For a time the more selfish instincts of the man rose in him, fighting down the sacrificial humility of the great faith of which he was a messenger.  The new sensation thrilled him, and in its thrill he felt his heart beating a little faster, and hope rising in him.  Five years were a long time—­for him.  That was the thought which kept repeating itself over and over in his brain, and with it came that other thought, that self-preservation was the first law of existence, and therefore could not be a sin.  Thus did Father John turn traitor to his spoken words, though his calm and smiling face gave no betrayal of it when Nada and Roger returned to the cabin an hour later, their arms filled with red bakneesh vines and early wildflowers.

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, excited 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 Company 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 explained.  “He loves the forests at night—­in the light of the moon.”

“But last night there was no moon,” said Roger.

“Yes—­”

“And when Father John left the cabin the sky was clouded, and it was very dark.”

“You heard him go?”

“Yes, and saw him.  There was a worried look in his face when he wrote that note in the candle-glow.”

“Roger, what do you mean?”

McKay went behind her chair, and tilted up her face, and kissed her shining hair and questioning eyes.

“It means, precious little wife, that Father John is hurrying to the post to get news of 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. 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.”