He no longer thought of Cassidy, but of Yellow Bird.  Doubt—­a charitable inclination to half believe—­gave way in him to a conviction which he could not fight down.  More than once in his years of wilderness life strange facts had compelled him to give some credence to the power of the Indian conjurer.  Belief in the mastery of the mind was part of his faith in nature.  It had come to him from his mother, who had lived and died in the strength of her creed.

“Think hard, and with faith, if you want anything to come true,” she had told him.  And this was also Yellow Bird’s creed.  Was it possible she had told him the truth?  Had her mind actually communed with the mind of Nada?  Had she, through the sheer force of her illimitable faith, projected her subconscious self into the future that she might show him the way?  His eyes were staring, his ears unhearing, as he thought of the proof which Yellow Bird had given to him.  A few hours ago she had brought him warning of impending danger.  There had been no hesitation and no doubt.  She had come to him unequivocal and sure.  Without seeing, without hearing, she knew Cassidy was stealing upon him through the night.

In the darkness Jolly Roger sat up, his heart beating fast.  Without effort, and with no thought of the necessity of proof, Yellow Bird had given him a test of her power.  It had been a spontaneous and unstaged thing, a woman’s heart reaching out for him—­as she had promised that it would.  And yet, even as the simplicity and truth of it pressed upon him, doubt followed with its questions.  If, after this, Yellow Bird had told him to return to Nada as swiftly as he could, he would have believed, and this night would have seen him on his way.  But she had warned him against this, predicting desolation and grief if he returned.  She had urged him to go on, somewhere, anywhere, seeking for an illusion and an unreality which the spirits had named, to her as the Country Beyond.  And when he reached this Country Beyond, wherever it might be, he would possess Nada again, and happiness for all time.  After all, there was something archaically crude in what he was trying to believe, when he came to analyze it.  Yellow Bird possessed her powers, but they were definitely limited.  And to believe beyond those limitations, to ride upon the wings of superstition and imagination, was sheer savagery.

Jolly Roger stretched himself upon his blankets again, repeating this final argument to himself.  But as the night drew closer about him, and his eyes closed, and sleep came, there was a lightness in his heart which he had not known for many days.  He dreamed, and his dream was of Nada.  He was with her again and it seemed, in this dream, that Yellow Bird was always watching them, and they could not quite get away from her.  They ran through the jackpine openings where the strawberries and blue violets grew, and he always ran behind Nada, so he could see her brown curls flying about her.