“He hasn’t!” protested Nada fiercely.  “You’re a—­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 cynically.  “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.

“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 preceding evening.

“That’s where my trouble began—­up there on the Barren, Mrs. Jolly Roger,” he continued, ignoring McKay.  “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 forever 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 dragging 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—­”

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 inside 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 gimleting 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.