srupting the heart of this man who was an outlaw--and her god among
men. And when Jolly Roger turned, his face had aged to the grayness of
stone, and his eyes were dull, and there was a terribly dead note in
his voice.

"You can't go with us," he said. "You can't. It's wrong--all wrong. I
couldn't take care of you in jail, and some day--that's where I'll be."

More than once when she had spoken of Jed Hawkins he had seen the swift
flash of lightning come into the violet of her eyes. And it came now,
and her little hands grew tight at her sides, and bright spots burned
in her cheeks.

"You won't!" she cried. "I won't let you go to jail. I'll fight for
you--if you'll let me go with you and Peter!"

She came a step nearer.

"And if I stay here Jed Hawkins is goin' to sell me to a tie-cutter
over on the railroad. That's what it is--sellin' me. I ain't--I mean I
haven't--told you before, because I was afraid of what you'd do. But
it's goin' to happen, unless you let me go with you and Peter. Oh,
Mister Roger--Mister Jolly Roger--"

Her fingers crept up his arms. They reached his shoulders, and her blue
eyes, and her red lips, and the woman's soul in her girl-body were so
close to him he could feel their sweetness and thrill, and then he saw
a slow-gathering mist, and tears--

"I'll go wherever you go," she was whispering, "And we'll hide where
they won't ever find us, and I'll be happy, so happy, Mister Roger--and
if you won't take me I want to die. Oh--"

She was crying, with her head on his breast, and her slim, half bare
arms around his neck, and Jolly Roger listened like a miser to the
choking words that came with her sobs. And where there had been tumult
and indecision in his heart there came suddenly the clearness of
sunshine and joy, and with it the happiness of a new and mighty
possession as his arms closed about her, and he turned her face up, so
that for the first time he kissed the soft red lips that for some
inscrutable reason the God of all things had given into his keeping
this day.

And then, holding her close, with her arms still tighter about his
neck, he cried softly,

"I'm goin' to take you, little girl. You're goin' with Peter and me,
for ever--and ever. And we'll go--tonight!"

When Peter came back, just in the last sunset glow of the evening, he
found his master alone in the bit of jackpine opening, and Nada was
swiftly crossing the larger meadow that lay between them and the break
in Cra