And the moon sailed out for a space, and shone on the dead whiteness of Jolly Roger’s face.  And on the lips of that face was a strange, cold smile, a smile of mastery, of exaltation, and the eyes were looking straight ahead—­the eyes of a man who had made his sacrifice for a thing more precious to him than his God.

Only now and then did the moon gleam through the slow-moving masses of black cloud when he came to the edge of the Indian settlement clearing three miles away, where stood the cabin of the Missioner.  The storm had not broken, but seemed holding back its forces for one mighty onslaught upon the world.  The thunder was repressed, and the lightning held in leash, with escaping flashes of it occasionally betraying the impending ambuscades of the sky.

The clearing itself was a blot of stygian darkness, with a yellow patch of light in the center of it—­the window of the Missioner’s cabin.  And Jolly Roger stood looking at it for a space, as a carven thing of rock might have stared.  His heart was dead.  His soul crushed.  His dream broken.  There remained only his brain, his mind made up, his worship for the girl—­a love that had changed from a thing of joy to a fire of agony within him.  Straight ahead he looked, knowing there was only one thing for him to do.  And only one.  There was no alternative.  No hope.  No change of fortune that even the power of God might bring about.  What lay ahead of him was inevitable.

After all, there is something unspeakable in the might and glory of dying for one’s country—­or for a great love.  And Jolly Roger McKay felt that strength as he strode through the blackness, and knocked at the door, and went in to face Nada and the little old gray-haired Missioner in the lampglow.

Swift as one of the flashes of lightning in the sky the anxiety and fear had gone out of Nada’s face, and in an instant it was flooded with the joy of his coming.  She did not mark the strange change in him, but went to him as she had gone to him in the trail, and Jolly Roger’s arms closed about her, but gently this time, and very tenderly, as he might have held a little child he was afraid of hurting.  Then she felt the chill of his lips as she pressed her own to them.  Startled, she looked up into his eyes.  And as he had done in the trail, so now Jolly Roger stood her away from him, and faced the Missioner.  In a cold, hard voice he told what had happened to Nada that evening, and of the barbarous effort Jed Hawkins had made to sell her to Mooney.  Then, from a pocket inside his shirt, he drew out a small, flat leather wallet, and thrust it in the little Missioner’s hand.

“There’s close to a thousand dollars in that,” he said.  “It’s mine.  And I’m giving it to you—­for Nada.  I want you to keep her, and care for her, and mebby some day—­”

With both her hands Nada clutched his arm.  Her eyes had widened.  Swift pallor had driven the color from her face, and a broken cry was in her voice.