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

“If it hadn’t been for you, Peter—­Cassidy would have got me—­ sure.  And I’m wondering, Peter—­I’m wondering—­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 Cassidy’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 minutes 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 assignment 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 his heart.  But he’ll do it, Peter, if he can.  It’s his job.  And he’s honest.  We’ve got to say that of Cassidy.”

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 Cassidy.  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 was 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.