“We ought to go, Peter.  We ought to pack up—­and go tonight.  Because—­sometimes I’m afraid of myself, Pied-Bot.  I’d 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 Hawkins, 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.

“Peter,” he whispered in the thickening darkness.  “I 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 everything—­and I hope that God will strike me dead if I 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

It 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 comrade and master went over to Cragg’s Ridge.  But frequently 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 precious 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.