And then, suddenly, the vision clouded, and there came into Jolly Roger’s face the look of a man who knew—­when he stood the truth out naked—­that he was facing a world with his back to the wall.

And now, as the sun went down, and his supper waited—­that cloud which came to blot out his picture grew deeper and more sinister, and the chill of it entered his heart.  He turned from his table to the open door, and his fingers drew themselves slowly into clenched fists, and he looked out quietly and steadily into his world.  The darkening depths of the forest reached out before his eyes, mottled and painted in the fading glory of the sun.  It was his world, his everything—­father, mother, God.  In it he was born, and in it he knew that some day he would die.  He loved it, understood it, and night and day, in sunshine and storm, its mighty spirit was the spirit that kept him company.  But it held no message for him now.  And his ears scarcely heard the raucous scolding of the blue-jay in the fire-tipped crest of the tall black spruce.

And then that something which was bigger than desire came up within him, and forced itself in words between his grimly set lips.

“She’s only a—­a kid,” he said, a fierce, low note of defiance in his voice.  “And I—­I’m a damned pirate, and there’s jails waiting for me, and they’ll get me sooner or later, sure as God lets me live!”

He turned from the sun to his shadowing cabin, and for a moment a ghost of a smile played in his face as he heard the little mother-mouse rustling among her papers.

“We can’t do it,” he said.  “We simply can’t do it, Mrs. Captain Kidd.  She’s had hell enough without me taking her into another.  And it’d be that, sooner or later.  It sure would, Mrs. Captain Kidd.  But I’m glad, mighty glad, to think she’d let me kiss her—­ if I wanted to.  Think of that, Mrs. Captain Kidd!—­if I wanted to.  Oh, Lord!”

And the humor of it crept in alongside the tragedy in Jolly Roger’s heart, and he chuckled as he bent over his partridge breasts.

“If I wanted to,” he repeated.  “Why, if I had a life to give, I’d give it—­to kiss her just once!  But, as it happens, Mrs. Captain Kidd—­”

Jolly Roger’s breath cut itself suddenly short, and for an instant he grew tense as he bent over the stove.  His philosophy had taught him one thing above all others, that he was a survival of the fittest—­only so long as he survived.  And he was always guarding against the end.  His brain was keen, his ears quick, and every fibre in him trained to its duty of watchfulness.  And he knew, without turning his head, that someone was standing in the doorway behind him.  There had come a faint noise, a shadowing of the fading sun-glow on the wall, the electrical disturbance of another presence, gazing at him quietly, without motion, and without sound.  After that first telegraphic shock of warning he stabbed his fork into a partridge breast, flopped it over, chuckled loudly—­and then with a lightning movement was facing the door, his forty-four Colt leveled waist-high at the intruder.