-"

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.

"I'm goin' with you," she protested. "I'm goin' with you--and Peter!"

"You can't--now," he said. "I've got to go alone, Nada. I went
back--and I killed Jed Hawkins."

Over the roof of the cabin rolled a crash of thunder. As the explosion
of it rocked the floor under their feet, Jolly Roger pointed to a door,
and said,

"Father, if you will leave us alone--just a minute--"

White-faced, clutching the wallet, the little gray Missioner nodded,
and went to the door, and as he opened it and entered into the darkness
of the other room he saw Jolly Roger McKay open wide his arms, and the
girl go into them. After that the storm broke. The rain descended in a
deluge upon the cabin roof. The black night was filled with the rumble
and roar and the hissing lightning-flare of pent-up elements suddenly
freed of bondage. And in the darkness and tumult the Missioner stood, a
little gray man of tragedy, of deeply buried secrets, a man of prayer
and of faith in God--his heart whispering for guidance and mercy as he
waited. The minutes passed. Five. Ten. And then there came a louder
roaring of the storm, shut off quickly, and the little Missioner knew
that a door was opened--and closed.

He lifted the latch, and looked out again into the lampglow. Huddled at
the side of a chair on the floor, her arms and face buried in the
lustrous, disheveled mass of her shining hair--lay Nada, and close
beside her was Peter. He went to her. Tenderly he knelt down beside
her. His thin arm went about her, and as the storm raved and shrieked
above them he tried to comfort her--and spoke of God.

And through that storm, his head bowed, his heart gone, went Jolly
Roger McKay--heading north.

CHAPTER VIII

Peter, thrust back from the door through which through which his master
had gone, listened vainly for the sound of returning footsteps in the
beat of rain and the crash of thunder outside. A strange thing had
burned itself into his soul, a thing that made his flesh quiver and set
hot fires running in his blood. As a dog sometimes senses the stealthy
approach of death, so he began to sense the tragedy of this night that
had brought with it not only a chaos of blackness and storm, but an
anguish which roused an answering whimper in his throat as he turned
toward Nada.

She was crumple