again, and his heart seemed to swell in
his chest, and choke him. He tried to let his tense muscles relax. He
tried to smile. He struggled to bring up the courage which would make
possible the confession he had to make. And Peter, sitting on his
haunches in a patch of violets, watched them both, wondering what was
going to happen between these two.

"Where are you going?" Jolly Roger asked.

Nada's fingers had crept almost to his shoulder. They were twisting at
his flannel shirt nervously, but not for the tenth part of a second did
she drop her eyes, and that strange, wonderful something which he saw
looking at him so clearly out of her soul brought the truth to Jolly
Roger, before she had spoken.

"I'm goin' with you and Peter."

The low cry that came from Jolly Roger was almost a sob as he stepped
back from her. He looked away from her--at Peter. But her pale face,
her parted red lips, her wide-open, wonderful eyes, her radiant hair
stirred by the wind--came between them. She was no longer the little
girl--"past seventeen, goin' on eighteen." To Jolly Roger she was all
that the world held of glorious womanhood.

"But--you can't!" he cried desperately. "I've come to tell you things,
Nada. I'm not fit. I'm not what you think I am. I've been livin' a
lie--"

[Illustration: "I've come to tell you things, Nada. I've been living
a lie."]

He hesitated, and then lashed himself on to the truth.

"You'll hate me when I tell you, Nada. You think Jed Hawkins is bad.
But the law thinks I'm worse. The police want me. They've wanted me for
years. That's why I came down here, and hid over in Indian Tom's
cabin--near where I first met you. I thought they wouldn't find me away
down here, but they did. That's why Peter and I moved over to the big
rock-pile at the end of the Ridge. I'm--an outlaw. I've done a lot of
bad things--in the eyes of the law, and I'll probably die with a bullet
in me, or in jail. I'm sorry, but that don't help. I'd give my life to
be able to tell you what's in my heart. But I can't. It wouldn't be
square."

He wondered why no change came into the steady blue of her eyes as he
went on with the truth. The pallor was gone from her cheeks. Her lips
seemed redder, and what he was saying did not seem to startle her, or
frighten her.

"Don't you understand, Nada?" he cried. "I'm bad. The police want me.
I'm a fugitive--always running away, always hiding--an outlaw--"

She nodded.

"I know it, Mister