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 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 I’m—­afraid.”

“Then—­if you are glad—­please kiss me again.”

He stood up, and drew her to him, and held her face between his hands as he kissed her red lips; and after that he kissed her shining hair again and again, and when he let her go her eyes were a glory of happiness.

“And you will never run away from me again?” she demanded, holding him at arm’s length.  “Never?”

“Never!”

“Then—­I want nothing more in this life,” she said, nestling against him again.  “Only you, 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 Pied-Bot’s going, cautious and soft-footed, as if danger and menace might lurk just ahead of him, that brought another look into McKay’s eyes as Nada’s hand crept to his cheek, and rested there.

“You love me—­very much?”

“More than life,” he answered, and as he spoke he was watching Peter, questing the soft wind that came whispering from the south.