here came a smile with the tears, and
Jolly Roger--turning from Father John to find her thus--gathered her
close in his arms, and Peter wagged his tail and went out into the
sun-filled day, where he heard a red squirrel challenging him from a
stub in the edge of the clearing.

A little later he saw Nada and his master come out of the cabin, and
walk hand in hand across the open into the sweet-smelling timber where
Father John had been chopping with his axe.

On a fresh-cut log Nada sat down, and McKay sat beside her, still
holding her hand. Not once had he spoken in crossing the open, and it
seemed as though little devils were holding his lips closed now.

With her eyes looking down at the greening earth under their feet, Nada
said, very softly,

"Mister--Jolly Roger--are you glad?"

"Yes," he said.

"Glad that I am--your wife?"

The word drew a great, sobbing breath from him, and looking up suddenly
she saw that he was staring over the balsam-tops into the wonderful blue
of the sky.

"Your WIFE," she whispered, touching his shoulder gently with her lips.

"Yes, I'm glad," he said. "So glad that I'm--afraid."

"Then--if you are glad--please kiss me again."

He stood up, and drew her to him, and held her face between his hands as
he kissed her red lips; and after that he kissed her shining hair again
and again, and when he let her go her eyes were a glory of happiness.

"And you will never run away from me again?" she demanded, holding him
at arm's length. "Never?"

"Never!"

"Then--I want nothing more in this life," she said, nestling against him
again. "Only you, for ever and ever."

Jolly Roger made no answer, but held her a long time in his arms, with
the soft beating of her heart against him, and listened to the twitter
and song of nesting and mating things about them. In this silence she
lay content, until Peter--growing restless--started quietly into the
golden depths of the forest.

It was Pied-Bot's going, cautious and soft-footed, as if danger and
menace might lurk just ahead of him, that brought another look into
McKay's eyes as Nada's hand crept to his cheek, and rested there.

"You love me--very much?"

"More than life," he answered, and as he spoke he was watching Peter,
questing the soft wind that came whispering from the south.

Her finger touched his lips, gentle and sweet.

"And wherever you go, I go--forever and always?" she questioned.

"Yes, forever and always"--and his eye