
of his lips as she pressed her own to them. Startled,
she looked up into his eyes. And as he had done in the
trail, so now Jolly Roger stood her away from him, and
faced the Missioner. In a cold, hard voice he told
what had happened to Nada that evening, and of the
barbarous effort Jed Hawkins had made to sell her to
Mooney. Then, from a pocket inside his shirt, he
drew out a small, flat leather wallet, and thrust it in
the little Missioner's hand.

^'There's close to a thousand dollars in that," he said.
"It's mine. And I'm giving it to you — for Nada. I
want you to keep her, and care for her, and mebby
some day "

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 103

With both her hands Nada clutched his arm. Her
eyes had widened. Swift pallor had driven the color
from her face, and a broken cry was in her voice.

"I'm goin' with you," she protested. 'Tm goin' with
you — and Peter!"

*'You can't — now," he said. "I've got to go alone,
Nada. I went back — and I killed Jed Hawkins."

Over the roof of the cabin rolled a crash of thunder.
As the explosion of it rocked the floor under their
feet, Jolly Roger pointed to a door, and said,

**Father, if you wall leave us alone — just a minute — '*

White-faced, clutching the wallet, the little gray
Missioner nodded, and went to the door, and as he
opened it and entered into the darkness of the other
room he saw Jolly Roger McKay open wide his arms,
and the girl go into them. After that the storm broke.
The rain descended in a deluge upon the cabin roof.
The black night was filled with the rumble and roar
and the hissing lightning-flare of pent-up elements
suddenly freed of bondage. And in the darkness and
tumult the Missioner stood, a little gray man of
tragedy, of deeply buried secrets, a man of prayer and
of faith in God — his heart whispering for guidance
and mercy as he waited. The minutes passed. Five.
Ten. And then there came a louder roaring of the
storm, shut off quickly, and the little Missioner knew
that a door was opened — and closed.

He lifted the latch, and looked out again into the
lampglow. Huddled at the side of a chair on the

104 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

floor, her arms and face burled in the lustrous, dis-
he\'eled mass of her shining hair — lay Nada, and close
beside her was Peter. He went to her. Tenderly he
knelt down beside her. His thin arm went about her,
and as the storm raved and shrieked above them he tried
to comfort her — and spoke of God.

And through that storm, his head bowed, his heart
gone, went Jolly Roger McKay — heading north.

CHAPTER VIII

"pETER, thrust back from the door through which
"*• his master had gone, Hstened vainly for the sound
of returning footsteps in the beat of rain and the
crash of thunder outside. A strange thing had burned
itself into his soul, a thing that made his flesh quiver
and set hot fires running in his blood. As a dog some-
times senses the stealthy approach of death, so he
began to sense the tragedy of this night that had
brought with it not only a chaos of blackness and
storm, but an anguish which roused an answering
whimper in his throat as he turned toward Nada.

She was crumpled with her head in her arms, where
she had flung herself with Jolly Roger's last kiss of
worship on her lips, and she was sobbing like a child
with its heart broken. And beside her knelt the old
gray Missioner, man of God in the deep forest, who
stroked her hair with his thin hand, whispering courage
and consolation to her, with the wind and rain beating
overhead and the windows rattling to the accompani-
ment of ghostly voices that shrieked and wailed in
the tree-tops outside.

Peter trembled at the sobbing, but his heart and his
desire were with the man who had gone. In his un-

105

io6 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

reasoning little soul it was Jed Hawkins who was
rattling the windows with his unseen hands and who
was pounding at the door with the wind, and who was
filling the black night with its menace and fear. He
hated this man, who lay back in the trail with his life-
less face turned up to the deluge that poured out of the
sky. And he was afraid of the man, even as he hated
him, and he believed that Nada was afraid of him, and
that because of her fear she was crying there in the
middle of the floor, with Father John patting her
shoulder and stroking her hair, and saying things to
her which he could not understand. He wanted to go
to her. He wanted to feel himself close against her,
as Nada had held him so often in those hours when
she had unburdened her grief and her unhappiness to
him. But even stronger than this desire was the one
to follow his master.

He went to the door, and thrust his nose against the
crack at the bottom of it. He felt the fierceness of the
wind fighting to break in, and the broken mist of it
filled his nostrils. But there came no scent of Jolly
Roger McKay. For a moment he struggled at the
crack with his paws. Then he flopped himself down,
his heart beating fast, and flxed his eyes inquiringly on
Nada and the Missioner.

His four and a half months of life in the big wilder-
ness, and his weeks of constant comradeship with
Jolly Roger, had developed in him a brain that was
older than his body. No process of reasoning could

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 107

impinge upon him the fact that his master was an
outlaw, but with the swift experiences of tragedy and
hiding and never-ceasing caution had come instinctive
processes which told him almost as much as reason.
^He knew something was wrong tonight. It was in the
air. He breathed it. It thrilled in the crash of thunder,
in the lightning fire, in the mighty hands of the wind
rocking the cabin and straining at the windows. And
vaguely the knowledge gripped him that the dead man
back in the trail was responsible for it all, and that
because of this something that had happened his mis-
tress was crying and his master was gone. And he be-
lieved he should also have gone with Jolly Roger into
the blackness and mystery of the storm, to fight with
him against the one creature in all the world he hated —
the dead man who lay back in the thickness of gloom
between the forest walls.

And the Missioner -was saying to Nada, in a quiet,
calm voice out of which the tragedies of years had
burned all excitement and passion :

*'God will forgive him, my child. In His mercy He
will forgive Roger McKay, because he killed Jed
Hawkins to save yon. But man will not forgive.
The law has been hunting him because he is an outlaw,
and to outlawry he has added what the law will call
murder. But God will not look at it in that way. He
will look into the heart of the man, the man who
sacrificed himself "

And then, fiercely, Nada struck up the Missioner^s

io8 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

comforting hand, and Peter saw her young face white
as star-dust in the lampglow.

"I don't care what God thinks/' she cried passion-
ately. "God didn't do right today. Mister Roger told
me everything, that he was an outlaw, an' I oughtn't
to m.arry him. But I didn't care. I loved him. I
could hide with him. An' we were coming to have
you marry us tonight when God let Jed Hawkins drag
me away, to sell me to a man over on the railroad — an'
it was God who let Mister Roger go back and kill him.
I tell you He didn't do right ! He didn't — he didn't —
because Mister Roger brought me the first happiness I
ever knew, an' I loved him, an' he loved me — an' God
was wicked to let him kill Jed Hawkins "

Her voice cried out, a woman's soul broken in a
girl's body, and Peter whimpered and watched the
Missioner as he raised Nada to her feet and went with
her into his bedroom, where a few minutes before he
had lighted a lamp. And Peter crept in quietly after
them, and when the Alissioner had gone and closed the
door, leaving them alone in their tragedy, Nada seemed
to see him for the first time and slowly she reached out
her arms.

"Peter!" she whispered. "Peter— Peter "

In the minutes that followed, Peter could feel her
heart beating. Clutched against her breast he looked up
at the white, beautiful face, the trembling throat, the
wide-open blue eyes staring at the one black window
between them and the outside nisrht. A lull had come in

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 109

the storm. It was quiet and ominous stillness, and
the ticking of a clock, old and gray like the Missioner
himself, filled the room. And Nada, seated on the tdgt
of Father John's bed, no longer looked like the young
girl of "seventeen goin' on eighteen." That afternoon,
in the hidden jackpine open, with its sweet-scented jas-
mines, its violets and its crimson strawberries under
their feet, the soul of a woman had taken possession
of her body. In that hour the first happiness of her
life had come to her. She had heard Jolly Roger
McKay tell her those things which she already knew —
that he w^as an outlaw, and that he was hiding down on
the near-edge of civilization because the Royal
Mounted were after him farther north — and that he
was not fit to love her, and that it was a crime to let
her love him. It was then the soul of the w^oman had
come to her in all its triumph. She had made her
choice, definitely and decisively, without hesitation and
without fear. And now, as she stared unseeingly at
the window against which the rain was beating, the
woman in her girlish body rose in her mightier than
in the hour of her happiness, fighting to find a way —
crying out for the man she loved.

Her mind swept back in a single flash through all
the years she Lad lived, through her years of unhappi-
ness and torment as the foster-girl of Jed Hawkins
and his broken, beaten wife; through summers and
winters that had seemed ages to her, eternities of deso-
lation, of heartache, of loneliness, with the big wilder-

no THE COUNTRY BEYOND

ness her one friend on earth. As the window rattled
in a fresh blast of storm, she thought of the day
months ago when she had accidentally stumbled upon
the hiding-place of Roger McKay. Since that day he
had been her God, and she had lived in a paradise. He
had been father, mother, brother, and at last — what
she most yearned for — a lover to her. And this day,
when for the first time he had held her in his arms,
when the happiness of all the earth had reached out to
them, God had put it into Ted Hawkins' heart to de-
stroy her — and Jolly Roger had killed him !

With a sharp little cry she sprang to her feet, so
suddenly that Peter fell with a thump to the floor.
He looked up at her, puzzled, his jaws half agape.
She was breathing quickly. Her slender body was
quivering. Suddenly Peter saw the fire in her eyes
and the flame that was rushing into her white cheeks.
Then she turned to him, and panted in a wild little
whisper, so low that the Missioner could not hear :

'Teter, I was wrong. God wasn't wicked to let
Mister Roger kill Jed Hawkins. He oughta been
killed. An' God meant him to be killed. Peter —
Peter — we don't care if he's an outlaw! We're goin*
with him. We're goin' — goin' "

She sprang to the window, and Peter was at her
heels as she strained at it with all her strength, and he
could hear her sobbing:

''We're goin' with him, Peter. We're goin' — if we
die for it r

THE COUNTRY BEYOND in

An inch at a time she pried the window up. The
storm beat in. A gust of wind blew out the Hght, but
in the last flare of it Nada saw a knife in an Eskimo
sheath hanging on the wall. She groped for it, and
clutched it in her hand as she climbed through the
window and dropped to the soggy ground beneath. In
a single leap Peter followed her. Blackness swallowed
them as they turned toward the trail leading north —
the only trail which Jolly Roger could travel on a
night like this. They heard the voice of the Missioner
calling from the window behind them. Then a crash
of thunder set the earth rolling under their feet, and
the lull in the storm came to an end. The sky split open
with the vivid fire of lightning. The trees wailed and
whined, the rain fell again in a smothering deluge, and
through it Nada ran, gripping the knife as her one
defense against the demons of darkness — and always
dose at her side ran Peter.

He could not see her in that pitchy blackness, except
when the lightning flashes came. Then she was like
a ghostly wraith, with drenched clothes clinging to her
until she seemed scarcely dressed, her wet hair stream-
ing and her wide, staring eyes looking straight ahead.
After the lightning flashes, when the world was dark-
est, he could hear the stumbling tread of her feet and
the panting of her breath, and now and then the swish
of brush as it struck across, her face and breast. The
rain had washed away the scent of his master's
feet but he knew they were following Jolly Roger, and

112 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

that the girl was running to overtake him. In him was
the desire to rush ahead, to travel faster through the
night, but Nada's stumbling feet and her panting
breath and the strange white pictures he saw of her
when the sky split open with fire held him back.
Something told him that Nada must reach Jolly Roger.
And he was afraid she would stop. He wanted to bark
to give her encouragement, as he had often barked
in their playful races in the green plainlands on the
farther side of Cragg's Ridge. But the rain choked
him. It beat down upon him with the weight of heavy
hands, it slushed up into his face from pools in the
trail and drove the breath from him when he attempted
to open his jaws. So he ran close — so close that at
times Nada felt the touch of his body against her.

In these first minutes of her fight to overtake the
man she loved Nada heard but one voice — a voice cry-
ing out from her heart and brain and soul, a voice rising
above the tumult of thunder and wind, urging her on,
whipping the strength from her frail body in pitiless
exhortation. Jolly Roger was less than half an hour
ahead of her. And she must overtake him — quickly —
before the forests swallowed him, before he was gone
from her life forever.

The wall of blackness against w^hich she ran did not
frighten her. When the brush tore at her face and hair
she swung free of it, and stumbled on. Twice she ran
blindly into broken trees that lay across her path,
and dragged her bruised body through their twisted

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 113

tops, moaning to Peter and clutching tightly to the
sheathed knife in her hand. And the wild spirits
that possessed the night seemed to gather about her,
and over her, exulting in the helplessness of their vic-
tim, shrieking in weird and savage joy at the discovery
of this human plaything struggling against their might.
Never had Peter heard thunder as he heard it now.
It rocked the earth under his feet. It filled the world
with a ceaseless rumble, and the lightning came like
flashes from swift-loading guns, and with it all a
terrific assault of wind and rain that at last drove Nada
down in a crumpled heap, panting for breath, with
hands groping out wildly for him.

Peter came to them, sodden and shivering. His
warm tongue found the palm of her hand, and for a
space Nada hugged him close to her, while she bowed
her head until her drenched curls became a part of the
mud and water of the trail. Peter could hear her
sobbing for breath. And then suddenly, there came a
change. The thunder was sweeping eastward. The
lightning was going with it. The wind died out in
wailing sobs among the treetops, and the rain fell
straight down. Swiftly as its fury had come, the
July storm was passing. And Nada staggered to her
feet again and went on.

Her mind began to react with the lessening of the
storm, dragging itself out quickly from under the
oppression of fear and shock. She began to reason,
and with that reason the beginning of faith and con-

114 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

fidence gave her new strength. She knew that Jolly
Roger would take this trail, for it was the one trail
leading from the Missioner's cabin through the thick
forest country north. And in half an hour he would
not travel far. The thrilling thought came to her that
possibly he had sought shelter in the lee of a big tree
trunk during the fury of the storm. If he had done
that he would be near, very near. She paused in the
trail and gathered her breath, and cried out his name.
Three times she called it, and only the low whine in
Peter's throat came in answer. Twice again during the
next ten minutes she cried out as loudly as she could
into the darkness. And still no answer came back to
her through the gloom ahead.

The trail had dipped, and she felt the deepening
slush of swamp-mire under her feet. She sank in it
to her shoetops, and stumbled into pools knee-deep,
and Peter wallowed in it to his belly. A quarter of an
hour they fought through it to the rising ground
beyond. And by that time the last of the black storm
clouds had passed overhead. The rain had ceased.
The rumble of thunder came more faintly. There was
no lightning, and the tree-tops began to whisper softly,
as if rejoicing in the passing of the wind. About them
— everywhere — they could hear the run and drip of
water, the weeping of the drenched trees, the gurgle of
flooded pools, and the trickle of tiny rivulets that
splashed about their feet. Through a rift in the
breaking clouds overhead came a passing flash of the
moon.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 115

"We'll find him now, Peter," moaned the girl. "We'll
find him — now. He can't be very far ahead "

And Peter waited, holding his breath, listening for
an answer to the cry that went out for Jolly Roger
McKay.

The gloi'>^ of July midnight, with a round, full moon
straight overhead, followed the stress of storm. The
world had been lashed and inundated, every tree
whipped of its rot and slag, every blade of grass and
flower washed clean. Out of the earth rose sweet
smells of growing life, the musky fragrance of deep
moss and needle-mold, and through the clean air drifted
faintly the aroma of cedar and balsam and the subtle
tang of unending canopies and glistening tapestries
of evergreen breathing into the night. The deep forest
seemed to tremble ■with the presence of an invisible
and mysterious life — life that was still, yet wide-awake,
breathing, watchful, drinking in the rejuvenating
tonic of the air which had so quietly followed thunder
and lightning and the roar of wind and rain. And the
moon, like a queen who had so ordered these things,
looked down in a mighty triumph. Her radiance,
without dust or fog or forest-smoke to impede its way,
was like the mellow glow of half -day. It streamed
through the treetops in paths of gold and silver, throw-
ing dark shadows where it failed to penetrate, and
gathering in wide pools where its floods poured through
broad rifts in the roofs of the forest. And the trail,
leading north, was like a river of shimmering silver,
splitting the wilderness from earth to sky.

Ii6 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

In this trail, clearly made in the wet soil, were
Jolly Roger's foot-prints, and in a wider space, where
at some time a trapper had cleared himself a spot for
his tepee or shack, Jolly Roger had paused to rest after
his fight through the storm — and had then continued on
his way. And into this clearing, three hours after they
left the Missioner's cabin, came Nada and Peter.

They came slowly, the girl a slim wraith in the moon-
light ; in the open they stood for a moment, and Peter's
heart weighed heavily within him as his mistress cried
out once more for Jolly Roger. Her voice rose only in
a sob, and ended in a sob. The last of her strength
was gone. Her little figure swayed, and her face was
white and haggard, and in her drawn lips and staring
eyes was the agony of despair. She had lost, and she
knew that she had lost as she crumpled down in the
trail, crying out sobbingly to the footprints which
led so clearly ahead of her.

"Peter, I can't go on," she moaned. "I can't — go
on "

Her hands clutched at her breast. Peter saw the
glint of the moonlight on the ivory sheath of the
Eskimo knife, and he saw her white face turned up to
the sky — and also that her lips were moving, but he did
not hear his name come from them, or any other sound.
He whined, and foot by foot began to nose along the
trail on the scent left by Jolly Roger. It was very
clear to his nostrils, and it thrilled him. He looked back,
and again he whined his encouragement to the girl.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 117

'Teter !'^ she called. ^Teter!"

He returned to her. She had drawn the knife out of
its scabbard, and the cold steel glistened in her hand.
Her eyes were shining, and she reached out and
clutched Peter close up against her, so that he could
hear the choke and throb of her heart.

*'0h, Peter, Peter," she panted. "If you could only
talk! If you could run and catch Mister Roger, an*
tell him I'm here, an' that he must come back '*

She hugged him closer. He sensed the sudden thrill
that leapt through her body.

"Peter," she whispered, "will you do it?*'

For a few moments she did not seem to breathe.
Then he heard a quick little cry, a sob of inspiration
and hope, and her arms came from about him, and
he saw the knife flashing in the yellow moonlight.

He did not understand, but he knew that he must
-watch her carefully. She had bent her head, and her
hair, nearly dry, glowed softly in the face of the
moon. Her hands were fumbling in the disheveled
curls, and Peter saw the knife flash back and forth,
and heard the cut of it, and then he saw that in
her hand she held a thick brown tress of hair that
she had severed from her head. He was puzzled. And
'Nada dropped the knife, and his curiosity increased
when she tore a great piece out of her tattered dress,
and carefully wrapped the tress of hair in it. Then she
drew him to her again, and tied the .knotted fold of
dress securely about his neck; after that she tore other

ii8 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

strips from her dress, and wound them about his
neck until he felt muffled and half smothered.

And all the time she was talking to him in a half
sobbing, excited little voice, and the blood in Peter's
body ran/ swifter, and the strange thrill in him was
greater. When she had finished she rose to her feet,
and stood there swaying back and forth, like one of the
spruce-top shadows, while she pointed up the moonlit
trail.

*'Go, Peter!" she cried softly. "Quick! Follow him,
Peter — catch him — bring him back! Mister Roger —
Jolly Roger — go, Peter! Go — go — go "

It was strange to Peter. But he was beginning to
understand. He sniffed in Jolly Roger's footprints,
and then he looked up quickly, and saw that it had
pleased the girl. She was urging him on. He sniffed
from one footprint to another, and Nada clapped her
hands and cried out that he was right — for him to
hurrv^ — hurry

Impulse, thought, swiftly growing knowledge of
something to be done thrilled in his brain. Nada wanted
him to go. She wanted him to go to Jolly Roger.
And she had put something around his neck which
she wanted him to take with him. He whined eagerly,
a bit excitedly. Then he began to trot. Instinctively
it was his test. She did not call him back. He flattened
his ears, listening for her command to return, but it
did not come. And then the thrill in him leapt over all
other things. He was right. He was not abandoning

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 119

Nada. He was not running away. She wanted him
to go!

The night swallowed him. He became a part of the
yellow floods of its moonlight, a part of its shifting
shadows, a part of its stillness, its mystery, its promise
of impending things. He knew that grim and terrible
happenings had come with the storm, and he still
sensed the nearness of tragedy in this night-world
through •which he was passing. He did not go swiftly,
yet he went three times as fast as the girl and he had
traveled together. He was cautious and watchful, and
at intervals he stopped and listened, and swallowed
hard to keep the whine of eagerness out of his throat.
Now that he was alone every instinct in him was keyed
to the pulse and beat of life about him. He knew the
Night People of the deep forests were awake. Softly
padded, clawed, sharp-beaked and feathered — the
prowlers of darkness were on the move. With the
stillness of shadows they were stealing through the
moonlit corridors of the wilderness, or hovering gray-
winged and ghostly in the ambuscades of the treetops,
eager to waylay and kill, hungering for the flesh and
blood of creatures weaker than themselves. Peter
knew. Both heritage and experience warned himi.
And he watched the shadows, and sniffed the air, and
kept his fangs half bared and ready as he followed the
trail of McKay.

He was not stirred by the impulse of adventure alone.
Without the finesse of what man might charitably call

120 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

reason in a beast, he had sensed a responsibility. It
was present in the closely drawn strips of faded cloth
about his neck. It was, in a way, a part of the girl
herself, a part of her flesh and blood, a part of her
spirit — something vital to her and dependent upon
him. He was ready to guard it with every instinct of
caution and every ounce of courage there was in him.
And to protect it meant to fight. That was the first
law of his breed, the primal warning which came
to him through the red blood of many generations of
wilderness forefathers. So he listened, and he watched,
and his blood pounded hot in his veins as he followed
the footprints in the trail. A bit of brush, swinging
suddenly free from where it had been prisoned by
the storm, drew a snarl from him as he faced the sound
with the quickness of a cat. A gray streak, passing
swiftly over the trail ahead of him, stirred a low
growl in his throat. It was a lynx, and for a space
Peter paused, and then sped soft-footed past the moon-
lit spot where the stiletto-clawed menace of the woods
had passed.

Now that he was alone, and no longer accompanied
by a human presence whose footsteps and scent held the
wild things aloof and still, Peter felt nearer and nearer
to him the beat and stir of life. Powerful beaks, in-
stead of remaining closed and without sound, snapped
and hissed at him as the big gray owls watched his
passing. He heard the rustling of brush, soft as the
stir of a woman's dress, where living things were se-

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 121

cretly moving, and he heard the louder crash of clumsy
and piggish feet, and caught the strong scent of a por-
cupine as it waddled to its midnight lunch of poplar
bark. Then the trail ended, and Jolly Roger's scent
led Into the pathless forest, with its shifting streams
and pools of moonlight, Its shadows and black pits of
darkness. And here — now — Peter began his trespass
into the strongholds of the People of the Night. He
heard a wolf howl, a cry filled with loneliness, yet with
a shivering death-note in it; he caught the musky,
skunklsh odor of a fox that was stalking prey in the
face of a whispering breath of wind ; once. In a moment
of dead stillness, he listened to the snap of teeth and
the crackle of bones in one of the dark pits, where a
fisher-cat — with eyes that gleamed like coals of fire —
was devouring the warm and bleeding carcass of a
mother partridge. And beaks snapped at him more
menacingly as he went on, and gray shapes floated over
his head, and now and then he heard the cries of dying
things — the agonized squeak of a wood-mouse, the cry
of a day-bird torn from its sleeping place by a sinuous,
beady-eyed creature of fur and claw, the noisy scream-
ing of a rabbit swooped upon and pierced to the vitals
by one of the gray-feathered pirates of the air. And
then, squarely In the center of a great pool of moon-
light, Peter came upon a monster. It was a bear, a
huge mother bear, with two butter-fat cubs wrestling
and rolling in the moon glow. Peter had never seen a
bear. But the mother, who raised her brown nose

122 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

suddenly from the cool mold out of which she had been
digging lily-bulbs, had seen dogs. She had seen many
dogs, and she had heard their hovd, and she knew that
always they traveled with man. She gave a deep,
chesty sniff, and close after that sniff a whoof that
startled the cubs like the lashing end of a whip. They
rolled to her, and with two cuffs of the mother's huge
paws they were headed in the right direction, and all
three crashed off into darkness.

In spite of his swelling heart Peter let out a little
yip. It was a great satisfaction, just at a moment when
his nerves were getting unsteady, to discover that a
monster like this one in the moonlight was anxious to
run away from him. And Peter went on, a bit of pride
and jauntiness in his step, his bony tail a little higher.

A mile farther on, in another yellow pool of the
moon, lay the partly devoured carcass of a fawn. A
wolf had killed it, and had fed, and now two giant owls
were rending and tearing in the flesh and bowels of
what the wolf had left. They were Gargantuans of
their kind, one a male, the other a female. Their talons
warm in blood, their beaks red, their slow brains drunk
with a ravenous greed, they rose on their great wings in
sullen rage when Peter came suddenly upon them. He
had ceased to be afraid of owls. There was something
shivery in the gritting of their beaks, especially in the
dark places, but they had never attacked him, and had
always kept out of his reach. So their presence in a
black spruce top directly over the dead fawn did not

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 123

hold him back now. He sniffed at the fresh, sweet meat,
and hunger all at once possessed him. Where the wolf
had stripped open a tender flank he began to eat, and
as he ate he growled, so that warning of his possessor-
ship reached the spruce top.

In ans-wer to it came a stir of wings, and the male owl
launched himself out into the moon glow. The female
followed. For a few moments they floated like gray
ghosts over Peter, silent as the night shadows. Then,
with the suddenness and speed of a bolt from a cata-
pult, the giant male shot out of a silvery mist of gloom
and struck Peter. The two rolled over the carcass of
the fawn, and for a space Peter was dazed by the thun-
dering beat of powerful wings, and the hammering
of the owl's beak at the back of his neck. The male
had missed his claw-hold, and driven by rage and fe-
rocity, fought to impale his victim from the ground,
without launching himself into the air again. Swiftly
he struck, again and again, while his wings beat like
clubs. Suddenly his talons sank into the cloth wrapped
about Peter's neck. Terror and shock gave way to a
fighting madness inside Peter now. He struck up, and
buried his fangs in a mass of feathers so thick he could
not feel the flesh. He tore at the padded breast, snarl-
ing and beating with his feet, and then, as the stiletto-
points of the owl's talons sank through the cloth into
his neck, his jaws closed on one of the huge bird's
legs. His teeth sank deep, there was a snapping and
grinding of tendon and bone, and a hissing squawk

124 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

of pain and fear came from above him as the owl made
a mighty effort to launch himself free. As the five-
foot pinions beat the air Peter was lifted from the
ground. But the owl's talons were hopelessly entangled
in the cloth, and the two fell in a heap again. Peter
scarcely sensed what happened after that, except that
he was struggling against death. He closed his eyes,
and the leg between his jaws was broken and twisted
into pulp. The wings beat about him in a deafening
thunder, and the owl's beak tore at his flesh, until the
pool of moonlight in which they fought was red with
blood. At last something gave way. There was a
ghastly cry that was like the cry of neither bird nor
beast, a weak flutter of wings, and Gargantua of the
Air staggered up into the treetops and fell with a crash
among the thick boughs of the spruce,

Peter raised himself weakly, the severed leg of the
owl dropping from his jaws. He w^as half blinded.
Every muscle in his body seemed to be torn and bleed-
ing, yet in his discomfort the thrilling conviction came
to him that he had won. He tensed himself for another
attack, hugging the ground closely as he watched and
waited, but no attack came. He could hear tlie flutter
and wheeze of his maimed adversary, and slowly he
drew himself back — still facing the scene of battle —
until in a farther patch of gloom he turned once more
to his business of following the trail of Jolly Roger
McKay.

There was no mark of bravado in his advance now.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 12^;

If he had possessed an over-growing confidence, Gar-
gantua's attack had set it back, and he stole like a shifty
fox through the night. Driven into his brain was the
knowledge that all things were not afraid of him, for
even the snapping beaks and floating gray shapes to
which he had paid but little attention had now become
a deadly menace. His egoism had suffered a jolt, a
healthful reaction from its too swift ascendency. He
sensed the narrowness of his escape without the mental
action of reasoning it out, and his injuries were sec-
ondary to the oppressive horror of the uncanny combat
out of which he had come alive. Yet this horror was
not a fear. Heretofore he had recognized the ghostly
owl-shapes of night more or less as a curious part of
darkness, inspiring neither like nor dislike in him.
Now he hated them, and ever after his fangs gleamed
white when one of them floated over his head.

He v/as badly hurt. There w^re ragged tears in his
flank and back, and a last stroke of Gargantua's talons
had stabbed his shoulder to the bone. Blood dripped
from him, and one of his eyes was closing, so that
shapes and shadows were grotesquely dim in the night.
Instinct and^caution, and the burning pains in his body,
urged him to lie down in a thicket and wait for the day.
But stronger than these were memory of the girl's urg-
ing voice, the vague thrill of the cloth still about his
neck, and the freshness of Tolly Roger's trail as it kept
straight on through the forest's moonht corridors and
caverns of gloom.

126 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

It was in the first graying light of July dawn that
Peter dragged himself up the rough side of a ridge and
looked down into a narrow strip of plain on the other
side. Just as Nada had given up in weakness and
despair, so now he was almost ready to quit. He had
traveled miles since the owl fight, and his wounds had
stiffened, and with every step gave him excruciating
pain. His injured eye was entirely closed, and there
was a strange, dull ache in the back of his head, where
Gargantua had pounded him with his beak. The strip
of valley, half hidden in its silvery mist of dawn,
seemed a long distance away to Peter, and he dropped
on his belly and began to lick his raw shoulder with a
feverish tongue. He was sick and tired, and the fu-
tility of going farther oppressed him. He looked again
down into the strip of plain, and whined.

Then, suddenly, he smelled something that was not
the musty fog-mist that hung between the ridges. It
was smoke. Peter's heart beat faster, and he pulled
himself to his feet, and went in its direction.

Hidden in a little grassy cup between tw^o great
boulders that thrust themselves out from the face of
the ridge, he found Jolly Roger. First he saw the
smouldering embers of a fire that was almost out —
and then his master. Jolly Roger was asleep. Storm-
beaten and strangely haggard and gray his face was
turned to the sky, Peter did not awaken him. There
was something in his master's face that quieted the
low whimper in his throat. Very gently he crept to

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 127

him, and lay down. The movement, slight as it was,
made the man stir. His hand rose, and then fell limply
across Peter's body. But the fingers moved.

Unconsciously, as if guided by the spirit and prayer
of the girl waiting far back in the forest, they twined
about the cloth around Peter's neck — his message to
his master.

And for a long time after that, as the sun rose over
a wonderful world, Peter and his master slept.

CHAPTER IX

TT was the restlessness of Peter that roused Jolly
■*• Roger. Half awake, and before he opened his eyes,
life seized upon him w'here sleep had cut it off for a
time last night. His muscles ached. 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 tlie 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 ]\IcKay speechless, and
at first a little disappointed. It w^as as if Peter had
deliberately betrayed a trust. During the storm and
flight of the night McKay 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 heon something
of consolation in this giving up of his comradeship to
Nada. And Peter had turned traitor.

Even Peter seemed to sense the argument and con-
demnation that was passing behind McKay's unsmiling

128

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 129

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 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 McKay. After all, there was a m.ighty some-
thing 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,

''Pied-Bot, 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 Nada'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, McKay held the shining
tress of Nada'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. Because — if I ever
wanted to cry — it's nawf

In his face, even v;ith the tears and the strange

130 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

quivering of his lips, Peter saw a radiance that was
joy. And McKay 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
Nada in Father John's cabin, urging Peter out into
the wild tumult of thunder and lightning Vv'ith that pre-
cious 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 be-
cause of an error in the creation of things, ran back
a little way over the trail, trying to tell his master that
Nada had come with him through the storm, and was
back in the deep forest calling for him to return.

But McKay's mind saw nothing beyond the dimly
lighted room of the Missioner's cabin.

He pressed his lips to the silken tress of Nada'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

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 131

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 Sas-
katchewan; and north — always north — beckoned the
lonely plains and unmapped wildernesses of the Atha-
basca, 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 tepee were lifeless, and
waited in the desolation of abandonment. No sm.oke
rose in the tree-tops; no howl of dog came with the
early dav/n and the setting sun; trap lines were over-
growing, 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 Hke 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

132 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

smoke again. Brown-faced children would play about
the tepee door. Ten thousand dwellers of the forests,
white and halfbreed 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 w^as free, and in its freedom ran in
riotous 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 floodtime. And
through it all — through the lazy drone of insects, the
rustling sighs of the tree-tops 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
himx, 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
Eurntwood. From his feet reached out the wide river,
ankle deep in places, knee deep in others, rippling and

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 133

singing between sandbars and driftwood where in May
and June it had roared with the fury of flood. Peter,
half asleep after their day's travel through a hot forest,
watched his master. Since their flight from the tdge
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 Aire-
dale 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 whis-
tled 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 Lands.

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 ex-

134 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

pect — once, tavice, 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, illusive perfume of the
girl when Jolly Roger drew out their preciously guarded
package. He unwrapped it gently now% and in a mo-
ment held in his hands the tress of Nada's hair, the last
of her they would ever possess or see. And Peter won-
dered again why they did not go back to where they had
left the rest of the girl. Many times, seeing his rest-
lessness 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, hear-
ing 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 aw-oke from his dreams tliey went on
again — not south — ^but north. To Peter this w^as hope-
less 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, entreating himi to bring back the man
she loved and would always love in spite of all the
broken and unbroken laws in the -world.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 135

That night, as they lay beside the Burntwood, Peter
heard his master crying out Nada'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 knaiv 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, mebby it isn't all my fault, Pied-Bot/'

he said. ''Mebby 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 every-
thing that's outdoors — and if there's a God I don't be-

136 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

lieve 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, Pied-Bot. 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 wav. The
thrill of it got into me, Pied-Bot, 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 argu-
ment. "You see. Yellow Bird was in that particular
tribe, Pied-Bot. 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 Yellow Bird, just as a child loves
a fairy. And always Yellow Bird has been my fairy,
Peter. I guess child worship is the one thing that lasts
through life, always remaining ideal, and never for-
gotten. Years after my mother's death, when I was
a young man, and had been down to Montreal and Ot-
tawa and Quebec, I went back to Yellow Bird's tribe.
And it was starving, Pied-Bot. Starving to death !"

Reminiscent tenderness and humor were gone from
McKay's voice. It was hard and flinty.

*Tt was winter," he continued, "the dead of winter.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 137

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.
Pied-Bot, my heart went dead when I saw Yellow Bird.
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. Boy, you never saw an Indian — an Indian like
Yellow Bird — cry. They don't cry very much. But
when that childhood fairy of mine first saw me she
just stood there, sw^aying 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 Yellow
Bird'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 thicken-
ing dusk, and his eyes gleamed. "Peter, if there's a
God, an' He thinks I did wrong then, let Him strike me
dead right here! I'm willin'. 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.

138 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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. Pied-Bot,
away back — somewhere — there must have been a pirate
before me — mebby 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 v/as on his feet, growing strong,
and there was happiness — and I think God A'mighty
was glad. I kept it up for two months. Then the back-
bone of the winter broke. Game came into the country.
I left them well supplied — ^and skipped. That was what
made me an outlaw, Pied-Bot. 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 Trader's, 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 ab-
sence. Then I chained him in a dugout in a place where
nobody would find him. And I took charge. Pied-B^ot,
I sure did! Everybody was on the trap-lines, and I
wasn't bothered much by callers. And I fed and clothed
Tiy tribe for eight straight weeks, fed 'em until they

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 139

grew fat, Boy — and Yellow Bird's eyes were bright as
stars again. Then I brought Roach — that was his
name — back to his empty post, and I lectured him, an'
gave him another licking — and left."

McKay rose to his feet. The first stars were peep-
ing out of the velvety darkness of the sky, and Peter
heard his master draw in a deep breath — the breath of
a m.an 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
half killed Beaudin, the Government mail-runner, be-
cause he insulted another man's wife when that man —
my friend — was away. Then Beaudin, seeing his
chance, robbed the mail himself, and the crime was
laid to me. Well, I got even, and stuck up a mail-
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 Roach the Free Trader. And
the funniest thing of the whole business, Pied-Botj is
this — I didn't kill Jed Hawkins. Some day mebby I'll
tell you about what happened on the trail, the thing
which you and Nada 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

140 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

live," he whispered. "There's my mother, and she is
dead. There's Nada back there, and we'll never see
her again — " His voice choked for an instant. ''And
then — there's Yellow Bird — " he added. ''It's five
years since I fed the tribe. Mebby they've had more
kids ! Boy, let's go and see 1"

CHAPTER X

'^JORTH and west, in the direction of Yellow Bird's
"*- ^ people, went Jolly Roger and Peter after that
night. They traveled slowly and cautiously, 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 atten-
tive 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 remem-
bered 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 move-
ments 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 Avas ready to rouse himself at the slightest

141

142 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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 ht 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 steals
ing back the Treaty Money, or for holding up Govern-
ment mails, or for any of his other misdemeanorSo 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 incon-
ceivable that he found the absurdity of it a grimly
humorous thing. Even Nada believed he had killed her
scoundrelly foster-father. Yet it was she — ^herself —
who had killed him! And it was Nada whom the
law would hang, if the truth was known — ^and believed.

Frequently he went back over the scenes of that
tragic night at Cragg's Ridge when all the happiness
in the world seemed to be offering itself to him — the
night when Nada was to go w^ith him to the Mission-
er's, to become his wife. And then — the dark trail — •

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 143

the disheveled girl staggering to him through the star-
light, 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 saA^ed 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 Nada 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 yellow-back if he betrayed what had ac-
tually happened on the trail between Cragg's Ridge and
Mooney's cabin.

And this, after all, was the one remaining bit of hap-
piness in Jolly Roger's heart, the knowledge that he
had made the evidence utterly complete, and that Nada
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 de-
termined to keep his freedom and his life as long as

144 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

he could, but he was fatalistic enough, and sufficiently
acquainted with the Royal Northwest Mounted Police,
to know what the ultimate of the thing would be.
And yet, with tragedy behind him, and a still grim-
mer 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 on the edge
of civilization that she be given the privilege of ac-
companying 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 thou-
sand 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 Bird's
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.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 145

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 Wollaston Lake coun-
try, 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 sui;i and the sl<y, 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 deci-
sion to go to Yellow Bird's people. And he tried to
imagine, a great deal of the time, that Nada 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 v/hich 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.

146 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

And along with this Jolly Roger slowly but surely im-
pressed 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
A'mighty meant it to do. It needs a tree to live on.
But I'm going to cut the vine, because I think more of
the tree than I do the vine. That's my privilege — fol-
lowing my conscience. And we're eating young part-
ridges 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 ob-
servant, 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^ Au-
gust, and ordinarily he would have destroyed many of
them in a day's travel. But unless Jolly Roger gave

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 147

him a signal, or he was hungry, he would pass a snow-
shoe unconcernedly. This phase of Peter's develop-
ment interested Jolly Roger greatly. The outlaw's
philosophy had not been punctured by the egotistical
'T am the only reasoning being'' arguments of narrow-
gauged nature scientists. He believed that Peter pos-
sessed 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 purloined from the
mail 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 w^hen he compared his own troubles
with the difficulties and tragedies over which these
people had triumphed he felt a new courage and inspira-
tion, and faced the world with better cheer. If Nature
was his God and Bible, and Nada 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 con-
clusions. He felt a consuming tenderness for the

148 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

glorious Margaret of Anjou, and his heart thrilled one
day when a voice seemed to whisper to him out of the
printed page that Nada 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 Nada is willing to do all that for a poor
beggar of an outlaw. Which makes Margaret a second-
rater compared with Nada," he added. "For Margaret
wanted a kingdom along with her husband, and Nada
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
Wollaston waterways — the country of Yellow Bird .and
her people.

It was early September when they crossed the Geikie
and struck up the western shore of Wollaston 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 currants were glossy black and lusciously
ripe. It v/as the season which Jolly Roger loved most
of all, and it was the beginning of Peter's first Septem-
ber. 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 COUNTRY BEYOND 149

The wolf howled again in the middle of the night. The
loon forgot his love-sickness, and screamed raucous de-
fiance 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 wil-
derness were returning from the Posts to their cabins
and trap-lines, and he advanced with still greater cau-
tion. And as he went, -watching for smoke and listen-
ing for sound, he began to reflect upon the many
changes which five years might have produced among
Yellow Bird's people. Possibly other misfortunes had
come, other winters of hunger and pestilence, scatter-
ing and destroying the tribe. It might even be that
Yellow Bird was dead.

For three days he followed slowly the ragged shore
of Wollaston Lake, and foreboding of evil was op-
pressing 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 offal had been thrown.

It was the next day, in the hour before sunset, that
Jolly Roger and Peter camic out on the edge of a shelv-
ing beach where Indian children were playing in the
white sand. Among these children, playing and laugh-
ing with them, was a woman. She was tall and slim,
with a skirt of soft buckskin that came only a little be-
low her knees, and two shining black braids v/hich

I50 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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 fright-
ened 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 pos-
sible 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, grace-
ful 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 master*s.
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.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 151

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 fol-
lowed it that night was most exciting to Peter. Big
fires were built of white driftwood, and there was sing-
ing and dancing, and a great deal of laughter and eat-
ing, and the interminable howling of half a hundred
Siwash dogs. Peter did not like the dogs, but he did
no 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 know^n 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 this 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 ^vild-
fiower 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

152 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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 tepees and guns and sledges, and several treasures
besides. Two of these Yellow Bird and her husband
disclosed to Jolly Roger this first night. One of them
was a sewing machine, and the other — a phonograph!
And Jolly Roger listened to "Mother Machree" and
"The Rosary" that night as he sat by Wollaston Lake
with six hundred miles of wilderness between him and
Cragg's Ridge.

Later, when the camp slept, Yellow Bird 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 Yellow Bird, 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 Nada, and gently her slim fingers
caressed the tress of Nada'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 Oo-Mee, the
Pigeon."

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 153

Slim Buck started at the strange note in her voices

*The Pigeon," he repeated.

"Yes, Oo-Mee, the Pigeon," Yellow Bird 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 Nada's hair in her bosom. "Oo-Mee,
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.

Yellow Bird 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 some-;
thing of fear, and yet along with it a sublime faith.

"Her spirit will be with Oo-Mee, the Pigeon, to-
night," 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 Yellow Bird 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 Yellow Bird 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

154 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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
enoughj and think hard enough, you can think anything
until it comes true," he had told himself more than
once. And he knew Yellow Bird possessed that il=
limitable faith, and that behind her divination lay gen-
erations and centuries of an unbreakable certainty in
the power of mind over matter. He realized his own
limiitations, but a mysterious voice in the still night
seemed whispering to him that in the crude wisdom of
Yellow Bird's brain lay the secret to strange achieve-
ment, 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 P^ter at'
his feet waited for Yellow Bird to stir.

He could see the dull shimmer of starlight in her
hair, but the rest of her w^as 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 fiying through the air with Yellow
Bird. She was traveling swift and straight, like an

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 155

arrow, and he had difficulty in keeping up with her,
and at last he cried out for her to wait — that he could
go no farther. The cry roused him. He opened his
eyes, and found cool, gray dawn in the sky. Peter,
alert, was muzzling his hand. Slim Buck 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 Yellow Bird's tepee.

Yellow Bird still sat in the sand. Through the hours
of fading starlight and coming dawn she had not
moved. Slowly McKay 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, Neekewa," she whispered, drawing the
ropes of her hair about her as if she wxre cold.

Then she drew a slim hand over her eyes, and shiv-
ered.

"It is well, Neekewa," she spoke softly. *T have
gone through the clouds to where lives Oo-Mee, the
Pigeon. I found her crying in a trail. I whispered
to her and happiness came, and that happiness is going
to live — for Neekewa and The Pigeon. It cannot die.
It cannot be killed. The Red Coated men of the Great

156 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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,
Neekewa. In happiness — you will meet again."

"Where? When?" whispered Jolly Roger, his heart
beating with sudden swiftness.

Again Yellow Bird passed her hand over her eyes,
and as she held it there for a mom.ent she bowed her
head until Jolly Roger could see only her dew^vet hair,
and she said,

"In the Country Beyond, Neekewa."

Her eyes wxre looking at him again, big, dark and
filled v^^ith mystery.

"And where is this country. Yellow Bird?" he
asked, a strange chill driving the warmth out of his
heart. "You mean — up there?" And he pointed to
the gray sk>^ above them.

"No, it is happiness to come in life, not in death,"
said Yellow Bird 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, Neekewa. I could not pass beyond the
great white cloud that shut me out. But it is — some-
where. I will find it. And then I will tell you — and
The Pigeon."

She stood up, and swayed in the gray light, like one
w^crn out by hard travel. Then she passed into the

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 157

tepee, 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 Slim Buck stood beside him. And he
asked.

"Did you ever hear of the Country Beyond?'*
Slim Buck 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 build-
ing of fires. He waited eagerly for Sun Cloud. At
last she came out of Yellow Bird's tepee, rubbing her
eyes in the face of the glow in the east, and then her
white teeth flashed a smile of welcome at him. To-
gether 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 play-
mates 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 Yellow Bird's
conjuring had roused. He tried to see in them a men-
ace and a danger, and he repeated to himself the folly

158 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

of placing credence in Yellow Bird'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 Yellow Bird would tell him would
be true. He noted the calm and dignified stiffness with
which Slim Buck 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 tepee standing
but one on that w^hite strip of beach. And the one
tepee w^as Yellow Bird's.

Not until the ':amp was gone, leaving her alone, did
Yellow Bird come out into the day. She saw the food
placed at her tepee 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 glisten-
ing all about her and covered 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 Slim Buck's people made
another camp. But Slim Buck and Jolly Roger re-
mained in the cover of a wooded headland only half a
mile from Yellow Bird. They saw her when she came
out. They watched for an hour after she sat down
ic the sand. And then Slim Buck grunted, and with

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 159

a gesture of his hands said they would go. Jolly Roger
protested. It was not safe for Yellow Bird to remain
entirely beyond their protection. There were bears
prowling about. And human beasts occasionally
found their way through the w^ilderness. But Slim
Buck's face was like a bronze carving in its faith and
pride.

"Yellow Bird only goes with the good spirits/' he
assured Jolly Roger. "She does not do witchcraft with
the bad. And no harm can come w^hile the good spirits
are with her. It is thus she has brought us happiness
and prosperity since the days of the famine, Neekewa!"

He spoke these words in Cree, and McKay answered
him in Cree as they turned in the direction of the camp.
Half way, Sun Cloud 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 moccasined heels.

And Jolly Roger said,

*T wish I was your brother, SHm Buck, and Nada
was Yellow Bird's sister — and that I had many like
her," and his eyes followed Sun Cloud with hungry
yearning.

And as he said these words. Yellow Bird sat with
bowed head and closed eyes, with the soft tress of
Nada's hair in her hands. It was the physical union
between them, and all that day, and the night that fol-

i6o THE COUNTRY BEYOND

lowed, Yellow Bird 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 Oo-Mee the Pigeon. In dark-
ness 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
Slim Buck saw no movement of life about the lone
tepee in the sand.

But the third morning they saw the smoke of a little
greenwood fire rising straight up from in front of it.

Slim Buck 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 muscles of
his face. He was lonely without Yellow Bird, and the
signal fire meant she would be with him 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
Yellow Bird and Slim Buck. But words, even spoken
half aloud, did not quiet the eager beating of his heart.

Not until he w^as very near did Yellow Bird come
out of the tepee. And it was then Jolly Roger stopped
short, a gasp on his lips. She was changed. Her
radiant hair w^as 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

THE COUNTRY BEYOND i6i

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.

Yellow Bird held cut her hands tow^ard 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 has lain against my breast. I
have learned the secrets, Neekcwa — 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 al-
w^ays 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,
Neekewa, yet my heart stings me that I cannot tell
3^ou where that strange country is. But when I came
to it gold and 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, Neekew^a. I am glad.'*

Each w^ord 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 Bird's.

i62 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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 Blrd,'^ 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.

CHAPTER XI

l^AYS 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; litde children fol-
lowed him, and at dusk and dawn Sun Cloud 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 mys-
tery, 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 rest-
lessness in it. This restlessness was like the ghostly

pulse of a great living body, still for a time, then mov-

163

i64 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

ing, hiding, whispering between the clouds in the sky
and the deeper shadowed earth below. A night of un-
easiness, of unseen forces chained and stifled, of im-
pending doubt and oppressive lifelessness.

There was no wind, yet under the stars gray masses
of cloud sped as if in flight.

There was no breeze in the treetops, yet they whis-
pered 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 enshrouding it.

At the edge of the Vv'hite sands of Wollaston, 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 ir.oved 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. Sun Cloud, tossing on her blan-
kets, 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

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 165

into nothingness. Wide awake, she was thinking —
thinking as SHm Buck would never be able to think,
back to the days w^hen 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,
Yello^v 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
Sun Cloud, and of Slim Buck 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 Sun Cloud, her little
daughter, ivas beautiful, and Slim Buck 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
outlav/, ''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 ac-
cusing her. They told her it was because of her that
Roger j\IcKay had come in that Vv'inter of starvation
and death, and had robbed and almost killed, that she
and Slim Buck and little Sun Cloud might live. That
v;as the beginning, and the thrill of it had got into the

i66 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

blood of Neekewa, 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.

Yellmv Bird sat up, her little hands clenched about
the thick braid of Sun Cloud's hair. She had con-
jured with the spirits and had let the soul go out of
her body that she might learn the future for Neekewa,
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 Nada the white girl,
and happiness, and peace. Yellow Bird did not dis-
believe. Her faith w^as illimitable. 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 tepee 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 Slim Buck. Then
she drew it back, and placed Sun Cloud's braid away
from her. She rose to her feet so quietly that even in
their restlessness they did not fully awake. Through
the tepee door she went, and stood up straight in the
night, as if now she might hear more clearly, and un-
derstand.

For a space she breathed in the oppressive something

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 167

that was in the air, and her eyes went east and west for
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 Wollaston.

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,
close beside a flat mass of water^vashed 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 oc-
casionally 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

i68 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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 Nada's name, and as Jolly Roger cried it out
softly in the old way, as if Nada was standing before
them, he reached out, and his hands struck the sand-
stone 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, Neekewa !''

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. "Nee-
kewa, you must go!"

"Heard what?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Something — I don't knov/ what. But it tells me

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 169

there is danger. And I saw danger over the tepee top,
and I have heard whisperings of it all about me. It
is coming. It is coming slowly and cautiously. It is
very near. Hark, Neekewa! Was that not a sound
out on the water?"

"I think it v;as the wing of a duck, Yellow Bird."

"And thatf she cried swiftly, her fingers tightening
still more. ''That sound — as if wood strikes on wood!"

'The croak of a loon far up the shore, Yellow Bird."

She drew her hand away.

*'Neekewa, listen to me," she importuned him in
Cree. "The spirits have made this night heavy with
warning. I could not sleep. Sun Cloud twitches and
moans. Slim Buck whispers to himself. You were
crying out the name of Nada — Oo-Mee 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 hap-
piness and peace were coming to me, Yellow Bird," re-
minded Jolly Roger. "The spirits, you said, prom-
ised the law should never get me, and I would find Nada
again in that strange place you called the Country Be-
yond. 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 im.possible. They have tried
to tell me where Hes this place they call the Country

170 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

Beyond — where you will again find Oo-Mee 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. *'Nee-
kewa, did you hear?''

"A fish leaping in the still water, Yellow Bird."

He heard a low whimper in Peter's throat, and look-
ing down he saw Peter's muzzle pointing toward the
thick cloud of gloom over the lake.

*'What is it, Pied-Botr 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 a statue at his side. "Neekewa, the
spirits do not forget. They have not forgotten that

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 171

winter when you came, and my people were dying of
famine and sickness — when I dreaded to see Httle 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 Des Chenes, 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, com-
pelling him to believe Yellow Bird. She did not look
at him, but in her low Cree voice, soft as the mellow
notes of a bird, she was saying :

"You will be going very soon, Neekewa, 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
Oo-Mee 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. BeHeve, and you shall
be guided. If you disbelieve ''

She stopped.

''You heard that, Neekewa? 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.

172 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

'*Yes, a paddle," he said, and his voice sounded
strange to him. *Trobably it is one of your people
returning to camp, Yellow Bird."

She turned toward himx, 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 herlparted lips.

^'Goodby, Neekewa," she whispered.

And then, without letting her hands touch him, she
was gone. Swiftly she ran to Slim Buck's tepee, and
entered, and very soon she came cut again 'with Slim
Buck beside her. Jolly Roger did not m.ove, but
watched as Yellow Bird 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 ap-
proaching. 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 w^ater
beyond. There were tvv^o people in it. Before the
canoe reached the shore Slim Buck stood out knee-
deep in the water and hailed it.

A voice answered. And at the sound of that voice
McKay dropped like a shot beside Peter, and Peter's
lips curled up, and he snarled. His master's hand
w^arned 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.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 173

"It's Cassidv, Pied-Bot! We can't lose that red-
headed fox, can we?"

A good humored deviltry 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 wQvy 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 mom.ents 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 Terence 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 In-
dian came up and stood behind him, and for many
minutes they listened for the crackling of brush. SHm
Buck joined them, and last came Yellow Bird, her dark

174 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

eyes glowing like pools of fire in their excitement.
Cassidy looked at her, marveling at her beauty, and sus-
picious of something that was in her face. He went
back to the beach. There he caught himself short, as-
tonishment 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 Yellow Bird ran to her tepee.

And from the mist of water — far out — came a voice,
the voice of Jolly Roger McKay.

*'Goodby, Cassidy!"

With it mingled the defiant bark of a dog.

In her tepee, a moment later. Yellow Bird drew
Sun Cloud's glossy head close against her warm breast,
and turned her radiant face up thankfully to the smoke
hole in the tepee top, through which the spirits had
whispered their warning to her. Indistinctly, and still
farther away, her straining ears heard again the cry,

''Goodby, Cassidy!"

CHAPTER XII

TN Cassidy's canoe, driving himself with steady
-■■ strokes deeper into the mystery of the starHt waters
of Wollaston, Jolly Roger felt the night suddenly
filled with an exhilarating tonic. Its deadness w^as
gone. Its weight had lifted. A ripple broke the star
gleams where an increasing breeze touched the surface
of the lake. And the thrill of adventure stirred in his
blood. He laughed as he put his skill and strength
in the sweep of his paddle, and for a time the thought
that he was an outlaw, and in losing Nada had lost
everything in life worth fighting for, v^^as not so op-
pressive. It was the old, joyous laugh, stirred by his
sense of humor, and the trick he had played on Cassidy.
He could imagine Cassidy back on the shore, his
temper redder than his hair as he cursed and tore up
the sand in his search for another canoe.

*'We're inseparable," Jolly Roger explained to Peter.
"Wherever I go, Cassidy is sure to follow. You see,
it's this way. A long time ago someone gave Cassidy
what they call an assignment, and in that assignment
it says 'go get Jolly Roger McKay, dead or alive' — or
something to that effect. And Cassidy has been on the
job ever since. But he can't quite catch up with me,
Pied-Bot. I'm always a little ahead."

175

176 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

And yet, even as he laughed, there was in Jolly
Roger's heart a yearning to which he had never given
voice. Half a dozen times he might have killed Cas-
sidy, and an equal number of times Cassidy might have
killed him. But neither had taken advantage of the
opportunity to destroy. They had played the long
and thrilling game like men, and because of the fairness
and sportsmanship of the man who hunted him Jolly
Roger though of Cassidy as he might have thought of
a brother, and more than once he yearned to go to him,
and hold out his hand in friendship. Yet he knew
Corporal Cassidy was the deadliest menace the earth
held for him, a menace that had followed him like a
shadow through months and years — across the Barren
Lands, along the rim of the Arctic, down the Mac-
kenzie, and back again — a menace that never tired,
and was never far behind in that ten thousand miles
of wilderness they had covered. Together in the blood-
stirring game of One against One they had faced the
deadliest perils of the northland. They had gone
hungry, and cold, and more than once a thousand
miles of nothingness lay behind them, and death seemed
preferable to anything that might lie ahead. Yet in that
aloneness, when companionship was more precious than
anything else on earth, neither had cried quits. The
game had gone on, Cassidy after his man — ^and Jolly
Roger McKay fighting for his freedom.

As he headed his canoe north and east. Jolly Roger
thought again of the wager m.ade weeks ago down

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 177

at Cragg's Ridge, when he had turned the tables
on Cassidy and when Cassidy had made a solemn oath
to resign from the service if he failed to get his man iiv
their next encounter. He knew Cassidy would keep
his word, and something told him that tonight the last
act in this tragedy of two had begun. He chuckled
again as he pictured the probable course of events on
shore. Cassidy, backed by the law, was demanding*
another canoe and a necessary outfit of Slim Buck.
Slim Buck, falling back on his tribal dignity, was
killing all possible time in making the preparations.
When pursuit w^as resumed Jolly Roger would have at
least a mile the start of the red-headed nemesis who
hung to his trail. And Wollaston Lake, sixty miles
from end to end, and half as wide, offered plenty of
room in which to find safety.

The rising of the wind, which came from the south
and west, v;as pleasing to Jolly Roger, and he put less
caution and more force into the sweep of his paddle.
For two hours he kept steadily eastward, and then
swung a little north, guiding himself by the stars.
With the breaking of dawn he made out the thickly
w^ooded shore on the opposite side of the lake from
Slim Buck's camp, and before the sun was half an
hour high he had drawn up his canoe at the tip of a
headland which gave him a splendid view of the lake
in all directions.

From this point, comfortably encamped in the cool
shadows of a thick clump of spruce. Jolly Roger and

178 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

Peter watched all that day for a sign of their enemy.
As far as the eye could reach no movement of human
life appeared on the quiet surface of Wollaston. Not
until that hazy hour between sunset and dusk did he
build a fire and cook a meal from the supplies in
Cassidy's pack, for he knew smoke could be discerned
much farther than a canoe. Yet even as he observ^ed
this caution he was confident there was no longer any
danger in returning to Yellow Bird and her people.

''You see, Pied-Bot/' he said, discussing the matter
with Peter, while he smoked a pipeful of tobacco in the
early evening, "Cassidy thinks we're on our way north,
as fast as we can go. He'll hit for the upper end of
the Lake and the Black River waterway, and keep
right on into the Porcupine country. It's a big country
up there, and we've always taken plenty of space for our
travels. Shall we go back to Yellow Bird, Peter? And
Sun Cloud?"

Peter tried to answer, and thumped his tail, but even
as he asked the questions there was a doubt growing in
Jolly Roger's mind. He wanted to go back, and as
darkness gathered about him he was urged by a great
loneliness. Only Yellow Bird grieved with him in his
loss of Nada, and understood how empty life had be-
come for him. She had, in a way, become a part of
Nada ; her presence raised him out of despair, her voice
gave him hope, her unconquerable spirit — fighting for
his happiness — inspired him until he saw light where
there had been only darkness. The impelling desire to

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 179

return to her brought him to his feet and down to the
pebbly shore of the lake, where the water rippled softly
in the thickening gloonx But a still more powerful
force held him back, and he went to his blankets,
spread over a thick couch of balsam boughs. For
hours his eyes were wide open and sleepless.

He no longer thought of Cassidy, but of Yellow
Bird. Doubt — a charitable inclination to half believe —
gave w^ay in him to a conviction which he could not
fight down. More than once in his years of wilderness
life strange facts had compelled him to give some cred-
ence to the pov;er of the Indian conjurer. Belief in
the mastery of the mind was part of his faith in nature.
It had come to him from his mother, who had lived
and died in the strength of her creed.

* Think hard, and with faith, if you want anything
to come true," she had told him. And this was also
Yellow Bird's creed. Was it possible she had told
him the truth ? Had her mind actually communed with
the mind of Nada? Had she, through the sheer force
of her illimitable faith, projected her subconscious
self into the future that she might show him the way?
His eyes were staring, his ears unhearing, as he thought
of the proof which Yellow Bird had given to him.
A few hours ago she had brought him warning of im-
pending danger. There had been no hesitation and no
doubt. She had come to him unequivocal and sure.
Without seeing, without hearing, she knew Cassidy
was stealing upon him through the night.

i8o THE COUNTRY BEYOND

In the darkness Jolly Roger sat up, his heart beating
fast. Without effort, and with no thought of the neces-
sity of proof, Yellow Bird had given him a test of her
power. It had been a spontaneous and unstaged thing,
a woman's heart reaching out for him — as she had
promised that it would. And yet, even as the simplicity
and truth of it pressed upon him, doubt followed
with its questions. If, after this. Yellow Bird had told
him to return to Nada as swiftly as he could, he would
have believed, and this night would have seen him on
his way. But she had warned him against this, pre-
dicting desolation and grief if he returned. She had
urged him to go on, somewhere, anywhere, seeking for
an illusion and an unreahty which the spirits had named
to her as the Country Beyond. And when he reached
this Country Beyond, wherever it might be, he would
possess Nada again, and happiness for all time. After
all, there was something archaically crude in what he
was trying to believe, when he came to analyze it.
Yellow Bird possessed her powers, but they were
definitely limited. And to believe beyond those limita-
tions, to ride upon the wings of superstition and
imagination, was sheer savagery.

Jolly Roger stretched himself upon his blankets
again, repeating this final argument to himself. But
as the night drew closer about him, and his eyes
closed, and sleep came, there was a lightness in his
heart w^hich he had not known for many days. He
dreamed, and his dream was of Nada. He was with

THE COUNTRY BEYOND i8i

her again and it seemed, in this dream, that Yellow
Bird \vas ahvays watching them, and they could not
quite get away from her. They ran through the
jackpine openings where the strawberries and blue
violets grew, and he always ran behind Nada, so he
could see her brown curls flying about her.

But they never could rid themselves of Yellow Bird,
no matter how fast they ran or where they tried to
hide. From somewhere Yellow Bird's dark eyes would
look out at them, and finally, laughing at his own dis-
comfiture, he drew Nada down beside him in a little fen,
w^hite and yellow and blue with w^ildflowers, and boldly
took her head in his arms and kissed her — with Yellow
Bird looking at them from behind a banksian clump
twenty feet away. So real was the kiss, and so real
the warm pressure of Nada's slim arms about his neck
that he awoke with a glad cry — and sat up to find the
dawn had come.

,For a few moments he sat stupidly, looking about
him as if not quite believing the unreality of it all.
Then with Peter he went down to the edge of the
lake.

All that day Peter sensed a quiet change in his
master. Jolly Roger did not talk. He did not 'whistle
or laugh, but moved quietly when he moved at all,
with a set, strange look in his face. He was making his
last big fight against the desire to return to Cragg's
Ridge. Yellow Bird's predictions, and her warning,
had no influence with him now. He was thinking of

1 82 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

Nada alone. She was back there, waiting for him,
praying for his return, ready and happy to become
a fugitive with him — to accept her chances of Hfe or
death, of happiness or grief, in his company. A dozen
times the determination to return for her almost won.
But each time came the other picture — a vision of
ceaseless flight, of hiding, of hunger and cold and never
ending hardship, and at the last, inevitable as the dawn-
ing of another day — prison, and possibly the hang-
man.

Not until late that afternoon did Peter see the old
Jolly Roger in the face of his master. And Jolly
Roger said :

*'We've made up our mind, Pied-Bot. We can't
go back. We'll hit north and spend the winter along
the edge of the Barren Lands. It's the biggest coun-
try I know of, and if Cassidy comes — "

He shrugged his shoulders grimly.

In half an hour they had started, with the sun
beginning to sink in the west.

For two days Jolly Roger and Peter paddled their
way slowly up the eastern shore of Wollaston. That
he had correctly analyzed the mental arguments which
would guide Cassidy in his pursuit Jolly Roger had
little doubt. He would keep to the west shore, and up
through the Hatchet Lake and Black River water-
ways, as his quarry had never failed to hit straight for
the farther north in time of peril. Meanwhile Jolly
Roger had decided to make his way without haste up

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 183

the east shore of Wollaston, and paddle north and
east through the Du Brochet and Thiewiaza River
waterways. If these courses were followed, each hour
would add to the distance between them, and when the
way was safe they would head straight for the Barren
Lands.

Peter, and only Peter, sensed the glory of that third
afternoon when they paddled slowly ashore close to
the shimmering stream of spring water that was called
Limping Moose Creek. The sun was still two hours
high in the west. There was no wind, and Wollaston
was like a mirror; yet in the still air was the clean,
cool tang of early autumn, and shoreward the world
reached out in ridges and billows of tinted forests, with
a September haze pulsing softly over them, fleecy
as the misty shower of a lady's powder puff. It was
destined to be a memorable afternoon for Peter, a going
down of the sun that he would never forget as long as
he lived.

Yet there was no warning of the thing impending,
and his eyes saw only the mystery and wonder of the
big world, and his ears heard only the drowsing mur-
mur of it, and his nose caught only the sweet scents
of cedars and i)alsams and of flowering and ripening
things. Straight ahead, beyond the white shore line,
was a low ridge, and this ridge — ^where it was not
purple and black with the evergreen^ — was red with the
crimson blotches of mountain-ash berries, and patches
of fire flowers that glowed like flame in the setting sun.

From out of this paradise, as they drew near to it,

1 84 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

came softly the voice and song of birds and the chatter
of red squirrels. A big jay was screeching over it
all, and between the first ridge and the second — which
rose still higher beyond it — a cloud of crows were
circling excitedly over a mother black bear and her
half grown cubs as they feasted on the red ash berries.
But Peter could not smell the bears, nor hear them,
and the distant crows were of less interest than the
wonder and mystery of the shore close at hand.

He turned from his place in the bow^ of the canoe,
and looked at his master. There was little of inspira-
tion in Jolly Roger's face or eyes. The glory of the
world ahead gave him no promise, as it gave promise
to Peter. Beyond what he could see there lay, for him,
a vast emptiness, a chaos of loneliness, an eternity of
shattered hopes and broken dreams. Love of life was
gone out of him. He saw no beauty. The sun had
changed. The sky was different. The bigness of his
wilderness no longer thrilled him, but oppressed him.

Peter sensed sharply the change in his master without
knowing the reason for it. Just as the world had
changed for Jolly Roger, so Jolly Roger had changed
for Peter.

They landed on a beach of sand, soft as a velvet
carpet. Peter jumped out. A long-legged sandpiper
and her mate ran down the shore ahead of him. He
perked up his angular ears, and then his nose caught
a fresh scent under his feet where a porcupine had
left his trail. And he heard more clearly the raucous

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 185

tumult of the jay and the musical chattering of the
red squirrels.

All these things were satisfactory to Peter. They
were life, and life thrilled him, just as it had thrilled
his master a few days ago. He adventured a little
distance up to the edge of the green willows and the
young birch and the crimson masses of fire flowers
that fringed the beginning of the forest. It had rained
recently here, and the scents were fresh and sweet.

He found a wild currant bush, glistening with its
luscious black berries, and began nibbling at them. A
gopher, coming to his supper bush, gave a little squeak
of annoyance, and Peter saw the bright eyes of the
midget glaring at him from under a big fern leaf.
Peter wagged his tail, for the savagery of his existence
was qualified by that mellowing sense of humor which
had always been a part of his master. He yipped
softly, in a companionable sort of way.

And then there smote upon his ears a sound which
hardened every muscle in his body.

"Throw up your hands, McKay !"

He turned his head. Close to him stood a man.
In an instant he had recognized him. It was the man
whose scent he had first discovered down at Cragg's
Ridge, the man from whom his master was always
running away, the man whose voice he had heard again
at Yellow Bird's Camp a few nights ago — Corporal
Terence Cassidy, of the Royal Northwest Mounted
Police.

i86 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

Twenty paces away stood McKay. His dunnage
was on his back, his paddle in his hand. And Cassidy,
smiling grimly, a dangerous humor in his eyes, was
leveling an automatic at his breast. It was, in that in-
stant, a tableau which no man could ever forget. Cas-
sidy was bareheaded, and the sun burned hotly in his
red hair. And his face was red, and in the pale blue
of his Irish eyes was a fierce joy of achievement. At
last, after months and years, the thrilling game of One
against One was at an end. Cassidy had made the last
move, and he was winner.

For half a minute after the command to throw up
his hands McKay did not move. And Cassidy did
not repeat the command, for he sensed the shock that
had fallen upon his adversary, and was charitable
enough to give him time. And then, with something
like a deep sigh from between his lips. Jolly Roger's
body sagged. The dunnage dropped from his shoulder
to the sand. The paddle slipped from his hand.
Slowly he raised his arms above his head, and Cassidy
laughed softly.

A few days ago McKay would have grinned back,
coolly, good humoredly, appreciative of the other's
craftsmanship even in the hour of his defeat. But
today there was another soul within him.

His eyes no longer saw the old Cassidy, brave and
loyal to his duty, a chivalrous enemy, the man he had
yearned to love as brother loves brother, even in the
hours of sharpest pursuit. In Cassidy he saw now

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 187

the hangman himself. The whole world had turned
against him, and in this hour of his greatest despair
and hopelessness a bitter fate had turned up Cassidy
to deal him the finishing blow.

A swift rage burned in him, even as he raised his
hands. It swept through his brain in a blinding
inundation. He did not think of the law, or of death,
or of freedom. It was the unfairness of the thing
that filled his soul with the blackness of one last
terrible desire for vengeance. Cassidy's gun, leveled
at his breast, meant nothing. A thousand guns leveled
at his breast would have meant nothing. A choking
sound came from his lips, and like a shot his right hand
went to his revolver holster.

In that last second or two Cassidy had foreseen the
impending thing, and with the movement of the other's
hand he cried out :

"Stop! For God's sake stop — or I shall fire!"

Even into the soul of Peter there came in that mo-
ment the electrical thrill of something terrific about
to happen, of impending death, of tragedy close at
hand. Once, a long time ago, Peter had felt another
moment such as this — when he had buried his fangs
in Jed Hawkins' leg to save Nada.

In that fraction of a second which carried Peter
through space. Corporal Cassidy's finger was pressing
the trigger of his automatic, for McKay's gun was half
out of its holster. He was aiming at the other's
shoulder, somewhere not to kill.

1 88 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

The shock of Peter's assault came simultaneously
with the explosion of his gun, and McKay heard the
hissing spit of the bullet past his ear. His arm darted
out. And as Peter buried his teeth deeper into Cas-
sidy's leg, he heard a second shot, and knew that it
came from his master. There was no third. Cassidy
drooped, and something like a little laugh came from
him — only it was not a laugh. His body sagged, and
then crumpled down, so that the weight of him fell upon
Peter.

For many seconds after that Jolly Roger stood with
his gun in his hand, not a muscle of his body moving,
and with something like stupor in his staring eyes.
Peter struggled out from under Cassidy, and looked
inquisitively from his master to the man who lay
sprawled out like a great spider upon the sand. It was
then that life seemed to come back into Jolly Roger's
body. His gun fell, as if it was the last thing in the
world to count for anything now, and with a choking
cry he ran to Cassidy and dropped upon his knees beside
him.

"Cassidy — Cassidy " he cried. "Good God, I

didn't mean to do It ! Cassidy, old pal "

The agony in his voice stilled the growl In Peter's
throat. McKay saw nothing for a space, as he raised
Cassidy 's head and shoulders, and brushed back the
mop of red hair. Everything was a blur before his
eyes. He had killed Cassidy. He knew It. He had
shot to kill, and not once in a hundred times did he miss

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 189

his mark. At last he was what the law wanted him to
be — a murderer. And his victim was Cassidy — the
man who had played him fairly and squarely from
beginning to end, the man who had never taken a mean
advantage of him, and who had died there in the white
sand because he had not shot to kill. With sobbing
breath he cried out his grief, and then, looking down, he
saw the miracle in Cassidy's face. The Irishman's
eyes were wide open, and there was pain, and also a
grin, about his mouth.

"I'm glad you're sorry," he said. "I'd hate to have
a bad opinion of you, McKay. But — you're a rotten
shot !"

His body sagged heavily, and the grin slowly left
his lips, and a moan came from between them. He
struggled and spoke.

"It may be — ^you'll want help, McKay. If you do — <
there's a cabin half a mile up the creek. Saw the smoke
— heard axe — I don't blame you. You're a good sport
— -pretty quick — but — rotten shot ! Oh, Lord — such-
rotten — shot "

And he tried vainly to grin up into Jolly Roger's
face as he became a lifeless weight in the other's arms.

Jolly Roger was sobbing. He was sobbing, in a
strange, hard man-fashion, as he tore open Cassidy's
shirt and saw the red wound that went clean through
Cassidy's right breast just under the shoulder. And
Peter still heard that strange sound coming from his
lips, a moaning as if for breath, as his master ran and

190 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

brought up water, and worked over the fallen man.
And then he got under Cassidy, and rose up with him
on his shoulders, and staggered off with him toward
the creek. There he found a path, a narrow foot trail,
and not once did he stop with his burden until he came
into a little clearing, out of which Cassidy had seen
the smoke rising. In this clearing was a cabin, and
from the cabin came an old man to meet him — an
old man and a girl.

At first something shot up into Peter's throat, for
he thought it was Nada who came behind the grizzled
and white-headed man. There was the same lithe slim-
ness in her body, the same brown glint in her hair,
and the same — but he saw then that it was not Nada.
She was older. She was a bit taller. And her face
was white when she saw the bleeding burden on Jolly
Roger's back.

"I shot him," panted McKay. "God knows I didn't
mean to! I'm afraid "

He did not finish giving voice to the fear that
Cassidy was dead — or dying, and for a moment he
saw only the big staring eyes of the girl as the gray-
bearded man helped him with his burden. Not until
the Irishman was on a cot in the cabin did he discover
how childishly weak he had become and what a ter-
rific struggle he had made with the weight on his
shoulders. He sank into a chair, while the old trapper
worked over Cassidy.

He heard the girl call him grandfather. She was no

THE COUNTRY BEYOND igr

longer frightened, and she moved like a swift bird
about the cabin, getting water and bandages and pil-
lows, and the sight of fresh blood and of Cassidy's
dead-white face brought a glow of tenderness into
her eyes. McKay, sitting dumbly, saw that her hands
were doing twice the work his own could have ac-
complished, and not until he heard a low moan from
the w^ounded man did he come to her side.

"The bullet went through clean as a whistle," the
old man said. ''Lucky you don't use soft nosed bul-
lets, friend.'*

A deep sigh came from Cassidy's lips. His eyelids
fluttered, and then slowly his eyes opened. The girl
was bending over him, and Cassidy saw only her face,
and the brown sheen of her hair.

"He'll live?" Jolly Roger said tremulously.

The older man remained mute. It was Cassidy,
turning his head a little, who answered weakly.

"Don't worry, McKay. I'll— Hve."

Jolly Roger bent over the cot, between Cassidy and
the girl. Gently he took one of the wounded man's
hands in both his own.

"I'm sorry, old man," he whispered. "You won, fair
and square. And I won't go far away. I'll be waiting
for you when you get on your feet. I promise that.
I'll wait."

A wan smile came over Cassidy's lips, and then he
moaned again, and his eyes closed. The girl thrust
Jolly Roger back.

192 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

"No — you better not go far, an' you better wait,"
she said, and there was an unspoken thing in the dark
glow of her eyes that made him think of Nada on
that day when she told him how Jed Hawkins had
struck her in the cabin at Cragg's Ridge.

That night Jolly Roger made his camp close to the
mouth of the Limping Moose. And for three days
thereafter his trail led only between this camp and the
cabin of old Robert Baron and his granddaughter,
Giselle. All this time Cassidy was teUing things in a
fever. He talked a great deal about Jolly Roger. And
the girl, nursing him night and day, with scarcely a
wink of sleep between, came to believe they had been
great comrades, and had been inseparable for a long
time. Even then she would not let McKay take her
place at Cassidy's side. The third day she started
him off for a post sixty miles away to get a fresh-
supply of bandages and medicines.

It was evening, three days later, when Jolly Roger
and Peter returned. The windows of the cabin were
brightly lighted, and McKay came up to one of these
windows and looked in. Cassidy was bolstered up in
his cot. He was very much alive, and on the floor
at his side, sitting on a bear rug, was the girl. A
lump rose in Jolly Roger's throat. Quietly he placed
the bundle which he had brought from the post close
up against the door, and knocked. When Giselle
opened it he had disappeared into darkness, with
Peter at his heels.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 193

The next morning he found old Robert and said to
him:

'Tm restless, and I'm going to move a little. I'll be
back in two weeks. Tell Cassidy that, will you?"

Ten minutes later he was paddling up the shore of
Wcllaston, and for a week thereafter he haunted the
creeks and inlets, always on the move. Peter saw
him growing thinner each day. There was less and less
of cheer in his voice, seldom a smile on his lips, and
never did his laugh ring out as of old. Peter tried to
understand, and Jolly Roger talked to him, but not
in the old happy way.

"We might have finished him, an' got rid of him
for good," he said to Peter one chilly night beside their
campfire. "But we couldn't, just like we couldn't have
b)rought Nada up here with us. And we're going back.
I'm going to keep that promise. We're going back,
Peter, if we hang for it!"

And Jolly Roger's jaw would set grimly as he meas-
ured the time between.

The tenth day came and he set out for the mouth of
the Canoe River. On the afternoon of the twelfth he
paddled slowly into Limping Moose Creek. Without
any reason he looked at his watch when he started for
old Robert's cabin. It was four o'clock. He was two
days ahead of his promise, and there was a bit of
satisfaction in that. There was an odd thumping at
his heart. He had faith in Cassidy, a belief that the
Irishman would call their affair a draw, and tell him

194 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

to take another chance in the big open. He was the
sort of man to live up to the letter of a wager, when it
was honestly made. But, if he didn't

Jolly Roger paused long enough to take the cart-
ridges from his gun. There would be no more shooting
— on his part.

The mellow autumn sun was flooding the open door
of the cabin when he came up. He heard laughter.
It was Giselle. She was talking, too. And then he
heard a man's voice — and from far off to his right
came the chopping of an axe. Old Robert was at work.
Giselle and Cassidy were at home.

He stepped up to the door, coughing to give notice
of his approach. And then, suddenly, he stopped,
staring thunderstruck at what was happening within.

Terence Cassidy was sitting in a big chair. The
girl was behind him. Her white arms were around his
neck, her face was bent down, her lips were kissing
him.

In an instant Cassldy's eyes had caught him.

"Come in," he cried, so suddenly and so loudly that
it startled the girl. ''McKay, come in!"

Jolly Roger entered, and the girl stood up straight
behind Cassidy's chair, her cheeks aflame and her
eyes filled with the glow of the sunset. And Terence
Cassidy was grinning in that old triumphant way as
he leaned forward in his chair, gripping the arms of it
with both hands.

''McKay, you've lost," he cried. "I'm the winner!"

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 195

In the same moment he took the girl's hand and drew
her from behind his chair.

"Giselle, do as you said you were going to do.
Prove to him that I've won.'*

Slowly she came to Jolly Roger. Her cheeks were
like the red of the sunset. Her eyes were flaming. Her
lips were parted. And dumbly he waited, and won-
dered, until she stood close to him. Then, swiftly, her
arms were around his neck, and she kissed him. In an
instant she was back on her knees at the wounded man's
side, her burning face hidden against him, and Cas-
sidy was laughing, and holding out both hands to
McKay.

"McKay, Roger McKay, I want you to meet Mrs.
Terence Cassidy, my wife," he said. And the girl
raised her face, so that her shining eyes were on
Jolly Roger.

Still dumbly he stood where he was.

"The Missioner from Du Brochet was here yester-
day, and married us," he heard Cassidy saying. "And
we've written out my resignation together, old man.
We've both won. I thank God you put that bullet into
me down on the shore, for it's brought me paradise.
And here's my hand on it, McKay — forever and ever !"

Half an hour later, when McKay stumbled out into
the forest trail again, his eyes were blinded by tears
and his heart choked by a new hope as big as the
world itself. Yellow Bird was right, and God must
have been with her that night when her soul went to

196 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

commune with Nada's. For Yellow Bird had proved
herself again. And now he believed her.

He believed in the world again. He believed in love
and happiness and the glory of life, and as he went
down the narrow trail to his canoe, with Peter close
behind him, his heart was crying out Nada's name and
Yellow Bird's promise that sometime — somewhere —
they two would find happiness together, as Giselle and
Terence Cassidy had found it.

And Peter heard the chopping of the distant axe,
and the song of birds, and the chattering of squirrels —
but thrilling his soul most of all was the voice of his
master, the old voice, the glad voice, the voice he had
first learned to love at Cragg's Ridge in the days of
blue violets and red strawberries, when Nada had
filled his world.

CHAPTER XIII

lyTcKAY still had his mind on a certain stretch of
■*•-■■ timber that reached out into the Barren Lands,
hundreds of miles farther north. In this hiding place,
three years before, he had built himself a cabin, and
had caught foxes during half the long winter. Not
only the cabin, but the foxes, were drawing him.
Necessity was close upon his heels. What little money
he possessed after leaving Cragg's Ridge was ex-
hausted, his supplies were gone, and his boots and
clothes were patched with deer hide.

In the Snowbird Lake country, a week after he left
Cassidy in his paradise at Wollaston, he fell in with
good fortune. Two trappers had come in from
Churchill. One of them was sick, and the other needed
help in the building of their winter cabin. McKay re-
mained with them for ten days, and when he continued
his journey northward his pack was stuffed with sup-
plies, and he wore new boots and more comfortable
clothes.

It was the middle of October when he found his old
cabin, a thousand miles from Cragg's Ridge. It was as
he had left it three 3^ears ago. No one had opened its
door since then. The little box stove was waiting for

197

198 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

a fire. Behind it was a pile of wood. On the table
wxre the old tin dishes, and hanging from babiche cords
fastened to the roof timbers, out of reach of mice and
ermine, were blankets and clothing and other posses-
sions he had left behind him in that winter break-up of
what seemed like ages ago to him. He raised a small
section in the floor, and there were his traps, thickly-
coated with caribou grease. For half an hour before
he built a fire he sought eagerly for the things he had
concealed here and there. He found oil, and a tin
lamp, and candles, and as darkness of the first night
gathered outside a roaring fire sent sparks up the chim-
ney, and the little cabin's one window glowed with
light, and the battered old coffee pot bubbled and
steamed again, as if rejoicing at his return.

With the breaking of another day he immediately
began preparations for the season's trapping. In two
days' hunting he killed three caribou, his winter meat.
Then he cut wood, and made his strychnine poison
baits, and marked out his trap-lines.

The first of November brought the chill whisperings
of an early winter through the Northland. Farther
south autumn was dying, or dead. The last of the red
ash berries hung shriveled and frost-bitten on naked
twigs, freezing nights were nipping the face of the
earth, the voices of the wilderness were filled with a
new note and the winds held warning for every man
iK^-^itand beast between Hudson's Bay and the Great Slave
and from the Height of Land to the Arctic Sea. Seven

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 199

years before there had come such a winter, and the land
had not forgotten it — a winter sudden and swift,
deadly in its unexpectedness, terrific in its cold, bring-
ing with it such famine and death as the Northland had
not known for two generations.

But this year there was premonition. Omen of it
came with the first wailing night winds that bore the
smell of icebergs from over the black forests north and
west. The moon came up red, and it went down red,
and the sun came up red in the morning. The loon's
call died a month ahead of its time. The wild geese
drove steadily south when they should have been feed-
ing from the Kogatuk to Baffin's Bay, and the beaver
built his walls thick, and anchored his alders and his
willows deep so that he would not starve when the
ice grew heavy. East, west, north and south, in forest
and swamp, in the trapper's cabin and the wolf's
hiding-place, was warning of it. Gray rabbits turned
white. Moose and caribou began to herd. The foxes
yipped shrilly in the night, and a new hunger and a
new thrill sent the wolves hunting in packs, while the
gray geese streaked southward under the red moon
overhead.

Through this November, and all of December, Jolly
Roger and Peter were busy from two hours before
dawn of each day until late at night. The foxes were
plentiful, and McKay was compelled to shorten his
lines and put out fewer baits, and on the tenth of
December he set out for a fur-trading post ninety

200 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

miles south with two hundred and forty skins. He
had made a toboggan, and a harness for Peter, and
pulling together they made the trip in three days, and
on the fourth started for the cabin again with supplies
and something over a thousand dollars in cash.

Through the weeks of increasing storm and cold
that followed, McKay continued to trap, and early in
February he m^ade another trip to the fur post.

It was on their return that they were caught in the
Black Storm. It will be a long time before the north-
land will forget that storm. It was a storm in which
the Sarcees died to a man, woman and child over on
the Dubawnt waterways, and when trees froze solid
and split open with the sharp explosions of high-power
guns. In it, all furred and feathered life and all hoof
and horn along the edge of the Barren Lands from
Aberdeen Lake to the Coppermine was swallowed up.
It was in this storm that streams froze solid, and the
man who was cautious fastened a babiche rope about
his waist when he went forth from his cabin for
wood or water, so that his wife might help to pull and
guide him back through that blinding avalanche of
wind and freezing fury that held a twisted and broken
world in its grip.

In the country west of Artillery Lake and south of
the Theolon River, Jolly Roger and Peter were com-
pelled to "dig in.'* They were in a country where the
biggest stick of wood that thrust itself up out of the
snow was no bigger than McKay's thumb; a country

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 201

of green grass and succulent moss on which the caribou
fed in season, but a hell on earth when arctic storm
howled and screamed across it in winter.

Piled up against a mass of rock Jolly Roger found a
huge snow drift. This drift was as long as a church
and half as high, with its outer shell blistered and
battered to the hardness of rock by wind ^and sleet.
Through this shell he cut a small door with his knife,
and after that dug out the soft snow from within until
he had a room half as big as his cabin, and so snug and
warm after a little with the body heat of himself and
Peter that he could throw off the thick coat which he
wore.

To Peter, in the first night of this storm, it seemed
as though all the people in the world were shrieking
and wailing and sobbing in the blackness outside. Jolly
Roger sat smoking his pipe at intervals in the gloom,
though there was little pleasure in smoking a pipe in
darkness. The s^orm did not oppress him, but filled
him with an odd sense of security and comfort. The
wind shrieked and lashed itself about his snow-dune,
but it could not get at him. Its mightiest efforts to
destroy only beat more snow upon him, and made him
safer and warmer. In a way, there was something
of humor as w^ell as tragedy in its wild frenzy, and
Peter heard him laugh softly in the darkness. More
and more frequently he had heard that laugh since
those warm days of autumn when they had last met the
red-headed man, Terence Cassidy, of the Royal North-

202 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

west Mounted Police, and his master had shot him on
the white shore of Wollaston.

"You see," said McKay, caressing Peter's hairy neck
in the gloom. "Everything is turning out right for us,
and I'm beginning to believe more and more what
Yellow Bird told us, and that in the end we're going
to be happy — somewhere — with Nada. What do you
think, Pied-Botf Shall we take a chance, and go back
to Cragg's Ridge in the spring?"

Peter wriggled himself in answer, as a wild shriek of
wind wailed over the huge snow-dune.

Jolly Roger's fingers tightened at Peter's neck.

"Well, we're going," he said, as though he was telling
Peter something new. "I'm believing Yellow Bird,
Pied-Bot. I'm believing her — now. What she told us
was more than fortune-telling. It wasn't just Indian
sorcery. When she shut herself up and starved for
those three days and nights in her little conjurer's
house, just for you and me — something happened.
Didn't it? Wouldn't you say something happened?"

Peter swallowed and his teeth clicked as he gave
evidence of understanding.

"She told us a lot of truth," went on Jolly Roger,
with deep faith in his voice. "And we must believe,
Pied-Bot. She told us Cassidy was coming after us,
and he came. She said the spirits promised her the
law would never get us, and we thought it looked bad
when Cassidy had us covered with his gun on the shore
at Wollaston. But something more than luck was
with us, and we shot him. Then we brought him back

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 203

to life and lugged him to a cabin, and the little stranger
girl took him, and nursed him, and Cassidy fell in love
with her — and married her. So Yellow Bird was right
again, Pied-Bot. We've got to believe her. And she
says everything is coming out right for us, and that we
are going back to Nada, and be happy "

Jolly Roger's pipe-bowl glowed in the blackness.

*'Vra going to light the alcohol lamp," he said. "We
can't sleep. And I want a good smoke. It isn't fun
when you can't see the smoke. Too bad God forgot
to make you so you could use a pipe, Peter. You don't
know what you are missing — in times like these."

He fumbled in his pack and found the alcohol lamp,
which was fresh filled and screwed tight. Peter heard
him working for a moment in the darkness. Then he
struck a match, and the yellow flare of it lighted up his
face. In his joy Peter whined. It was good to see his
master. And then, in another moment, the little lamp
was filling their white-walled refuge with a mellow
glow. Jolly Roger's eyes, coming suddenly out of dark-
ness, were wide and staring. His face was covered
with a scrub beard. But there was something of cheer
about him even in this night of terror outside, and
when he had driven his snowshoe into the snow wall,
and had placed the lamp on it, he grinned companion-
ably at Peter.

Then, with a deep breath of satisfaction, he puffed
out clouds of smoke from his pipe, and stood up to
look about their room.

"Not so bad, is it?" he asked. "We could have a big

204 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

house here if we wanted to dig out rooms — eh, Peter?
Parlors, and bed-rooms, and a Hbrary^ — and not a
policeman within a million miles of us. That's the nice
part of it, Pied-Bot — none of the Royal Mounties to
trouble us. They would never think of looking for
us in the heart of a big snow-dune out in this God-
forsaken barren, would they?"

The thought was a pleasing one to Jolly Roger. He
spread out his blankets on the snow floor, and sat
down on them, facing Peter.

"We've got 'em beat," he said, a chuckling note of
pride in his voice. "The world is small when it comes
to hiding, Pied-Bot, but all the people in it couldn't find
us here — not in a million years. If we could only find
a place as safe as this — where a girl could live — ^and had
Nada with us "

Many times during the past few weeks Peter had
seen the light that flamed up now in his master's eyes.
That, and the strange thrill in Jolly Roger's voice,
stirred him more than the words to which he listened,
and tried to understand.

"And we're going to," finished McKay, almost
fiercely, his hands clenching as he leaned toward Peter.
"We have made a big mistake, Pied-Bot, and it has
taken us a long time to see it. It will be hard for us
to leave our north country, but that is what we must
do. Maybe Yellow Bird's good spirits meant that when
they said we would find happiness with Nada in a place
called The Country Beyond. There are a lot of

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 205

'Countries Beyond/ Peter, and as soon as the spring
break-up comes and we can travel without leaving
trails behind us we will go back to Cragg's Ridge and
get Nada, and hit for some place where the law won't
expect to find us. There's China, for instance. A
lot of yellow people. But what do we care for color
as long as we have her with us ? I say '*

Suddenly he stopped. And Peter's body grew tense.
Both faced the round hole, half filled with softly
packed snow, which McKay had cut as a door into the
heart of the big drift. They had grown accustomed
to the tumult of the storm. Its strange wailings and
the shrieking voices which at times seemed borne in the
moaning sweep of it no longer sent shivers of appre-
hension through Peter. But in that moment when both
turned to listen there came a sound which was not like
the other sounds they had heard. It was a voice — not
one of the phantom voices of the screaming wind, but a
voice so real and so near that for a beat or two even^
Jolly Roger McKay's heart stood still. It was as if
a man, standing just beyond their snow barricade,
had shouted a name. But there came no second call.
The wind lulled, so that for a space there was stillness
outside.

Jolly Roger laughed a little uneasily.

"Good thing we don't believe in ghosts, Peter, or
we would swear it was a Loup-Garon smelling us
through the wall!" He thumbed the tobacco down in
his piDe, and nodded. "Then — there is South Amer-

2q6 the country beyond

ica/' he said. "They have everything down there — the
biggest rivers in the world, the biggest mountains, and
so much room that even a Laup-Garou couldn't hunt
us out. She will love it, Pied-Bo t. But if it happens
she likes Africa better, or Australia, or the South
Sea Now, what the devil was that ?"

Peter had jumped as if stung, and for a moment
Jolly Roger sat tense as a carven Indian. Then he rose
to his feet, a look of perplexity and doubt in his eyes.

"What was it, Peter ? Can the wind shoot a gun —
like thatr

Peter was sniffing at the loosely blocked door of
their snow-room. A whimper rose in his throat. He
looked up at Jolly Roger, his eyes glowing fiercely
through the mass of Airedale whiskers that covered his
face. He wanted to dig. He wanted to plunge out into
the howling darkness. Slowly McKay beat the ash out
of his pipe and placed the pipe in his pocket.

"We'll take a look," he said, something repressive in
his voice. "But it isn't reasonable, Peter. It is the
wind. There couldn't be a man out there, and it wasn't
a rifle we heard. It is the wind — with the devil himself
behind it !"

With a few sweeps of his hands and arms he scooped
out the loose snow from the hole. The opening was
on the sheltered side of the drift, and only the whirling
eddies of the storm swept about him as he thrust out
his head and shoulders. But over him it was rushing
like an avalanche. He could hear nothing but the

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 207

moaning advance of it. And he could see nothing. He
held out his hand before his face, and blackness
swallowed it.

"We have been chased so much that we're what
you might call super-sensitive," he said, pulling himself
back and nodding at Peter in the gray light of the alco-
hol lamp. "Guess we'd better turn in, boy. This is
a good place to sleep — plenty of fresh air, no mosqui-
toes or black flies, and the police so far away that
we will soon forget how they look. If you say sa
we will have a nip of cold tea and a bite "

He did not finish. For a moment the wind had
lessened in fury, as if gathering a deeper breath. And
w^hat he heard drew a cry from him this time, and a
sharper whine from Peter. Out of the blackness of
the night had come a woman's voice ! In that first in-
stant of shock and amazement he would have staked his
life that what he heard was not a mad outcry of the
night or an illusion of his brain. It was clear — dis«
tinct — a woman's voice coming from out on the Bar-
ren, rising above the storm in an agony of appeal, and
dying out quickly until it became a part of the moaning
wind. And then, with equal force, came the absurdity
of it to McKay. A woman! He swallowed the lump
that had risen in his throat, and tried to laugh. A
woman — out in that storm — a thousand miles from
nowhere! It was inconceivable.

The laugh which he forced from his lips was husky
and unreal, and there was a smothering grip of some-

2o8 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

thing at his heart. In the ghostly light of the alcohol
lamp his eyes were wide open and staring.

He looked at Peter. The dog stood stiff-legged be-
fore the hole. His body was trembling,

"Peter !"

With a responsive wag of his tail Peter turned his
bristling face up to his master. Many times Jolly
Roger had seen that unfailing warning in his comrade's
eyes. There was some one outside — or Peter's brain,
like his own, was twisted and fooled by the storm !

Against his reasoning — in the face of the absurdity
of it — Jolly Roger was urged into action. He changed
the snowshoe and replaced the alcohol lamp so that the
glow of light could be seen more clearly from the
Barren. Then he went to the hole and crawled through.
Peter followed him.

As if infuriated by their audacity, the storm lashed
itself over the top of the dune. They could hear the
hissing whine of fine hard snow tearing above their
heads like volleys of shot, and the force of the wind
reached them even in their shelter, bringing with it
the flinty sting of the snow-dust. Beyond them the
black barren was filled with a dismal moaning. Look-
ing up, and yet seeing nothing in the darkness, Peter
understood where the weird shriekings and ghostly
cries came from. It was the wind whipping itself up
the side and over the top of the dune.

Jolly Roger listened, hearing only the convulsive
sweep of that mighty force over a thousand miles of

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 209

barren. And then came again one of those brief inter-
vals when the storm seemed to rest for a moment, and
its moaning grew less and less, until it was like the
sound of giant chariot wheels receding swiftly over the
face of the earth. Then came the silence — a few
seconds of it — while in the north gathered swiftly the
whispering rumble of a still greater force.

And in this silence came once more a cry — a cry
which Jolly Roger McKay could no longer disbelieve,
and close upon the cry the report of a rifle. Again he
could have sworn the voice was a woman's voice. As
nearly as he could judge it came from dead ahead, out
of the chaos of blackness, and in that direction he
shouted an answer. Then he ran out into the darkness,
followed by Peter. Another avalanche of wind gath-
ered at their heels, driving them on like the crest of a
flood. In the first force of it Jolly Roger stumbled and
fell to his knees, and in that moment he saw very faintly
the glow of his light at the opening in the snow dune.
A realization of his deadly peril if he lost sight of the
light flashed upon him. Again and again he called into
the night. After that, bowing his head in the fury
of the storm, he plunged on deeper into darkness.

A sudden wild thought seized upon his soul and
thrilled him into forget fulness of the light and the
snow-dune and his own safety. In the heart of this
mad world he had heard a voice. He no longer doubted
it. And the voice was a woman's voice! Could it
be Nada? Was it possible she had followed him

2IO THE COUNTRY BEYOND

after his flight, determined to find him, and share his
fate? His heart pounded. Who else, of all the
women in the world, could be following his trail across
the Barrens — a thousand miles from civilization? He
began to shout her name. "Nada — Nada — Nada!"
And hidden in the gloom at his side Peter barked.

Storm and darkness swallowed them. The last faint
gleam of the alcohol lamp died out. Jolly Roger did
not look back. Blindly he stumbled ahead, counting his
footsteps as he went, and shouting Nada's name. Twice
he thought he heard a reply, and each time the will-o'-
the-wisp voice seemed to be still farther ahead of him.
Then, with a fiercer blast of the wind beating upon
his back, he stumbled and fell forward upon his face.
His hand reached out and touched the thing that had
tripped him. It was not snow. His naked fingers
clutched in something soft and furry. It was a man's
coat. He could feel buttons, a belt, and the sudden
thrill of a bearded face.

He stood up. The wind was wailing ofif over the
Barren again, leaving an instant of stillness about him.
And he shouted :

'^Nada— Nada— Nada !"

An answer came so quickly that it startled him, not
one voice, but two — three — and one of them the shrill
agonized cry of a woman. They came toward him as
he continued to shout, until a few feet away he could
make out a gray blur moving through the gloom.
He went to it, staggering under the weight of the man

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 211

he had found in the snow. The blur was made up of
two men dragging a sledge, and behind the sledge was
a third figure, moaning in the darkness.

**!I found some one in 'the snow/' Jolly Roger
shouted. *'Here he is "

He dropped his burden, and the last of his words
were twisted by a fresh blast of the storm. But the
figure behind the sledge had heard, and Jolly Roger
saw her indistinctly at his feet, shielding the m.an he
had found with her arms and body, and crying out a
name which he could not understand in that howling
of the wind. But a thing like cold steel sank into his
heart, and he knew it was not Nada he had found this
night on the Barren. He placed the unconscious man
on the sledge, believing he was dead. The girl was
crying out something to him, unintelligible in the storm,
and one of the men shouted in a thick throaty voice
which he could not understand. Jolly Roger felt the
weight of him as he staggered in the wind, fighting to
keep his feet, and he knew he was ready to drop down
in the snow and die.

*'It's only a step," he shouted. "Can you make it?"

His words reached the ears of the others. The
girl swayed through the darkness and gripped his arm.
The two men began to tug at the sledge, and Jolly
Roger seized the rope between them, wondering why
there were no dogs, and faced the driving of the storm.
It seemed an interminable time before he saw the
faint glow of the alcohol lamp. The last fifty feet

212 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

was like struggling against an irresistible hail from
machine-guns. Then came the shelter of the dune.

One at a time McKay helped to drag them through
the hole which he used for a door. For a space his
vision was blurred, and he saw through the hazy film
of storm-blindness the gray faces and heavily coated
forms of those he had rescued. The man he had found
in the snow he placed on his blankets, and the girl fell
down upon her knees beside him. It was then Jolly
Roger began to see more clearly. And in that same
instant came a shock as unexpected as the smash of
dynamite under, his feet.

The girl had thrown back her parkee, and was
sobbing over the man on the blankets, and calling him
father. She was not like Nada. Her hair was in
thick, dark coils, and she was older. She was not
pretty — now. Her face was twisted by the brutal
beating of the storm, and her eyes were nearly closed.
But it was the man Jolly Roger stared at, while his
heart choked inside him. He was grizzled and gray-
bearded, with military mustaches and a bald head. He
was not dead. His eyes were open, and his blue lips
were struggling to speak to the girl whose blindness
kept her from seeing that he was alive. And the coat
which he wore was the regulation service garment of
the Royal Northwest Mounted Police !

Slowly McKay turned, wiping the film of snow-
sweat from his eyes, and stared at the other two. One
of them had sunk down with his back to the snow wall.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 213

He was a much younger man, possibly not over thirty,
and his face was ghastly. The third lay where he had
fallen from exhaustion after crawling through the
hole. Both wore service coats, with holsters at their
sides.

The man against the snow-wall v/as making an efiPort
to rise. He sagged back, and grinned up apologetically
at McKay.

^'Dam' fine of you, old man," he mumbled between
blistered lips. *T'm Porter — 'N' Division — taking Su-
perintendent Tavish to Fort Churchill — Tavish and
his daughter. Made a hell of a mess of it, haven't
I?"

He struggled to his knees.

"There's brandy in our kit. It might help — over
there," and he nodded toward the girl and the gray-
bearded man on the blankets.

CHAPTER XIV

JOLLY ROGER did not answer, but crawled through
the hole and found the sledge in the outer darkness.
He heard Peter coming after him, and he saw Porter's
bloodless face in the illumination of the alcohol lamp,
where he waited to help him with the dunnage. In
those seconds he fought to get a grip on himself. A
quarter of an hour ago- he had laughed at the thought
of the law. Never had it seemed to be so far away
from him, and never had he been more utterly iso-
lated from the world. His mind was still a bit
dazed by the thing that had happened. The police
had not trailed him. They had not ferreted him out,
nor had they stumbled upon him by accident. It was
he who had gone out into the night and deliberately
dragged them in! Of all the trickery fate had played
upon him this was the least to be expected.

His mind began to work more swiftly as in darkness
he cut the babiche cordage that bound the patrol dun-
nage to the sledge. "N" Division, he told himself,
was away over in the Athabasca country. He had
never heard of Porter, nor of Superintendent Tavish,
and inasmuch as the outfit was evidently a special es-
cort to Fort Churchill it was very likely that Porter and

214

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 215

his companions would not be thinking of outlaws, and
especially of Jolly Roger McKay. This was his one
chance. To attempt an escape through the blizzard
was not only a desperate hazard. It was death.

There were only two packs on the sledge, and these
he passed through the hole to Porter. A few moments
later he was holding a flask of liquor to the lips of
the gray-bearded man, while the girl looked at him
with eyes that were widening as the snow-sting left
them. Tavish gulped, and his mittened hand closed on
the girl's arm.

*l'm all right, Jo,'* he mumbled. "All right "

His eyes met McKay's, and then took in the snow
walls of the dug-out. They were deep, piercing eyes,
overhung by shaggy brows. Jolly Roger felt the in-
tentness of their gaze as he gave the girl a swallow
of the brandy, and then passed the flask to Porter.

"You have saved our lives,*' said Tavish, in a voice
that was clearer. "I don't just understand how it hap-
pened. I remember stumbling in the darkness, and
being unable to rise. I was behind the sledge. Porter
and Breault were dragging it, and Josephine, my
daughter, was sheltered under the blankets. After
that "

He paused, and Jolly Roger explained how it all
had come about. He pointed to Peter. It was the
dog, he said. Peter had insisted there was someone
outside, and they had taken a chance by going in search
of them. He was John Cummings, a fox trapper, and

2i6 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

the storm had caught him fifty miles from his cabin.
He was traveHng without a dog-sledge, and had only
a pack-outfit.

Breault, the third man, had regained his wind, and
was listening to him. One look at his dark, thin face
told McKay that he was the wilderness man of the
three. He was staring at Jolly Roger in a strange sort
of way. And then, as if catching himself, he nodded,
and began rubbing his frosted face with handfuls of
snow.

Porter had thrown of¥ his heavy coat, and was un-
packing one of the dunnage sacks. He and the girl
seemed to have suffered less than the other two. Jo,
the girl, was looking at him. And then her eyes turned
to Jolly Roger. They were large, fine eyes, wide open
and clear now. There was something of splendid
strength about her as she smiled at McKay. She was
not of the hysterical sort. He could see that.

"If we could have some hot soup," she suggested.
"May we?"

There was gratitude in her eyes, which she made no
attempt to express in words. Jolly Roger liked her.
And Peter crept up behind her, and watched her as she
followed Breault's example, and rubbed the cheeks of
the bearded man with snow.

"There's an alcohol stove in the other pack," said
Breault, with his hard, narrow eyes fixed steadily on
Jolly Roger's face. "By the way, what did you say
your name was?'*

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 217

"Cummings — John Cummings."

Breault made no answer. During the next half hour
Jolly Roger felt stealing over him a growing sense of
uneasiness. They drank soup and ate bannock. It
grew warm, and the girl threw off the heavy fur gar-
ment that enveloped her. Color returned into her
cheeks. Her eyes were bright, and in her voice was
a tremble of happiness at finding warmth and life
where she had expected death. Porter's friendliness
was almost brotherly. He explained what had hap-
pened. Two rascally Chippewyans had deserted them,
stealing off into darkness and storm with both dog
teams and one of their sledges. After that they had
fought on, seeking for a drift into which they might
dig a refuge. But the Barren was as smooth as a
table. They had shouted, and Miss Tavish had
screamed — not because they expected to find assist-
ance— but on account of Tavish falling in the storm,
and losing himself. It was quite a joke, Porter thought,
that Superintendent Tavish, one of the iron men of
the service, should have given up the ghost so easily.

Tavish smiled grimly. They were all in good humor,
and happy, with the possible exception of Breault. Not
once did he laugh or smile. Yet Jolly Roger noted
that each time he spoke the others were specially atten-
tive. There was something repressive and mysterious
about the man, and the girl would cut herself short in
the middle of a laugh if he happened to speak, and the
softness of her mouth would harden in an instant.

2i8 THE COUNTRY, BEYOND

He understood the significance of her gladness, and of
Porter's, for twice he saw their hands come together,
and their fingers entwine. And in their eyes was some-
thing which they could not hide when they looked at
each other. But Breault puzzled him. He did not
know that Breault was the best man-hunter in "N" Di-
vision, which reached from Athabasca Landing to the
Arctic Ocean, or that up and down the two thousand-
mile stretch of the Three River Country he was known
as Shingoos, the Ferret.

The girl fell asleep first that night, with her cheek
on her father's shoulder. Breault, the Ferret, rolled
himself in a blanket, and breathed deeply. Porter still
smoked his pipe, and looked wistfully at the pale face
of Josephine Tavish. He smiled a bit proudly at Mc-
Kay.

*'She's mine," he whispered. "We're going to be
married."

Jolly Roger wanted to reach over and grip his hand.

He nodded, a little lump coming in his throat.

'T know how you feel," he said. ''When I heard
her calling out there — it made me think — of a girl down
south."

"Down south?" queried Porter. "Why down south
— if you care for her — and you up here?"

McKay shrugged his shoulders. He had said too
much. Neither he nor Porter knew that Breault's eyes
were half open, and that he was listening.

Jolly Roger held up a hand, as if something in the
wailing of the storm had caught his attentioa

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 219

tn

We'll have two or three days of this. Better turn
in, Porter. I'm going to dig out another room — for
Miss Tavish. I'm afraid she'll need the convenience of
a private room before we're able to move. It's an
easy job — and passes the time away."

"I'll help," offered Porter.

For an hour they worked, using McKay^s snow-
shoes as shovels. During that hour Breault did not
close his eyes. A curious smile curled his thin lips as
he watched Jolly Roger. And when at last Porter
turned in, and slept, the Ferret sat up, and stretched
himself. McKay had finished his room, and was be-
ginning a tunnel which would lead as a back door out
of the drift, when Breault came in and picked up the
snowshoe which Porter had used.

"I'll take my turn," he said. "I'm a bit nervous, and
not at all sleepy, Cummings." He began digging into
the snow. "Been long in this country?" he asked.

"Three winters. It's a good red fox country, with
now and then a silver and a black."

Breault grunted.

"You must have met Cassidy, then," he said casually,
without looking at McKay. "Corporal Terence Cas-
sidy. This is his country."

Jolly Roger did not look up from his work of dig-
ging.

"Yes, I know him. Met him last winter. Red
headed. A nice chap. I like him. You know him?"

"Entered the service together," said Breault. "But
he's unlucky. For two or three years he has been on

220 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

the trail of a man named McKay. Jolly Roger, they
call him — Jolly Roger McKay. Ever hear of him?"

Jolly Roger nodded.

"Cassidy told me about him when he was at my
cabin. From what I've heard I — rather like him."

"Who — Cassidy, or Jolly Roger?"

"Both."

For the first time the Ferret leveled his eyes at his
companion. They were mystifying eyes, never appear-
ing to open fully, but remaining half closed as if to
conceal whatever thought might lie behind them. Mc-
Kay felt their penetration. It was like a cold chill
entering into him, warning him of a menace deadlier
than the storm.

"Haven't any idea where one might come upon this
Jolly Roger, have you?"

"No."

"You see, he thinks he killed a man down south.
Well, he didn't. The man lived. If you happen to see
him at any time give himx that information, will you?"

Jolly Roger thrust his head and shoulders into the
growing tunnel.

"Yes, I will.'*

He knew Breault was lying. And also knew that
back of the narrow slits of Breault's eyes was the cun-
ning of a fox.

"You might also tell him the law has a mind to for-
give him for sticking up that free trader's post a few
years ago."

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 221

Jolly Roger turned with his snowshoe piled high
with a load of snow.

"I'll tell him that, too," he said, chuckling at the ob-
viousness of the other's trap. ''What do you think
my cabin is, Breault — a Rest for Homeless Outlaws?"

Breault grinned. It was an odd sort of grin, and
Jolly Roger caught it over his shoulder. When he re-
turned from dumping his load, Breault said :

"You see, we know this Jolly Roger fellow is spend-
ing the winter somewhere up here. And Cassidy says
there is a girl down south "

Jolly Roger's face was hidden in the tunnel.

" who Vvould like to see him," finished Breault.

When McKay turned toward him the Ferret was
carelessly lighting his pipe.

"I remember — Cassidy told me about this girl," said
Jolly Roger. "He said — some day — he would trap this
— this man — through the girl. So if I happen to meet
Jolly Roger McKay, and send him back to the girl, it
will helo out the law. Is that it, Breault ? And is there
any revvard tacked to it? Anything in it for me?"

Breault was looking at him in the pale light of the
alcohol lamp, puffing out tobacco smoke, and with that
odd twist of a smile about his thin lips.

"Listen to the storm," he said. "I think it's getting
worse — Cummings !"

Suddenly he held out a hand to Peter, who sat near
the lamp, his bright eyes fixed watchfully on the
stranger.

222 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

"Nice dog you have, Cummings. Come here, Peter !
Peter — Peter ''

Tight fingers seemed to grip at McKay's throat. He
had not spoken Peter's name since the rescue of
Breault.

"Peter— Peter "

The Ferret was smiling affably. But Peter did not
move. He made no response to the outstretched hand.
His eyes were steady and challenging. In that moment
McKay wanted to hug him up in his arms.

The Ferret laughed.

"He's a good dog, a very good dog, Cummings. I
like a one-man dog, and I also like a one-dog man.
That's what Jolly Roger McKay is, if you ever happen
to meet him. Travels with one dog. An Airedale, with
whiskers on him like a Mormon. And his name is
Peter. Funny name for a dog, isn't it ?"

He faced the outer room, stretching his long arms
above his head.

"I'm going to try sleep again, Cummings. Good-
night ! And — Mother of Heaven ! — listen to the wind."

"Yes, it's a bad night," said McKay.

He looked at Peter when Breault was gone, and his
heart was beating fast. He could hear the wind, too.
It was sweeping over the Barren more fiercely than
before, and the sound of it brought a steely glitter into
his eyes. This time he could not run away from the
law. Flight meant death. And Breault knew it. He
was in a trap — a trap built by himself. That is, if

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 22^

Breault had guessed the truth, and he believed he had.
There was only one way out — and that meant fight.

He went into the outer room for his pack and a
blanket. He did not look at Breault, but he knew the
man's narrow eyes were following him. He left the
alcohol lamp burning, but in his own room, after he
had spread out his bed, he extinguished the light. Then,
very quietly, he dug a hole through the snow partition
between the two rooms. He waited for ten minutes
before he thrust a finger-tip through the last thin crust
of snow. With his eye close to the aperture he could
see Breault, The Ferret was sitting up, and leaning
toward Porter, who was sleeping an arm's length away.
He reached over, and touched him on the shoulder.

Jolly Roger widened the snow-slit another inch,
straining his ears to hear. He could see Tavish and
the girl asleep. In another moment Porter was sitting
up, with the Ferret's hand gripping his arm warningly.
Breault motioned toward the inner room, and Porter
was silent. Then Breault bent over and began to
whisper. Jolly Roger could hear only the indistinct
monotone of his voice. But he could see very clearly
the change that came into Porter's face. His eyes wi-
dened, and he stared toward the inner room, making
a movement as if to rouse Tavish and the girl.

The Ferret stopped him.

"Don't get excited. Let them sleep."

McKay heard that much — and no more. For some
time after that the two men sat close together, con-

224 THE CO UNTR Y BE YOND

versing in whispers. There was an exultant satisfac-
tion in Porter's clean-cut face, as well as in Breaulf s.
Jolly Roger watched them until Breault extinguished
the second lamp. Then he lightly plugged the hole in the
partition with snow, and reached out in the darkness
until his hand found Peter.

''They think they've got us, boy," he whispered.
"They think they've got us !"

Very quietly they lay for an hour. McKay did not
sleep, and Peter was wide awake. At the end of that
hour Jolly Roger crept on his hands and knees to the
doorway and listened. One after another he picked
out the steady breathing of the sleepers. Then he began
feeling his way around the wall of his room until he
came to a place where the snow was very soft.

"An air-drift," he whispered to Peter, close at his
shoulder. "We'll fool 'em, boy. And we'll fight — if
we have to."

He began worming his head and shoulders and body
into the air-drift like a gimlet. A foot at a time he
burrowed himself through, heaving his body up and
down and sideways to pack the light snow, leaving a
round tunnel two feet in diameter behind him. Within
an hour he had come to the outer crust on the wind-
ward side of the big snow-dune. He did not break
through this crust, which was as tough as crystal-glass,
but lay quietly for a time and listened to the sweep of
the wind outside. It was warm, and very comfortable,
and he had half -dozed off before he caught himself

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 225

back into wakefulness and returned to his room. The
mouth of his tunnel he packed with snow. After that
he wound the blanket about him and gave himself up
calmly to sleep.

Only Peter lay awake after that. And it was Peter
who roused Jolly Roger in what would have been the
early dawn outside the snow-dune. McKay felt his
restless movement, and opened his eyes. A faint light
was illumining his room, and he sat up. In the outer
room the alcohol lamp was burning again. He could
hear movement, and voices that were very low and in-
distinct. Carefully he dug out once more the little hole
in the snow wall, and widened the slit.

Breault and Tavish were asleep, but Porter was sit-
ting up, and close beside him sat the girl. Her coiled
hair was loosened, and fallen over her shoulders. There
was no sign of drowsiness in her wide-open eyes as
they stared at the door between the two rooms. Mc-
Kay could see her hand clasping Porter's arm. Porter
was talkiiig, with his face so close to her bent head that
his lips touched her hair, and though Jolly Roger could
understand no word that was spoken he knew Porter
was whispering the exciting secret of his identity to
Josephine Tavish. He could see, for a moment, a
shadow of protest in her face, he could hear the quick,
sibilant whisper of her voice, and Porter cautioned her
with a finger at her lips, and made a gesture toward the
sleeping Tavish. Then his fingers closed about her
uncoiled hair as he drew her to him. McKay watched

226 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

the long kiss between them. The girl drew away
quickly then, and Porter tucked the blanket about her
when she lay down beside her father. After tliat he
stretched out again beside Breault.

Jolly Roger guessed what had happened. The girl
had awakened, a bit nervous, and had roused Porter and
asked him to relight the alcohol lamp. And Porter had
taken advantage of the opportunity to tell her of the
interesting discovery which Breault had made — and to
kiss her. McKay stroked Peter's scrawny neck, and
listened. He could no longer hear the storm, and he
wondered if the fury of it was spent.

Every few minutes he looked through the slit in the
snow wall. The last time, half an hour after Porter
had returned to his blanket, Josephine Tavish was sit-
ting up. She was very wide awake. McKay watched
her as she rose slowly to her knees, and then to her feet.
She bent over Porter and Breault to make sure they
were asleep, and then came straight toward the door of
his room.

He lay back on his blanket, with the fingers of one
hand gripped closely about Peter.

"Be quiet, boy," he whispered. "Be quiet."

He could see the shutting out of light at his door as
the girl stood there, listening for his breathing. He
breathed heavily, and before he closed his eyes he saw
Josephine Tavish coming toward him. In a moment
she was bending over him. He could feel the soft
caress of her loose hair on his face and hands. Then

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 227

she knelt quietly down beside him, stroking Peter with
her hand, and shook him lightly by the shoulder.

*'Jolly Roger!" she whispered. "J<^% Roger Mc-
Kay !''

He opened his eyes, looking up at the white face in
the gloom.

*'Yes," he repHed softly. "What is it. Miss Tavish?"

He could hear the choking breath in her throat as
her fingers tightened at his shoulder. She bent her
face still nearer to him, until her hair cluttered his
throat and breast.

"You are — awake?'*

"Yes."

"Then — listen to me. If you are Jolly Roger McKay
you must get away — somewhere. You must go before
Breault awakens in the morning. I think the storm is
over — there is no wind — and if you are here when day
comes "

Her fingers loosened. Jolly Roger reached out and
somewhere in the darkness he found her hand. It
clasped his own — finri, warm, thrilling.

"I thank you for what you have done," she whis-
pered. "But the law — and Breault — they have no
mercy !"

She was gone, swiftly and silently, and McKay
looked through the slit in the wall until she was with
her father again.

In the gloom he drew Peter close to him.

"We're up against it again, Pied-Bo t/' he confided

228 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

under his breath. "We've got to take another chance."
He worked without sound, and in a quarter of an
hour his pack was ready, and the entrance to his tunnel
dug out. He went into the outer room then, where
Josephine Tavish was awake. Jolly Roger pantomimed
his desire as she sat up. He wanted something from
one of the packs. She nodded. On his knees he fum-
bled in the dunnage, and when he rose to his feet, fac-
ing the girl, her eyes opened wide at what he held in
his hand — a small packet of old newspapers her father
was taking to the factor at Fort Churchill. She saw
the hungry, apologetic look in his eyes, and her
woman's heart understood. She smiled gently at him,
and her lips formed an unvoiced whisper of gratitude as
he turned to go. At the door he looked back. He
thought she was beautiful then, with her shining hair
and eyes, and her lips parted, and her hands half reach-
ing out to him, as if in that moment of parting she
was giving him courage and faith. Suddenly she
pressed the palms of her fingers to her mouth and sent
the kiss of benediction to him through the twilight
glow of the snow-room.

A moment later, crawling through his tunnel with
Peter close behind him, there was an exultant singing
in Jolly Roger's heart. Again he was fleeing from the
law, but always, as Yellow Bird had predicted in her
sorcery, there were happiness and hope in his going.
And always there was someone to urge him on, and to
take a pride in him, like Josephine Tavish.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 229

He broke through the dune-crust at the end of his
tunnel and crawled out into the thick, gray dawn of a
barren-land day. The sky was heavy overhead, and
the wind had died out. It was the beginning of the
brief lull which came in the second day of the Great
Storm.

McKay laughed softly as he sensed the odds against
them.

"We'll be having the storm at our heels again before
long, Pied-Bot," he said. "We'd better make for the
timber a dozen miles south."

He struck out, circling the dune, so that he was trav-
eling straight away from the first hole he had cut
through the shell of the drift. From that door, made
by the outlaw who had saved them, Josephine Tavish
watched the shadowy forms of man and dog until they
were lost in the gray-w^hite chaos of a frozen world.

CHAPTER XV

npHROUGH the blizzard Jolly Roger made his way

-*• a score of miles southward from the big dune

on the Barren. For a day and a night he made his

camp in the scrub timber which edged the vast treeless

tundras reaching to the Arctic. He believed he was

safe, for the unceasing wind and the blasts of shot-like

snow filled his tracks a few moments after they were

made. He struck a straight line for his cabin after

that first day and night in the scrub timber. The storm

was still a thing of terrific force out on the barren, but

in the timber he was fairly well sheltered. He was

convinced the police patrol would find his cabin very

soon after the storm had worn itself out. Porter and

Tavish did not trouble him. But from Breault he knew

there was no getting away. Breault would nose out

his cabin. And for that reason he was determined to

reach it first.

The second night he did not sleep. His mind was a wild

thing — wild as a Loup-Garou seeking out its ghostly

trails ; it passed beyond his mastery, keeping sleep away

from him though he was dead tired. It carried him

back over all the steps of his outlawry, visioning for

him the score of times he had escaped, as he was nar-

230

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 231

rowly escaping now; and it pictured for him, like a
creature of inquisition, the tightening net ahead of him,
the final futility of all his effort. And at last, as if'
moved by pity to ease his suffering a little, it brought
him back vividly to the green valley, the flowers and
the blue skies of Cragg's Ridge — and Nada.

It was like a dream. At times he could scarcely as-
sure himself that he had actually lived those weeks and
months of happiness down on the edge of civilization;
it seemed impossible that Nada had come like an Angel
into his life down there, and that she had loved him,
even when he confessed himself a fugitive from the law
and had entreated him to take her with him. He closed
his eyes and that last roaring night of storm at Cragg's
Ridge was about him again. He was in the little old
Missioner's cabin, with thunder and lightning rending
earth and sky outside and Nada was in his arms, her
lips against his, the piteous heartbreak of despair in
her eyes. Then he saw her — a moment later — a crum-
pled heap down beside the chair, the disheveled glory
of her hair hiding her white face from him as he hesi-
tated for a single instant before opening the door and
plunging out into the night.

With a cry he sprang up, dashing the vision from
him, and threw fresh fuel on the fire. And he cried
out the same old thought to Peter.

"It would have been murder for us to bring her,
Pied-Bot. It would have been murder!"

He looked about him at the swirling chaos outside

232 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

the rim of light made by his fire and listened to the
moaning of the wind over the treetops. Beyond the
circle of light the dry snow, which crunched like sand
under his feet, was lost in ghostly gloom. It was forty
degrees below zero. And he was glad, even with this
sickness of despair in his heart, that she was not a
fugitive with him tonight.

Yet he built up a little make-believe world for him-
self as he sat with a blanket hugged close about him,
staring into the fire. In a hundred different ways he
saw her face, a will-o-the-wisp thing amid the flames ;
an illusive, very girlish, almost childish face — ^yet al-
ways with the light of a woman's soul shining in it.
That was the miracle which startled him at last. It
seemed as if the fiction he built up in his despair trans-
formed itself subtly into fact and that her soul had
come to him from out of the southland and was speak-
ing to him with eyes which never changed or faltered
in their adoration, their faith and their courage. She
seemed to come to him, to creep into his arms under
the folds of the blanket and he sensed the soft crush of
her hair, the touch of her lips, the warm encircling of
her arms about his neck. Closer to him pressed the
mystery, until the beating of her heart was a living
pulse against him; and then — suddenly, as an irresist-
ible impulse closed his arms to hold the ,spirit to him,
his eyes were drawn to the heart of the fire, and he saw
there for an instant, wide-eyed and speaking to him,
the face of Yellow Bird the Indian sorceress. The

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 233

flames crept up the long braids of her hair, her lips
moved, and then she was gone — but slowly, like a ghost
slipping upward into the mist of smoke and night.

Peter heard his master's cry. And after that Jolly
Roger rose up and threw off the blanket and walked
back and forth until his feet trod a path in the snow.
He told himself it was madness to beheve, and yet he
believed. Faith fought itself back into that dark cita-
del of his heart from which for a time it had been
driven. New courage lighted up again the black chaos
of his soul. And at last he fell down on his knees and
gripped Peter's shaggy head between his two hands.

''Pied-Bot, she said everything would come out right
in the end," he cried, a new note in his voice. *'That's
what Yellow Bird told us, wasn't it? Mebby they
would have burned her as a witch a long time ago be-
cause she's a sorceress, and says she can send her soul
out of her body and see what we can't see. But we
believe!'' His voice choked up, and he laughed. "They
were both here tonight," he added. *'Nada — and
Yellow Bird. And I believe — I believe — I know what
it means !"

He stood up again, and Peter saw the old smile on
his master's lips as Jolly Roger looked up into the swirl-
ing black canopy of the spruce-tops. And the wailing
of the storm seemed no longer to hold menace and
taunt, but in it he heard the whisper of fierce, strong
voices urging upon him the conviction that had already
swept indecision from his heart.

234 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

And then he said, holding out his arms as if encom-
passing something which he could not see.

'Teter, we're going back to Nada!'^

Dav/n was a scarcely perceptible thing when it came.
Darkness seemed to fade a little, that was all. Frosty
shapes took form in the gloom, and the spruce-tops
became tangible in an abyss of sepulchral shadow over-
head.

Through this beginning of the barren-land day Jolly
Roger set out in the direction of his cabin and in his
blood was that new singing thing of fire and warmth
that more than made up for the hours of sleep he had
lost during the night. The storm was dying out, he
thought, and it was growing warmer; yet the wind
whistled and raved in the open spaces and his ther-
mometer registered the fortieth and a fraction degree
below zero. The air he breathed was softer, he fancied,
yet it was still heavy with the stinging shot of blizzard;
and where yesterday he had seen only the smothering
chaos of twisted spruce and piled up snow, there was
now — as the pale day broadened — his old wonderland
of savage beauty, awaiting only a flash of sunlight to
transform it into the pure glory of a thing indescribable.
But the sun did not come and Jolly Roger did not miss
it over-much for his heart was full of Nada, and athrill
with the inspiration of his home-going.

"That's what it means, going home/' he said to
Peter, who nosed close in the path of his snowshoes.
^'There's a thousand miles between us and Cragg's

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 235

Ridge, a thousand miles of snow and ice — ^and hell,
mebby. But we'll make it!"

He was sure of himself now. It was as if he had
come up from out of the shadow of a great sickness.
He had been unwise. He had not reasoned as a man
should reason. The hangman might be waiting for
him at Cragg's Ridge, down on the rim of civilization,
but that same grim executioner was also pursuing close
at his heels. He would always be pursuing in the form
of a Breault, a Cassidy, a Tavish, or a Somebody Else
of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. It would be
that way until the end came. And when the end did
come, when they finally got him, the blow would be
easier at Cragg's Ridge than up here on the edge of
the Barren Land.

And again there was hope, a wild, almost unbeliev-
able hope that with Nada he might find that place
which Yellow Bird, the sorceress, had promised for
them — that mystery-place of safety and of happi-
ness which she had called The Country Beyond, where
"all would end well.*' He had not the faith of Yellow
Bird's people; he was not superstitious enough to be-
lieve fully in her sorcery, except that he seized upon it
as a drowning man might grip at a floating sea-weed.
Yet was the under-current of hope so persistent that at
times it was near faith. Up to this hour Yellow Bird's
sorcery had brought him nothing but the truth. For
him she had conjured the spirits of her people, and
these spirits, speaking through Yellow Bird's lips, had

21^ THE COUNTRY BEYOND

saved him from Cassidy at the fishing, camp and had
performed the miracle on the shore of Wollaston and
had predicted the salvation that had come to him out
on the Barren. And so — was it not conceivable that
the other would also come true?

But these visions came to him only in flashes. As
he traveled through the hours the one vital desire of his
being was to bring himself physically into the presence
of Nada, to feel the wild joy of her in his arms once
more, the crush of her lips to his, the caress of hef
hands in their old sweet way at his face — and to hear
her voice, the girl's voice with the woman's soul behind
it, crying out its undying love, as he had last heard it
that night in the Missioner's cabin many months ago.
After this had happened, then — if fate decreed it so —
all other things might end. Breault, the Ferret, might
come. Or Porter. Or that Somebody Else who was
always on his trail. If the game finished thus, he would
be satisfied.

When he stopped to make a pot of black tea and
warm a snack to eat Jolly Roger tried to explain this
new meaning of life to Peter.

"The big thing we must do is to get there — safely,"
he said, already beginning to make plans in the back of
his head. And then he went on, building up his fabric
of new hope before Peter, while he crunched his lunch-
eon of toasted bannock and fat bacon. There was
something joyous and definite in his voice which en-
tered into Peter's blood and body. There was even a

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 237

note of excitement in it, and Peter's whiskers bristled
with fresh courage and his eyes gleamed and his tail
thumped the snow comprehendingly. It was like hav-
ing a master come back to him from the dead.

And Jolly Roger even laughed, softly, under his
breath.

*This is February," he said. "We ought to make it
late in March. I mean Cragg's Ridge, Pied-Bot/'

After that they went on, traveling hard to reach their
cabin before the darkness of night, which would drop
upon them like a thick blanket at four o'clock. In these
last hours there pressed even more heavily upon Jolly
Roger that growing realization of the vastness and
emptiness of the world. It was as if blindness had
dropped from his eyes and he saw the naked truth at
last. Out of this world everything had emptied itself
until it held only Nada. Only she counted. Only she
held out her arms to him, entreating him to keep for
her that life in his body which meant so little in all
other ways. He thought of one of the little worn books
which he carried in his shoulder-pack — Jeanne D'Arc.
As she had fought, with the guidance of God, so he
believed the blue-eyed girl down at Cragg's Ridge was
fighting for him, and had sent her spirit out in quest of
him. And he was going back to her. Going!

The last word, as it came from his lips, meant that
nothing would stop them. He almost shouted it. And
Peter answered.

In spite of their effort, darkness closed in on them.

238 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

With the first dusk of this night there came sudden
lulls in which the blizzard seemed to have exhausted
itself. Jolly Roger read the signs. By tomorrow there
would be no storm and Breault the Ferret would be on
the trail again, along with Porter and Tavish.

It was his old craft, his old cunning, that urged him
to go on. Strangely, he prayed for the blizzard not to
give up the ghost. Something must be accomplished
before its fury was spent; and he was glad when after
each lull he heard again the moaning and screeching
of it over the open spaces, and the slashing together
of spruce tops where there was cover. In a chaos of
gloom they came to the low ridge which reached across
an open sweep of tundra to the finger of shelter where
the cabin was built. An hour later they were at its
door. Jolly Roger opened it and staggered in. For a
space he stood leaning against the wall while his lungs
drank in the warmer air. The intake of his breath
made a whistling sound and he was surprised to find
himself so near exhaustion. He heard the thud of
Peter's body as it collapsed to the floor.

"Tired, Pied-Botr

It was difficult for his storm-beaten lips to speak the
words.

Peter thumped his tail. The rat-tap-tap of it came in
one of those lulls of the storm which Jolly Roger had
begun to dread.

**I hope it keeps up another two hours," he said,
wetting his lips to take the stiffness out of them. "'If
it doesn't "

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 239

He was thinking of Breault as he drew off his mit-
tens and fumbled for a match. It was Breault he
feared. The Ferret would find his cabin and his trail
if the storm died out too soon.

He lighted the tin lamp on his table and after that,
assured that wastefulness would cost him nothing now,
he set two bear-drip candles going, one at each end of
the cabin. The illumination filled the single room.
There was little for it to reveal — the table he had made,
a chair, a battered little sheet-iron stove, and the
humped up blanket in his bunk, under which he had
stored the remainder of his possessions. Back of the
stove was a pile of dry wood, and in another five min-
utes the roar of flames in the chimney mingled with a
fresh bluster of the wind outside.

Defying the exhaustion of limbs and body. Jolly
Roger kept steadily at work. He threw off his heavier
garments as the freezing atmosphere of the room be-
came warmer, and prepared for a feast.

"We'll call it Christmas, and have everything we've
got, Pied-Bot. We'll cook a quart of prunes instead
of six. No use stinting ourselves — tonight!"

Even Peter was amazed at the prodigality of his
master. An hour later they ate, and McKay drank a
quart of hot coffee before he was done. Half of his
fatigue was gone and he sat back for a few minutes
to finish off with the luxury of his pipe. Peter, gorged
with caribou meat, stretched himself out to sleep. But
his eyes did not close. His master puzzled him. For
after a little Jolly Roger put on his heavy coat and

240 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

parkee and pocketed his pipe. After that he slipped
the straps of his pack over head and shoulders and then,
even more to Peter's bewilderment, emptied a quart
bottle of kerosene over the pile of dry wood behind the
hot stove. To this he touched a lighted match. His
next movement drew from Peter a startled yelp. With
a single thrust of his foot he sent the stove crashing
into the middle of the floor.

Half an hour later, when Peter and Jolly Roger
looked back from the crest of the ridge, a red pillar of
flame lighted up the gloomy chaos of the unpeopled
world they were leaving behind them. The wind was
driving fiercely from the Barren and with it came
stinging volleys of the fine drift-snow. In the teeth
of it Roger McKay stared back.

'It's a good fire," he mumbled in his hood. "Half
an hour and it will be out. There'll be nothing for
Breault to find if this wind keeps up another two hours
— nothing but drift-snow, with no sign of trail or
cabin."

He struck out, leaving the shelter of the ridge.
Straight south he went, keeping always in the open
spaces where the wind-swept drift covered his snow-
shoe trail almost as soon as it was made. Darkness
did not trouble him now. The open barren was ahead,
miles of it, while only a little to the westward was the
shelter of timber. Twice he blundered to the edge of
this timber, but quickly set his course again in the open,
with the wind always quartering at his back. He could

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 241

only gness how long he kept on. The time came when
he began to count the swing of his snowshoes, measur-
ing off half a mile, or a mile, and then beginning over
again until at last the achievement of five hundred steps
seemed to take an immeasurable length of time and
great effort. Like the ache of a tooth came the first
warning of snowshoe cramp in his legs. In the black
night he grinned. He knew what it meant — a warning
as deadly as swimmer's cramp in deep water. If he
continued much longer he would be crawling on his
hands and knees.

Quickly he turned in the direction of the timber. He
had traveled three hours, he thought, since abandoning
his cabin to the flames. Another half hour, with the
caution of slower, shorter steps, brought him to the
timber. Luck was with him and he cried aloud to
Peter as he felt himself in the darkness of a dense
cover of spruce and balsam. He freed himself from
his entangled snowshoes and went on deeper into the
shelter. It became warmer and they could feel no
longer a breath of the wind.

He unloaded his pack and drew from it a jackpine
torch, dried in his cabin and heavy with pitch. Shortly
the flare of this torch lighted up their refuge for a
dozen paces about them. In the illumination of it, mov-
ing it from place to place, he gathered dry fire wood and
with his axe cut down green spruce for the smoulder-
ing back-fire that would last until morning. By the
time the torch had consumed itself the fire was burning,

242 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

and where Jolly Roger had scraped away the snow from
the thick carpet of spruce needles underfoot he piled
a thick mass of balsam boughs, and in the center of
the bed he buried himself, wrapped warmly i;;. his blan-
kets, and with Peter snuggled close at his side.

Through dark hours the green spruce fire burned
slowly and steadily. For a long time there was wailing
of wind out in the open. But at last it died away, and
utter stillness filled the world. No life moved in these
hours which followed the giving up of the big storm's
last gasping breath. Slowly the sky cleared. Here and
there a star burned through. But Jolly Roger and
Peter, deep in the sleep of exhaustion, knew nothing
of the change.

CHAPTER XVI

TT 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. McKay sat up out of his nest of
balsam boughs and blankets and caught the bright gliiit
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 unclouded 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 to shout. As far as he could
see the white plain was ablaze with eye-blinding light,
and never had the sky at Cragg's Ridge been clearer
than the sky that was over him now.

He returned to the fire, singing. Back through the
months leapt Peter's memory to the time when his
master had sung like that. It was in Indian Tom's
cabin, with Cragg's Ridge just beyond the creek, and
it was in those days before Terence Cassidy had come
to drive them to another hiding place; in the happy
days of Nada's visits and of their trysts under the

243

244 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

Ridge, when even the little gray mother mouse lived
in a paradise with her nest of babies in the box on their
cabin shelf. 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 Mc-
Kay 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 Nada
was only a mile away from him instead of a thousand.

When he went on, after their breakfast, he laughed
at the thought of Breault 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 parkee 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 di-
rection lay everything he had ever yearned for; and
each night beside their campfire McKay made a note

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 245

with pencil and paper and measured the distance they
had come and the distance they had yet to go. Hope
in a Httle 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
Nada 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. Bre-
ault and the hunters of the law were the one worry that
lay ahead and behind him. If he outwitted them he
would find Nada waiting for him.

Day after day they kept south and west until they
struck the Thelon; and then through a country un-
mapped, and at times terrific in its cold and storm, they
fought steadily to the frozen regions of the Dubawnt
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 disem-
boweled buck which Boileau, 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

246 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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 fol-
lowed 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 Boileau, who was eating his din-
ner, 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 Boileau,
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 listened to the sobbing grief that broke in
passionate protest from his white lips, he drew back a
little awed. It seemed for a time that Peter was dead ;
and in those moments Jolly Roger put his arms about
him and buried his despairing face in Peter's scraggly
neck, calling in a wild fit of anguish for him to come
back, to live, to open his eyes again. Boileau, crossing
himself, felt of Peter's body and McKay 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
McKay 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

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 2^7

Boileau took his place and began dropping warm con-
densed milk down Peter's throat. In a little while
Peter's eyes opened and he gave a great sigh.

Boileau looked up and shrugged his shoulders.

*'That was a good breath, m'sieu," he said. "What
is left of the poison has done its worst. He will live."

A bit stupidly McKay 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 falter-
ingly for a space half-way between the living and the
dead.

Wlien he turned from the window Boileau was cov-
ering Peter's body with blankets and a warm bear skin.
And for many days thereafter Peter was nursed
through the slow sickness vv^hich 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
Boileau had ever known it at the winter's end in Lost
Lake country. It was in this first week of April that

248 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

Peter was able to travel, and McKay pointed his trail
once more for Cragg's Ridge,

He left a part of his winter dunnage at Boileau'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 "home coming" 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 trod upon, in the trees about him, and in the
mate-chirping of the birds flocking back from the south-
land. His friends the jays vv^ere raucous and jaunty
again, bullying and bluffing in the warmth of sun-
shine; the black glint of crows' wings flashed across
the opens; the wood-sappers and pewees and big-eyed
moose-birds were aflutter with the excitement of home
planning ; partridges were feasting on the swelling pop-
lar buds — and then, one glorious sunset, he heard the
(chirruping evening song of his first robin.

And the next day they would reach Cragg's Ridge !

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 249

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 traveling 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's swamp, and Nada'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
Nada'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.

Reaching 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 devas-
tation of flame, and where it had swept, months ago,
there was nov/ no sign of the glorious spring that lay
behind him.

He looked for Indian Tom's 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.

250 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

He looked for the timber on Sucker Creek where
the little old Missioner's cabin lay, and where he had
dreamed that Nada would be waiting for him. And he
saw no timber there but only the littleness and empti-
ness 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 fulfilment of Yellow Bird'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 Nada.

After that one sobbing cry he tore like a madman
down intO' the valley, traveling swiftly through the
muck of fi.re and under- foot tangle with Peter fighting
behind him. Half an hour later he stood where the
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

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 251

at last they were home — and yet it was not home. In-
stinctively he had faced Cragg's Ridge and Jolly Roger,
seeing the dog's stiffened body pointing toward the
break beyond which lay Nada's old home, felt a thrill
of hope leap up within him. Possibly the farther plain
had escaped the scourge of fire. If so, Nada 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 flames 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 trysting place
where Nada 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 Nada's old home he found Peter
standing stiff-legged and strange. He opened the door

252 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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 com-
ing 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
Nada's little room was open and he entered through it.
The bed was naked and there remained only the skele-
ton of things that had been.

He moved now like a man numbed by a strange sick-
ness and Peter followed gloomily and silently in the
footsteps of his master. They went outside and a dis-
tance 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 into
Nada's room, closing the door behind him; and for
many minutes thereafter Peter remained outside guard-
ing 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

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 253

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
hottest, 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 deso-
lation of despair, a something grimmer and more ter-
rible— a thing that was fear. About him everywhere
reached this graveyard of death, leaving no spot un-
touched. Was it possible that Nada 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 Nada's room, and spread them out upon
her bed. Then he put out the light and quietly laid
himself down where through the nights of many a
month and year Nada had slept in the moon glow.

The moon was there tonight. The faint glow of it

254 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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 Nada, 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 beat-
ing at his side and clearly he saw her face in the light
of it and her slim arms out-reaching, 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 leapt up; and then, as if dis-
covery 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 tonight, for never had he seen his face
more clearly. Often had Nada 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

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 255

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 sorr}^ 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, Mister
— 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 Nada where she told us we'd find
her, in that place she called The Country Beyond — the

256 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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, Pied-Bot. It's
there wx'U find Nada, driven out by the fire, and wait-
ing 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 -^von'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 aw^ay,
there seemed to come for an instant the flash of a
satisfied smile in the face of the Man in the sky.

CHAPTER XVII

T?ROM the cabin McKay went first to the great rock
•*■ that jutted from the broken shoulder of Cragg's
Ridge, and as they stood there Peter heard the strange
something that was Hke 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 m.oonlit hours that followed, he tried to under-
stand. He knew this was home. Yet the green grass
was gone, and a million trees had changed into black-
ened stubs. The world was no longer shut in by deep
forests. And Cragg's Ridge was naked where he and
Nada had romped in sunshine and flowers, and out of
it all rose the mucky death-smell of the flame-swept
earth. These things he understood, in his dog way.
But what he could not understand clearly was why
Nada 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

257

258 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

not alone in his desolation. Gently he placed a soot-
grimed hand on his comrade's head.

*Teter, 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 know-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, an' tear stains on her
cheeks. Tear stains, Pied-Bo t — 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 fierce-
ness 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, Pied-Bot,
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

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 259

Mooney's shack, over on the wobbly line of rail that
rambled for eighty miles into the wilderness from Fort
William. The P. D. & W. it was named — Port Ar-
thur, Duluth & Western; but it had never reached
Duluth, and there were those who had nicknamed it
Poverty, Destruction & Want. Many times Jolly
Roger had laughed at the queer stories Nada told him
about it ; how a wrecking outfit was always carried be-
hind on the twice-a-week train, and how the crew
picked berries in season, and had their trapping lines,
and once chased a bear half way 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 moon-
light, 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 whine came 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 Nada 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

26o THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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
tonight there was no life, nor smell of life. There
was no chirp of night bird, or flutter of owl's wing,
no plash of duck or cry of loon. He listened in vain
for the crinkling snap of twig, and the whisper of wind
in 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 bend-
ing saplings — not even the howl of a trapper's dog.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 261

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 no life had adventured
back into the desolated country, though the conflagra-
tion 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
forests with the speed of a race horse, with only this
thin line of rail leading to the freedom of life out-
side. In places only a miracle could have made escape
possible. And here, where Nada 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 fas-
tened itself grimly to the little old gray Missioner,
Father John, in whose cabin Nada 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

262 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

Nada, and in silence he breathed a prayer that the
Missioner had saved her from the red death that had
swept Hke 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 w^as 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 v/as
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 moon-broken gloom
on his left. Something was there, fifty feet away, that
drew him down through the muck which lay knee deep
in the right-of-way ditch. It was what was left oi
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.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 263

He waded 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 Nada
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 Nada 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 it streaming over their shoulders — ghostly
shapes took form, and vision reached farther. Twice
they caught the silvery gleam 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 Roger's 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

264 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

creeping up to its doors on the other. Surely they
would find life here, where there had been man power
to hold fire back from the clearing. And it was here
he might find Nada and the Missioner, for more than
once Father John had preached to the red-cheeked
w^omen 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 un-
belief 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

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 265

travel in. Nothing was there. Even the great saw-
dust piles had shrunk into black scars under 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 Finnish 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 Nada?

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

266 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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 m^an with a heavy face and bristhng 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 'em 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. An' 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 Nada 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.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 267

"I dunno about the girl, or the old witch who was
her mother," he said, ''but the Missioner made it out
safe, and went to the settlements."

''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. Nada 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 1"

'•'Mebby a half, mebby 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, an' it singed my beard and
burned her hair and scorched our hands, and my

268 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

pigs died out there from the heat of it. Mebby it's
a place to sleep in for the night you want, stranger?'*

"No, I'm going on," said Jolly Roger, the blood in
his 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 settle-
ment."

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
plodded more and more slowly over the uneven ties
of the road. Even in his weariness he fought madly
against the thought that Nada was dead and he re-
peated the word "impossible — impossible" so often
that it ran in 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 Nada, 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 bole of a tree, and not until the

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 2tg

light of the moon was driven away by the darkness
that preceded 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 and 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 traveling 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. Pve been aw^ay
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?"

270 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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 WilHam a week after
the fire, and that was in September, eight months past."

"And was there with him a girl named Nada Haw-
kins?" 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 Nada 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 Nada 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.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 271

"She didn^t come this way," he said, ''but maybe
you'll find her somewhere else. Won't you have
breakfast with me? I've a stranger in the cabin, still
sleeping, who's going into the fire country from which
you've come. He's hunting for some one, and maybe
you can give him information. He's going to Cragg's
Ridge."

"Cragg's Ridge !" exclaimed Jolly Roger. "What is
his name?"

"Breault," said the youth. "Sergeant Breault, 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 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
Breault that you saw me, for he'll think badly of me for
not waiting to give him information he might want.
But — you understand — if you loved 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.

2^2 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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 w4th 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 the
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 Pashkokogon
Lake near the river Albanv.

There was little rest for Peter and his master at
Fort William town. That Breault must be close on
their trail, and following it with the merciless deter-
mination 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

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 273

corner shop, where Breault would be slow to enquire
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 con-
stantly 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 grayer and thinner.
A number of tim.es he had tried to assure himself what
he would do in that moment which was coming when he
would stand face to face with Breault the man-hunter.
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 Breault's appearance. It was not
in his desire to delay the end much longer. The chase

274 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

had been a long one, with its thrills and its happiness at
times, but now he was growing tired and with Nada
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
Breault 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 Pash-
kokogon 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 chest, to drink in the rare
sweetness of air weighted 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 Pashkokogon Lake; and it was

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 275

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 gray 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 believ-
ing, 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 mellov/ed 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 Jiand^,
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 Nada,
and her death.

2^6 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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 \vords. 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 foot-
ing and fell from a ledge to his death. His wife, poor
creature, wished him buried in sight of the cabin door

j>

But in this moment Roger McKay w^as thinking less
of Breault the Ferret and the loosening of the hang-
man's rope from about his neck than he was of another
thing. And Father John w^as 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 3^ou 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 !'*

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 277

It was only then Father John understood the mean-
ing of what he had seen in his face.

"No, she is aHve," he cried. "I sent her straight
north through the bush with an Indian the day after
the fire. xA.nd later I left word for you with the Fire
Relief Committee at Fort Wiliam, where I thought
you would first enquire."

"And it was there," said Jolly Roger, "that I did not
enquire at all!"

In the edge of the clearing, close to the thicket of
timber, Nada had stopped. For across the open space
a strange looking creature had raced at the sound of
her voice; a dog with bristling Airedale 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 leapt up against
her, and a cry burst from Nada'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, Nada 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

2^^ THE COUNTRY BEYOND

came a moment later, and peered out with the knowl-
edge of long years from a thicket of young banksians,
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 Nada'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 Nada'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 Nada 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 Nada saw him, held there at the

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 279

end of his arms. Since the day he had come with Peter
to Cragg's Ridge the blade of a razor had not touched
his face, and his beard was Hke a brush, and with it his
hair unkempt and stragghng; and his eyes were red
from sleeplessness and the haunting of that grim
despair which had dogged his footsteps.

But these things Nada 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 — Nada
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 terroriz-
ing inside him. She was not the little girl of Cragg's
Ridge. She was a zvoman. 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 wonder-light in her eyes, the soul that
lay as open to him now as on that other day in Indian
Tom's cabin, when Mrs. Captain Kidd had bustled and
squeaked on the pantry shelf, and Peter had watched

28o THE COUNTRY BEYOND

them as he lay with his broken leg in the going down
of the sun. And as he hesitated it was Nada 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 Nada's hair, and neither said
a word, but there was a strange throbbing of their
hearts together, and after a little Nada reached up a
hand to his cheek, and stroked it tenderly, bristly beard
and all.

ril never let you run away from me again — Mister
— Jolly Roger," she said, and it was the little Nada of
Cragg's Ridge who whispered the words, half sobbing;
but in the voice there was also som.ething 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 XVIII

T?OLLOWING this day Peter was observant of a
-■■ strange excitement in the cabin on the Burntwood.
It was not so much a thing of physical happening, but
more the mysterious fed of something impending and
very near. The day following their arrival in the Pash-
kokogon country his master seemed to have forgotten
him entirely. It was Nada who noticed him, but even
she was different; and Father John went about, over-
seeing 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 Nada 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 Nada's
bedroom. Even Oosimisk, the Leaf Bud, the sleek-
haired Indian woman who cared for the house, was ner-
vously expectant as she w^atched for Nada, and Mistoos,
her husband, grunted and grimaced as he carried in
from the edge of the forest many loads of soft ever-
greens on his shoulders.

Into the forest Jolly Roger went alone, puffing

281

282 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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 Nada 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 goin' on eighteen" 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 at Cragg's Ridge.

**You're a woman now," he said. '^A woman "

he had emphasized that — "and you 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 sud-
den little laugh, she swiftly pulled her hair down

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 283

about her shoulders, and repeated the very words
she had said to him a long time ago — ^'Without you —
I'd want to die — Mister — Jolly Roger," and with that
she turned and ran into the cabin, her hair flying riot-
ously, and he had not seen her again since that moment.

Since then his heart had behaved like a thing with
the 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 Nada'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 Oosimisk and her husband and Father John
piled evergreens all about, until the cabin looked like
the little jackpine trysting-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 Mistoos 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 ruddiness

284 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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 Nada'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 Nada 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 Nada was no longer the Nada who had come
to him in Father John's clearing. She -was the Nada
of Cragg's Ridge, the Nada 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 m.aster, and on her little feet were
shoes broken and disfigured by her flight in 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, Nada 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

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 285

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 Nada stood very close to him,
so that her brown head lightly touched his shoulder and
he could see the silken shimmer of loose tresses which
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 Cragg's 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 Nada, 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

286 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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 Nada 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 Nada 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, Nada said, very softly,

*'Mister — 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'm glad," he said. "So glad that Fm—
afraid."

"Then — if you are glad — please kiss me again."

He stood up, and drew her to him, and held her

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 287

face between his hands as he kissed her red Hps ; and
after that he kissed her shining hair again and again,
and when he let her go her eyes were a glory of hap-
piness.

''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,
nesthng against him again. "Only you, for ever 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 listened 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 Pled-Bofs 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 Nada's
hand crept to his cheek, and rested there.

"You love me — verv 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 look-
ing through miles upon miles of deep forest, and at

288 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

the end he saw the thin and pitiless face of a man
who was following his trail, Breault 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 sorr>^ — -with you," and he felt the
tightening of her arms.

And then, as he remained silent, w^ith 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 w^hich had saved him
heart and soul, and how he had given that treasure into
the keeping of Yellow Bird, on the shores of Wol-
laston.

And thereafter, for an hour, as they wandered
through the May-time sweetness of the forest, she
would permit him to talk of only Yellow Bird and
Sun Cloud; and, one thing leading to another, she
learned how it was that Yellow Bird had been his faiiy
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 wdth
the quickness of her breathing.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 289

''Some day — you'll take me there," she whispered.
"Oh, I'm so proud of you, my Roger. And I love
Yellow Bird. And Sun Cloud. Some day — we'll go!'*

He nodded, happiness overshadowing the fear of
Breault 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 Wollaston.

And so it happened the hours passed sv/iftly, and
it was afternoon w^hen 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 Bud had been preparing was ready, and not until
then did Nada appear again.

And once more the lump rose up 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 on 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 dainti-
ness 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

290 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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 marvelous forget fulness —
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 a-throb, 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 Breault, the Ferret.

CHAPTER XIX

T N the star dusk of evening the time came when he
-*• spoke his fears to Father John.

Nada had gone into her room, taking Peter with her,
and out under the cool of the skies Father John's pale
face w^as 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
Breault in coming away from the burned country.

"He is on my trail," he said, "and tonight he is

not very far away."

291

292 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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 — Nada 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 com-
mitted, 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, w^hat 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

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 293

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?"

McKay 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 de-
manded of me, defying my logic. 'What are five years
— or ten — or twenty, if I knozv 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 seems she dreams, Roger. She, in the
wilfulness of her desire and selfishness "

294 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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 trvdng to look into the hearts of people — •
and of God. And this — this love of Nada's — 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 it, 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 McKay'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 under glow of a great
determination. For Nada — 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 — Nada and
the baby — would be waiting — waiting

Suddenly he was conscious of a sound very near, and
he beheld Nada, taller and slimmer and more beautiful
than ever, it seemed to him, in the starlight.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 295

tt^

1 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 her 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 she 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 Newa '*

"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."

296 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

**That — that makes me happiest, Roger. Your wife.
Oh, it is the sweetest word in the world, that — and

5J

He felt her warm face hide itself softly against his
neck.

''Mother," he added.

''Yes — Mother," she repeated after him in an awed
little voice. "Oh, I have dreamed of Mothers since I
have been old enough to dream, Roger ! My Mother —
I never had one that I can remember, except in a dream.
It must be wonderful to — to — have a Mother, Roger."

"And yet, I think, not quite so w^onderful as to he
a Mother, my Nada."

"Listen!" she whispered.

'It is the Leaf Bud singing."

'A love song?"
'Yes, in Cree."

She raised her head, so that her ey^es were wide open,
and looking at him.

"Since we came up here all this wonderful world has
been prom^ising 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, Nada?'*

"Only to look upon it, and come av/ay. I want to
live in the forests, where I found you. Always and
always, Roger.'

a-

}y

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 297

She raised herself on tip-toe, and kissed him.

"I want to Hve near Yellow Bird and Sun Cloud — >
please — Mister Jolly Roger — I do. And Father John
will go with us. And we'll be so happy there all to-
gether, Yellow Bird and Sun Cloud 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,
Nada. 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 would
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.

CHAPTER XX

npHE 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
beside 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

2Q8

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 299

backward, each five years of his Hfe seemed but a
yesterday. It was eight times five years ago that a
sweet-faced girl had first filled his life, as Nada filled
Jolly Roger's 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 wait 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 resent-

300 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

ment, 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 gath-
ered 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 al-
ways lay beyond the darkness of clouds. To McKay,
holding Nada's hand in his own as they listened. Father
John's w^ords 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 Breault come in
through the open doorway then he would have ac-
cepted 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 Yellow
Bird, for Nada was ever full of questions about her,
and for the first time the Missioner learned of the in-
spiration which the Indian woman's sorcery had been
to Jolly Roger.

"It was foolish," McKay apologized, in spite of the
certainty and faith which he saw shining in Nada's
eyes. "But — it helped me."

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 301

"It wasn't foolish," replied Nada quickly. "Yellow
Bird 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 Yellow Bird
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 Yellow Bird 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
Yellow Bird 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

302 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

Roger observed her fingers grip suddenly in the soft-
ness 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 Yellow Bird how much I
love her."

Now in these hours since he and his master had come
to the Burntwood 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 tempta-
tion to urge you to fly away with her — down there —
south. She is a woman, and being a woman she has

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 303

infinite faith in Yellow Bird, for Yellow Bird 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 Breault would only wait a little
while. But if he comes — now "

He walked away slowly, following through the bal-
sams 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

304 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

years were a long time — for Jwm. 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 Nada and
Roger returned to the cabin an hour later, their arms
filled with red bakneesh vines and early waldflov/ers.

Nada's cheeks were as pink as the bakneesh, and her
eyes as blue as the rock-violets she wore on 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 Nada.

Peter alone saw the mysterious thing which happened
in the early evening. He was with Nada in her room.
And she was the old Nada again, hugging his shaggy
head in her arms, and whispering to him in the old, ex-
cited way. And strange memory of a bundle came
back to Peter, for very quietly, as if unseen ears might
be listening to her, Nada 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 banksian
clump in the meadowland below Cragg's Ridge.

Father John went to his bed very early, and he
was thinking of Breault. The Hudson's Bay Com-

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 305

pany post was only twelve miles away, and Breault
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 Nada, saying he had business at the
post that day, and without wakening them had made
an early start. This note Nada read to McKay when
they sat at breakfast.

"Quite frequently he has gone like that," Nada ex-
plained. ''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 Breault if he can.
It means that deep in his heart he wants us to follow
Yellow Bird's advice to the end. For he is sure that
he knows what Yellow Bird meant by 'The Country
Beyond.' It is the great big world outside the forests,

3o6 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

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 Breault."

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.

"And you are willing to go with me — anywhere ?"

"Yes, anywhere.*'

"To the end of the earth r

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 look-
ing 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

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 307

youVe dreamed of, Nada — these forests you love,
Father John, Yellow Bird, 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, Nada."

*'I have only one dream," she repeated, caressing his
cheek with her hand, ''and that is you, Roger. Where-
ever you take me I shall be the happiest woman in the
world."

^'Wonmn/^ 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, Nada — the little girl with flying hair and
strawberry stain on her nose, and who believed so faith-
fully 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 Nada's
wifehood, and his heart trembled with joy at the mir-
acle of it. There was something vastly sweet in the

3o8 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

change of her. She was no longer the utterly depend-
ent 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 de-
cision 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 woman-like 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 Nada of Cragg's Ridge. And I — 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 Nada's hand thrilled
him, as it did a long time ago, and still he sensed the
difiference. 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 child-
ish comradeship of her. Yet he began to worship her
anew, even more fiercely than he had loved the Nada
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

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 309

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 stag-
ger toward them, swaying as if about to fall.

The sudden stopping of his breath — the tightening
of his arms — drew Nada'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
cam.e in choking gasps. But he tried to smile as he
clutched a hand at his breast.

'T 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 — Breault is com-
ing. He cannot be far behind me. Possibly half a
mile, or a mile "

In the thickening dusk he took Nada'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

310 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

that you remain to be taken by Breault. You must go.
There is no time to lose. If Breault does not stumble
off the trail in this gloom he will be here in a few
minutes. Come."

Not a w^ord did Nada 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 she
was prepared, and unafraid.

In the cabin the Leaf Bud met them, and to her
Nada spoke quickly. There was understanding be-
tween them, and Oosimisk dragged in a filled pack from
the kitchen while Nada ran into her room and came
out with the bundle.

Suddenly she was standing before McKay and Father
John, her breast throbbing w4th excitement.

"There is nothing more to make ready," she said.
"Yellow Bird has been with me all this day, and her
spirit told m.e 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.

Nada's arms tightened convulsively, and in that mo-

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 311

ment there came a warning growl from outside the
cabin door.

"Peter!" she cried.

In another moment Father John had extinguished
the Hght.

"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 — Nada "

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, Nada 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 —
Nada — 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 ex-
plain. "It's best for you to stay — with me. For I
think they are going a far distance, and will come to a

312 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

land where you would shrivel up and die. Besides, you
could not go in the canoe. So be good, and remain

with me, Peter — with me "

And the Leaf Bud, standing wide-eyed and motion-
less, heard a strange little choking laugh come from
Father John as he groped in darkness for a light.

CHAPTER XXI

A SLOW illumination filled the cabin, first the yel-

^ low flare of a match and then the light of a lamp,
and as Father John's waxen face grew out of the dark-
ness Peter whimpered and whined and scratched with
his paws at the closed door.

Oosimisk, the Leaf Bud, stood like a statue, with
her wide, dark eyes staring at Father John, but scarcely
seeming to breathe.

In the old Missioner's face came a trembling smile
and a look of triumph as he read the fear-written ques-
tion in her steady gaze.

"All is well, Oosimisk," he said quietly, speaking in
Cree. "They are safely away, and will not be caught.
Continue with your duties and let no one see that any-
thing unusual has happened. Breault will come very
soon."

He straightened his shoulders, as if to give himself
confidence and strength, and then he called Peter, and
comforted the dog whose master and mistress were flee-
ing through the dark.

"They have reached the pool," he said, seating him-
self and holding Peter's shaggy head between his hands,
"They have just about reached the pool, and Breault

313

314 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

must be entering the clearing on the other side. Roger
cannot miss the canoe — twenty paces down and with
nothing to shadow it overhead; I think he has found
it by this time, and in another half minute they will
be off. And it is very black down the Burntwood, with
deep timber close to the water, and for many miles no
man can follow by night along its shores." Suddenly
his hands tightened, and the Leaf Bud, watching him
slyly, saw the last of suspense go out of his face. "And
now — they are safe," he cried exultantly. "They must
be on their way — and Breault has not come across the
clearing !"

He rose to his feet, and began pacing back and forth,
while Peter sniffed yearningly at the door again. Oosi-
misk, with the caution of her race in moments of dan-
ger, was drawing the curtains at the windows, and
Father John smiled his approbation. He did not want
Breault, the man-hunter, peering through one of the
windows at him. Even as he walked back and forth he
listened intently for Breault's footsteps. Peter, with a
sigh, gave up his scratching and settled himself on his
haunches close to Nada's door.

Father John, in passing him, paused to lay a hand
on his head.

"Some day it may please God to let us go to them,"
he consoled, speaking for himself even more than for
Peter. "Some day, when they are far away — and
safe."

He felt Peter suddenly stiffen under his hand, and

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 315

from the Leaf Bud came a low, swift word of warn-
ing.

She began singing softly, and dishes and pans al-
ready clean rattled under her hands in the kitch«n, and
she continued to sing even as the cabin door opened and
Breault the man-hunter stood in it.

The unexpectedness of his appearance, without the
sound of a warning footstep outside, was amazing even
to Peter. In the open door he stood for a moment, his
thin, ferret-like face standing out against the black
background of the night, and his strange eyes, ap-
parently half closed yet bright as diamonds, sweeping
the interior without effort but with the quickness of

lightning.

There was something deadly and foreboding about
him as he stood here, and Peter growled low in his
throat. Recognition flashed upon him in an instant.
It was the man of the snow-dune, away up on the Bar-
ren, the man whom he had mistrusted from the be-
ginning, and from whom they had fled into the face
of the Big Storm months ago. His mind worked
swiftly, even as swiftly as Breault's in its way, and
without any process of reasoning he sensed menace and
enmity in this man's appearance, and associated with it
the mysterious flight of Jolly Roger and Nada.

Breault had nodded, without speaking. Then his eyes
rested on Peter, and his face broke into a twisted sort of
smile. It was not altogether unpleasant, yet was there
something about it which made one shiver. It spoke

3i6 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

the character of the man, pitiless, determined, omni-
scient almost, as if the spirit of a grim and unrelent-
ing fate walked with him.

Again he nodded, and held out a hand.

"Peter," he called. "Come here, Peter!"

Peter flattened his ears a fraction of an inch, but did
not move. Even that fraction of an inch caught Bre-
ault's keen eyes.

"Still a one-man dog," he observed, stepping well in-
side the cabin, and facing Father John. "Where is
McKay, Father?"

He had not closed the door, and Peter saw his chance.
The Leaf Bud saw him pass like a shot out into the
night, but as he went she made no effort to call him
back, for her ears were wide open as Breault repeated
his question,

"Where is McKay, Father?"

Peter heard the man-hunter's voice from the dark-
ness outside. For barely an instant he paused, pick-
ing up the fresh scent of Nada and Jolly Roger. It
was easy to follow — straight to the pool, and from the
pool twenty paces down-stream, where a little finger of
sand and pebbles had been formed by the eddies. In
this bar was fresh imprint of the canoe, and here
the footprints ended.

Peter whimpered, peering into the tunnel of dark-
ness between forest trees, where the water rippled and
gurgled softly on its way into a deeper and more tan-
gled wilderness. He waded belly-deep into the current,

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 317

half determined to swim ; and then he waited, Hstening
intently, but could hear no sound of voice or paddle
stroke.

Yet he knew Jolly Roger and Nada could not be far
away.

He returned to the edge of the pool, and began snif-
fing his way down-stream, pausing every two or three
minutes to listen. Now and then he caught the pres-
ence of those he sought, in the air, but those intervals
in which he stopped to catch sound of voice or paddle
lost him time, so the canoe was traveling faster than
Peter.

Half way between himself and the bow of that canoe
McKay could dimly make out Nada's pale face in the
star glow that filtered like a mist through the tops of
the close-hanging trees.

Scarcely above his breath he laughed in joyous con-
fidence.

*^At last my dream Is coming true, Nada," he whis-
pered. "You are mine. And we are going into an-
other world. And no one will ever find us there — no
one but Father John, when we send him word. You
are not afraid?"

Her voice trembled a little In the gloom.

*'No, I am not afraid. But it is dark — so dark "

''The moon vv^ill be with us again in a few nights —
your moon, with the Old Man smiling down on us.
I know how the Man in the Moon must feel when he's
on the other side of the world, and can't see you, Nada.'*

3i8 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

Her silence made him lean toward her, striving to
get a better view of her face where the starlight broke
through an opening in the tree-tops.

And in that moment he heard a little breath that was
almost a sob.

"It's Peter,'' she said, before he could speak. "Oh,
Roger, why didn't we bring Peter?"

"Possibly — we should have," he replied, skipping a
stroke with his paddle. "But I think we have done the
best thing for Peter. He is a wilderness dog, and has
never known anything different. Over there, where we
are going "

"I understand. And some day. Father John will

bring him?"

"Yes. He has promised that. Peter will come to us

when Father John comes."

She had turned, looking into the pit-gloom ahead of
them, so dark that the canoe seemed about to drive
against a wall. Under its bow the water gurgled like
oil.

"We are entering the big cedar swamp," he ex-
plained. "It is like Blind Man's Buff, isn't it? Can
you see?"

"Not beyond the bow of the canoe, Roger."

"Work back to me," he said, "very carefully."

She came, obediently.

"Now turn slowly, so that you face the bow, and
lean back with your head against my knees.

This also, she did.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 319

'This is much nicer," she whispered, nestHng her
head comfortably against him. "So much nicer."

By leaning over until his back nearly cracked he was
able to find her lips in the darkness.

"I was thinking of the brush that overhangs the
stream," he explained when he had straightened him-
self. "Sitting up as you were it might have caused you
hurt."

There was a little silence between them, in which his
paddle caught again its slow and steady rhythm. Then,

"Were you thinking only of the brush, Roger — and
of the hurt it might cause me?"

"Yes, only of that," and he chuckled softly.

"Then I don't think it nice here at all," she com-
plained. "I shall sit up straight so the brush may put
my eyes out!"

But her head pressed even closer against him, and
careful not to interrupt his paddle-stroke she touched
his face for an instant with her hand.

"It's there," she purled, as if utterly comforted. "I
wanted to be sure — it is so dark !"

With Cimmerian blackness on all sides of them, and
a chaotic tunnel ahead, they were happy. Staring
straight before him, though utterly unable to see, Mc-
Kay sensed in every movement he made and in every
breath he drew the exquisite thrill of a miracle. And
the same thrill swept into him and through him from
the softly breathing body of Nada. Light or dark-
ness made no difference now. Together, inseparable

320 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

from this time forth, they had started on the one great
adventure of their lives, and for them fear had ceased
to exist. The night sheltered them. Its very black-
ness held in its embrace a warmth of welcome and of
imending hope. Twice in the next half hour he put his
hand to Nada's face, and each time she pressed her
lips against it, sweet with that confidence which so
completely possessed her soul.

Very slowly they moved through the swamp, for
because of the gloom his paddle-strokes were exceed-
ingly short, and he was feeling his way. Frequently
he ran into brush, or struck the boggy shore, and oc-
casionally Nada would hold lighted matches while he
extricated the canoe from tree-tops and driftwood that
impeded the way. He loved the brief glimpses he caught
of her face in the match-glow, and twice he deliberately
wasted the tiny flares that he might hold the vision of
her a little longer.

At last he began to feel the pulse of a current against
his paddle, and soon after that the star-mist began
filtering through the thinning tree-tops again, so that
he knew they were almost through the swamp. An-
other half-hour and they were free of it, with a clear
sky overhead and the cheering song of running water
on both sides of them.

Nada sat up, and it was now so light that he could
see the soft shimmer of her hair in the starlight. He
also saw a pretty little grimace in her face, even as she
smiled at him.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 321

t(^

1 — I can't move/' she exclaimed. ''Ugh! my feet
are asleep "

"We'll go ashore and stretch ourselves," said Mc-
Kay, who had looked at his watch in the light of the
last match. "We've two hours the start of Breault,
and there is no other canoe."

He began watching the shore closely, and it was not
long before he made out the white smoothness of a
sandbar on their right. Here they landed and for
half an hour rested their cramped limbs.

Then they went on, and in his heart McKay blessed
the deep swamp that lay between them and Breault.

"I don't think he can make it without a canoe, even
if he guesses we went this way," he explained to Nada.
"And that means — we are safe."

There was a cheery ring in his voice which would
have changed to the deadness of cold iron could he
have looked back into that sluggish pit of the Burnt-
wood through which they had come, or could he have
seen into the heart of the still blacker swamp.

For through the swamp, feeling his w^ay in the black
abysses and amid the monster-ghosts of darkness, came
Peter.

And down the Burntwood, between the boggy muck-
lips of the swamp, a man followed with slow but deadly
surety, guiding with a long pole two light cedar tim-
bers which he had lashed together with wire, and which
bore him safely and in triumph where the canoe had
gone before him.

322 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

This man was Breault, the man-hunter.

*'The swamp will hold him!" McKay was saying
again, exultantly. *^Even if he guesses our way, the
swamp will hold him back, Nada."

*'But he won't know the way we have come," cried
Nada, the faith in her voice answering his own. ''Father
John will guide him in another direction."

Back in the pit-gloom, with a grim smile now and
then relaxing the tight-set compression of his thin lips,
and with eyes that stared like a night-owl's into the
gloom ahead of him, Breault poled steadily on.

CHAPTER XXII

"TX RIPPING from the bog-holes and lathered with
^^ mud, it was the mystery of Breault's noiseless pres-
ence somewhere near him in the still night that drew
Peter continually deeper into the swamp.

Half a dozen times he caught the scent of him in a
quiet air that seemed only now and then to rise up
in his face softly, as if stirred by butterflies' wings.
Always it came from ahead, and Peter's mind worked
swiftly to the decision that where Breault was there
also would be Nada and Jolly Roger. Yet he caught
the scent of neither of these two, and that puzzled
him.

Many times he found himself at the edge of the
black lip of water, but never quite at the right time to
see a shadow in its darkness, or hear the sound of
Breault's pole.

But in the swamp, as he went on, he saw nothing
but shadow, and heard weird and nameless sounds
which made his blood creep, even though his courage
was now full-grown within him.

He was not frightened at the ugly sputter of the
owls, as in the days of old. Their throaty menace and
snapping beaks did not stop him nor turn him aside.

323

324 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

The slashing scrape of claws in the bark of trees and
the occasional crackling of brush were matters of inti-
mate knowledge, and he gave but little attention to them
in his eagerness to reach those who had gone ahead
of him. What troubled him, and filled his eyes with
sudden red glares, were the oily gurgles of the pitfalls
which tried to suck him down; the laughing madness
of muck that held him as if living things were in it,
and which spluttered and coughed when he freed him-
self.

Half blinded at times, so that even the black shad-
ows were blotted out, he went on. And at last, com-
ing again to the edge of the stream, he heard a new
kind of sound — the slow, steady dipping of Breault's
pole.

He hurried on, finding harder ground under his feet,
and came noiselessly abreast of the man on his raft of
cedar timbers. He could almost hear his breathing.
And very faintly he could see in the vast gloom a
shadow — a shadow that moved slowly against the back-
ground of a still deeper shadow beyond.

But there was no scent of Nada or Jolly Roger, and
whatever desire had risen in him to make himself known
was smothered by caution and suspicion. After this
he did not go ahead of Breault, but kept behind him
or abreast of him, within sound of the dipping pole.
And every minute his heart thumped expectantly, and
he sniffed the new air for signs of those he most de-
sired to find.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 325

Dawn was breaking in the sky when they came out
of the swamp, and the first flush of the sun was Hght-
ing up the east when Breault headed his improvised
craft for the sandbar upon which Nada and McKay
had rested many hours before.

Breault was tired, but his eyes lighted up when he
saw the footprints in the sand, and he chuckled — almost
good humoredly. As a matter of fact he was in a
good humor. But one would not have reckoned it as
such in Breault. A hard man, the forests called him;
a man with the hunting instincts of the fox and the
wolf and the merciless persistency of the weazel — a
man who lived his code to the last letter of the law,
without pity and without favoritism. At least so he
was judged, and his hard, narrow eyes, his thin lips
and his cynically lined face seldom betrayed the better
thoughts within him, if he possessed any at all. In
the Service he was regarded as a humanly perfect
mechanism, a bit of machinery that never failed, the
dreaded Nemesis to be set on the trail of a wrong-doer
when all others had failed.

But this morning, with every bone and muscle in
him aching from his long night of tedious exertion, the*
chuckle grew into a laugh as he looked upon the itW
tale signs in the sand.

He stretched himself and his tired bones cracked.

Breault did not think aloud. But he was saying
to himself.

*There, against that rock, Jolly Roger McKay sat.

326 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

There is the imprint of only one person sitting. The
girl was in his arms. Here are little holes where her
outstretched heels rested in the sand. She is wearing
shoes and not moccasins."

He grinned as he drew his service pack from the
two-log cedar raft.

^'Plenty of time now/' he continued to think. "They
are mine this time — sure. They believe they have
fooled me, and they haven't. That's fatal. Always."

Not infrequently, when entirely alone, Breault let
a little part of himself loose, as if freeing a prisoner
from bondage for a short time. For instance, he whis-
tled. It was not an unpleasant whistle, but rather oddly
reminiscent of tender things he remembered away back
somewhere; and as he fried his bacon and steamed a
handful of desiccated potatoes he hummed a song, also
rather pleasant to ears that were as closely attentive as
Peter's.

For Peter had crept up through a tangle of ground-
scrub and lay not twenty paces away, smelling of the
bacon hungrily, and watching intently from his con-
cealment.

Peter knew the fox and the wolf, but he did not know
Breault, and he did not guess why the man's whistling
grew a little louder, nor why his humming voice grew
stronger. But after a time, with his back and not his
face toward Peter, Breault called in the most natural
and matter-of-fact voice in the world,

"Come on, Peter. Breakfast is ready!"

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 327

Peter's jaws dropped in amazement. And as Bre-
ault turned toward him, his thin face a-grin, and con-
tinued to invite him in a most companionable way, he
forgot his concealment entirely and stood up straight,
ready either to fight or fly.

Breault tossed him a dripping slice of bacon which
he held in his hand. It fell within a foot of Peter's
nose, and Peter was ravenously hungry. The deli-
cious odor of it demoralized his senses and his caution.
For a few seconds he resisted, then thrust himself out
toward it an inch at a time, made a sudden grab, and
swallowed it at one gulp.

Breault laughed outright, and with the first of the sun
striking into his face he did not look like an enemy to
Peter.

A second slice of bacon followed the first, and then
a third — until Breault was f r^^ng another mess over the
fire.

"That's partial paymiCnt for what you did up on the
Barren," he was saying inside himself. *Tf it hadn't
been for you "

He didn't even imagine the rest. Nor after that did
he pay the slightest attention to Peter. For Breault
knew dogs possibly even better than he knew men, and
not by the smallest sign did he give Peter to under-
stand that he was interested in him at all. He washed
his dishes, whistling and humming, reloaded his pack
on the raft, and once more began poling his way down-
stream.

328 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

Peter, still in the edge of the scrub, was not only
puzzled, but felt a further sense of abandonment. After
all, this man was not his enemy, and he was leaving
him as his master and mistress had left him. He
whined. And Breault was not out of sight when he
trotted down to the sandbar, and quickly found the
scent of Nada and McKay. Purposely Breault had left
a lump of desiccated potato as big as his fist, and this
Peter ate as ravenously as he had eaten the bacon.
Then, just as Breault knew he would do, he began fol-
lowing the raft.

Breault did not hurry, and he did not rest. There
was something almost mechanically certain in his slow
but steady progress, though he knew it was possible for
the canoe to outdistance him three to one. He was
missing nothing along the shore. Three times during
the forenoon he saw where the canoe had landed, and
he chuckled each time, thinking of the old story of the
tortoise and the hare. He stopped for not more than
two or three minutes at each of these places, and was
then on his way again.

Peter was fascinated by the unexcited persistency of
the man's movement. He followed it, watched it, and
became more and more interested in the unvarying
monotony of it. There were the same up-and-down
strokes of the long pole, the slight swaying of the up-
standing body, the same eddy behind the cedar logs —
and occasionally wisps of smoke floating behind when
the pursuer smoked his pipe. Not once did Peter see
Breault turn his head to look behind him. Yet Breault

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 329

was seeing everything. Five times that morning he
saw Peter, but not once did he make a sign or call to
him.

He drove his raft ashore at twelve o^clock to pre-
pare his dinner, and after he had built a fire, and his
cooking things were scattered about, he straightened
himself up and called in that same matter-of-fact way,
as if expecting an immediate response,

"Here, Peter! — Peter! — Come in, Boy!"

And Peter came. Fighting against the last instinct
that held him back he first thrust his head out from
the brush and looked at Breault. Breault paid no at-
tention to him for a few moments, but sliced his bacon.
When the perfume of the cooking meat reached Peter^s
nose he edged himself a little nearer, and with a whim-
pering sigh flattened himself on his belly.

Breault heard the sigh, and grunted a reply.

"Hungry again, Peter?" he inquired casually.

He had saved for this moment a piece of cooked
bacon held over from breakfast, and tearing this with
his fingers he tossed the strips to Peter. As he did this
he was thinking to himself,

"Why am I doing this ? I don't want the dog. He
will be a nuisance. He will eat my grub. But it's fair.
I'm paying a debt. He helped to save me up on the
Barren."

Thus did Breault, the man without mercy, the Neme-
sis, briefly analyze the matter. And he cooked five
pieces of bacon for Peter.

During the rest of that day Peter made no effort to.

330 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

keep himself m concealment as he followed Breault and
his raft. This afternoon Breault shot a fawn, and
when he made camp that night both he and Peter
feasted on fresh meat. This broke down the last of
Peter's suspicion, and Breault laid a hand on his head.
He did not particularly like the feel of the hand, but
he tolerated it, and Breault grunted aloudj with a note
of commendation in his hard voice.

'^A one-man dog — never anything else.''

Half a dozen times during the day Peter had found
the scent of Nada and Roger where they had come
ashore, and from this night on he associated Breault
as a necessary agent in his search for them. And with
Breault he went, instinctively guessing the truth.

The next day they found where Nada and McKay
had abandoned the canoe, and had struck south through
the wilderness. This pleased Breault, who was tired
of his poling. This third night there was a new moon,
and something about it stirred in Peter an impulse to
run ahead and overtake those he was seeking. But a
still strong instinct held him to Breault.

Tonight Breault slept like a dead man on his cedar
boughs. He was up and had a fire built an hour before
dawn, and with the first gray streaking of day was on
the trail again. He made no further effort to follow
signs of the pursued, for that was a hopeless task.
But he knew how McKay was heading, and he traveled
swiftly, figuring to cover twice the distance that Nada
might travel in the same given time. It was three

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 331

o'clock in the afternoon when he came to a great ridge,
and on its highest pinnacle he stopped.

Peter had grown restless again, and a little more sus-
picious of Breault. He was not afraid of him, but all
that day he had found no scent of Nada or Jolly
Roger, and slowly the conviction was impinging itself
upon him that he should seek for himself in the wilder-
ness.

Breault saw this restlessness, and understood it.

"I'll keep my eye on the dog,'' he thought. "He has
a nose, and an uncanny sixth sense, and I haven't
either. He will bear watching. I believe McKay and
the girl cannot be far away. Possibly they have trav-
eled more slowly than I thought, and haven't passed this
ridge ; or it may be they are down there, in the plain.
If so I should catch sign of smoke or fire — in time."

For an hour he kept watch over the plain through his
binoculars, seeking for a wisp of smoke that might rise
at any time over the treetops. He did not lose sight of
Peter, questing out in widening circles below him.
And then, quite unexpectedly, something happened. In
the edge of a tiny meadow an eighth of a mile away
Peter was acting strangely. He was nosing the ground,
gulping the wind, twisting eagerly back and forth.
Then he set out, steadily and with unmistakable deci-
sion, south and west.

In a flash Breault was on his feet, had caught up his
pack, and was running for the meadow. And there
he found something in the velvety softness of the earth

332 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

which brought a grim smile to his thin lips as he, too,
set out south and west.

The scent he had found, hours old, drew Peter on,
until in the edge of the dusk of evening it brought him
to a foot-worn trail leading to the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany post many miles south. In this path, beaten
by the feet of generations of forest dwellers, the hard
heels of McKay's boots had made their imprint, and
after this the scent was clearer under Peter's nose.
But with forest-bred caution he still traveled slowly,
though his blood was burning like a pitch-fed fire in
his veins. Almost as swiftly followed Breault behind
him.

Again came darkness, and then the moon, brighter
than last night, lighting his way between the two walls
of the forest.

CHAPTER XXIII

T^AWN came softly where the quiet waters of the
^^ Willow Bud ran under deep forests of evergreen
out into the gold and silver birch of the Nelson River
flats. A veiling mist rose out of the earth to meet the
promise of day, gentle and sweet, like scented rai-
ment, stirring sleepily to the pulse of an awakening
earth. Through it came the first low twitter of bird-
song, a sound that seemed to swell and grow until it
iilled the world. Yet was it still a sound of sleep, o£
"half wakefulness, and the mist was thinning away when,
a ruffled little breast sent out its full throat-song from
the tip of a silver birch that overhung the stream.

The Httle warbler was looking down, as if wonder-
ing why there was no stir of life beneath him, where
in last night's sunset there had been much to wonder
at and a new kind of song to thrill him. But the girl
was no longer there to sing back at him. The cedar
and balsam shelter dripped with morning dew, the place
where fire had been was black and dead, and ruffling his
feathers the warbler continued his song in triumph.

Nada, hidden under her shelter, and still half dream-
ing, heard him. She lay with her head nestled in the
crook of Roger's arm, and the birdsong seemed to come

333

334 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

to her from a great distance away. She smiled, and her
lips trembled, as if even in sleep she was about to an-
swer it. And then the song drifted away until she
could no longer hear it, and she sank back into an
oblivion of darkness in which she seemed lost for a
long time, and out of which some invisible force was
struggling to drag her.

There came at last a sudden irresistible pull at her
senses, and she opened her eyes, awake. Her head was
no longer in the crook of Jolly Roger's arm. She
could see him sitting up straight, and he was not look-
ing at her. It must be late, she thought, for the light
w^as strong in his face, warm with the first golden flow
of the sun. She smiled, and sat up, and shook her
soft curls with a happy little laugh.

"Roger ''

And then she, too, was staring, wide-eyed and speech-
less. For she saw Peter under Jolly Roger's hand. But
it was not Peter who drew her breath short and sent
fear cutting like a sharp knife through her heart.

Facing them, seated coldly on a log which McKay
had dragged in from the timber, was a thin-faced sharp-
eyed man who was studying them with an odd smile
on his lips, and instantly Nada knew this man was
Ereault.

There was something peculiarly appalling about him
as he sat there, in spite of the fact that for a few mo-
ments he neither spoke nor moved. His eyes, Nada
thought, were not like human eyes, and his lips were
like the blades of two knives set together. Yet he was

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 335

smiling, or half smiling, not in a comforting or hu-
morous way, but with exultation and triumph. From
looking at him one would never have guessed that
Breault loved his joke.

He nodded.

**Good morning, Jolly Roger McKay! And — good
morning, Mrs. Jolly Roger McKay! Pardon me for
watching you like this, but duty is duty. I am Breault,
of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police."

McKay wet his lips. Breault saw him, and the grin
on his thin face w^idened.

"I know, it's hard," he said. "But you've got Peter
to thank for it. Peter led me to you.''

He stood up, and in a most casual fashion covered
Jolly Roger with his automatic.

"Would you mind stepping out, McKay V he asked.

In his other hand he dangled a pair of handcuffs.
McKay stood up, and Nada rose beside him, gripping
his arms with both hands,

"No need of those things, Breault," he said. "I'll
go peaceably."

"Still — it's safer," argued Breault, a wicked glitter in
his eyes. "Hold out one hand, please "

The manacle snapped over Jolly Roger's wrist.

"I'm Breault — not Terence Cassidy," he chuckled.
"Never take a chance, you know. Never !"

Swift as a flash was his movement then, as the
companion bracelet snapped over Nada's wrist. He
stepped back, facing them with a grin.

"Got you both now, haven't I ?" he gloated. "Can't

S36 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

get away, can you ?" He put his gun away, and bowed
low to Nada. **How do you like married life, Mrs.
Jolly Roger?''

McKay's face was whiter than Nada's.

"You coward !" he spoke in a low, quiet voice. "You
low-down miserable coward. You're a disgrace to
the Service. Do you mean you are going to keep my
wife ironed like this?"

"Sure," said Breault. "I'm going to make you pay
for some of the trouble I've had over you. I believe
in a man paying his debts, you know. And a woman,
too. And probably you've lied to her like the very
devil."

"He hasn't!" protested Nada fiercely. "You're

-a "

'Say it," nodded Breault good humoredly. "By all
means say it, Mrs. Jolly Roger. If you can't find
words, let me help you," and while he waited he loaded
his pipe and lighted it.

"You see I don't exactly live up to regulations when
I'm with good friends like you," he apologized cyni-
cally. "In other words you're a couple of hard cases.
Cassidy has turned in all sorts of evidence about you.
He says that you, McKay, should be hung the moment
we catch you. He warned me not to take a chance —
that you'd slit my throat in the dark without a prick of
conscience. And I'm a valuable man in the Service.
It can't afford to lose me."

McKay shut his lips tightly, and did not answer.

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 337

"Now, while you're helpless, I want to tell you a
few things," Breault went on. ''And while I'm talking
I'll start the fire, so we can have breakfast. Peter and
I are hungry. A good dog, McKay. He saved us
up on the Barren. Have you told Mrs. Jolly Roger
about that?"

He expected no answer, and whistled as he lighted
a pile of birchbark which he had already placed under
dry cedar wood which McKay had gathered the pre-
ceding evening.

"That's where my trouble began — up there on the
Barren, Mrs. Jolly Roger," he continued, ignoring Mc-
Kay. ''You see the three of us. Superintendent Tavish,
and Porter — who is now his son-in-law — ^and I had a
splendid chance to die like martyrs, and go down for-
ever in the history of the Service, if it hadn't been for
this fool of a husband of yours, and Peter. I can't
blame Peter, because he's only a dog. But McKay
is responsible. He robbed us of a beautiful opportunity
of dying in an unusual way by hunting us up and drag-
ging us into his shelter. A shabby trick, don't you
think? And inasmuch as Superintendent Tavish is
about the biggest man in the Service, and Porter is his
son-in-law, and Miss Tavish was saved along with us
— why, they reckoned something ought to be done
about it."

Breault did not look up. With exasperating slowness
he added fuel to the fire.

"And so "

338 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

He rose and stood before them again.

"And so — they assigned me to the very unpleasant
duty of running you down with a pardon, McKay —
a pardon forgiving you for all your sins, forever and
ever, Amen. And here it is !''

He had drawn an official-looking envelope from in-
side his coat, and held it out now — not to McKay —
but to Nada.

Neither reached for it. Standing there with the
cynical smile still on his lips, his strange eyes gimlet-
ing them with a cold sort of laughter, it was as if
Breault tortured them with a last horrible joke. Then,
suddenly, Nada seized the envelope and tore it open,
•while McKay stared at Breault, believing, and yet not
daring to speak.

It was Nada's cry, a cry wild and sobbing and filled
with gladness, that told him the truth, and with the
precious paper clutched in her hand she smothered
her face against McKay's breast, while Breault came up
grinning behind them, and Jolly Roger heard the click
of his key in the handcuffs.

"I am also loaded down with a number of foolish
messages for you," he said, attending to the fire again.
"For instance, that red-headed good-for-nothing, Cas-
sidy, says to tell you he is building a four-room bunga-
low for you in their clearing, and that it will be fin-
ished by the tim.e you arrive. Also, a squaw named
Yellow Bird, and a redskin who calls himself Slim
Buck, sent word that you will always be welcome in

a

-a squaw named Yellow Bird sent word that you would be welcome.

7>

THE COUNTRY BEYOND 339

their hunting grounds. And a pretty little thing named
Sun Cloud sent as many kisses as there are leaves on
the trees "

He paused, chuckling, and did not look up to see the
wide, glorious eyes of the girl upon him.

"But the funniest thing of all is the baby," he went
on, preparing to slice bacon. "They're going to have
one pretty soon — Cassidy's wife, I mean. They've
given it a name already. If it's a boy it's Roger — if
it's a girl it's Nada. They wanted me to tell you that.
Silly bunch, aren't they ? A couple of young fools "

Just then something new happened in the weirdly
adventurous life of Frangois Breault. Without warn-
ing he was suddenly smothered in a pair of arms, his
head was jerked back, and against his hard and pitiless
mouth a pair of soft red lips pressed for a single thrill-
ing instant.

"Well, I'll be damned," he gasped, dropping his
bacon and staggering to his feet like a man whO' had
been shot. "I'll be — cussed!"

And he picked up his pack and walked of¥ into the
thick young spruce at the edge of the timber, without
saying another word or once looking behind him. And
breakfast waited, and Nada and Jolly Roger and Peter
waited, but Frangois Breault did not return. For a
strange and unaccountable man was he, a hard and piti-
less man and a deadly hunter who knew no fear. Yet
the wilderness swallowed him, a coward at last — run-
ning away from the two red lips that had kissed him.

340 THE COUNTRY BEYOND

So went Breault, for the first time in his life a mes-
senger of mercy; and at the top of the silver birch the
little warbler knew that something glad had happened,
and offered up its gratitude in a sudden burst of song.

THE END

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