From the little old cabin of dead Indian Tom, built in a grassy glade
close to the shore of Sucker Creek, came the sound of a man's laughter.
In this late afternoon the last flooding gold of the sun filled the
open door of the poplar shack. The man's laughter, like the sun on the
mottled tapestry of the poplar-wood, was a heart-lightening thing there
on the edge of the great swamp that swept back for miles to the north
and west. It was the sort of laughter one seldom hears from a man, not
riotous of over-bold, but a big, clean laughter that came from the soul
out. It was an infectious thing. It drove the gloom out of the blackest
night. It dispelled fear, and if ever there were devils lurking in the
edge of old Indian Tom's swamp they slunk away at the sound of it. And
more than once, as those who lived in tepee and cabin and far-away
shack could testify, that laugh had driven back death itself.
In the shack, this last day of May afternoon, stood leaning over a
rough table the man of the laugh--Roger McKay, known as Jolly Roger,
outlaw extraordinary, and sought by the men of every Royal Northwest
Mounted Police patrol north of the Height of Land.
It was incongruous and inconceivable to think of him as an outlaw, as
he stood there in the last glow of the sun--an outlaw with the weirdest
and strangest record in all the northland hung up against his name. He
was not tall, and neither was he short, and he was as plump as an apple
and as rosy as its ripest side. There was something cherubic in the
smoothness and the fullness of his face, the clear gray of his eyes,
the fine-spun blond of his short-cropped hair, and the plumpness of his
hands and half-bared arms. He was a priestly, well-fed looking man, was
this Jolly Roger, rotund and convivial in all his proportions, and some
in great error would have called him fat. But it was a strange kind of
fatness, as many a man on the trail could swear to. And as for sin, or
one sign of outlawry, it could not be found in any mark upon
him--unless one closed his eyes to all else and guessed it by the belt
and revolver holster which he wore about his rotund waist. In every
other respect Jolly Roger appeared to be not only a harmless creature,
but one especially designed by the Creator of things to spread cheer
and good-will wherever he went. His age, if he had seen fit to disclose
it, was thirty-four.
There seemed, at first, to be nothing that even a contented man might
laugh at in the cabin, and even less to bring merriment from one on
whose head a price was set--unless it was the delicious aroma of a
supper just about ready to be served. On a little stove in the farthest
corner of the shack the breasts of two spruce partridges were turning
golden brown in a skittle, and from the broken neck of a coffee pot a
rich perfume was rising with the steam. Piping hot in the open oven
half a dozen baked potatoes were waiting in their crisp brown jackets.
From the table Jolly Roger turned, rubbing his hands and chuckling as
he went for a third time to a low shelf built against the cabin wall.
There he carefully raised a mass of old papers from a box, and at the
movement there came a protesting squeak, and a little brown mouse
popped up to the edge of it and peered at him with a pair of bright
little questioning eyes.
"You little devil!" he exulted. "You nervy little devil!"
He raised the papers higher, and again looked upon his discovery of
half an hour ago. In a soft nest lay four tiny mice, still naked and
blind, and as he lowered the mass of papers the mother burrowed back to
them, and he could hear her squeaking and chirruping to the little
ones, as if she was trying to tell them not to be afraid of this man,
for she knew him very well, and it wasn't in his mind to hurt them. And
Jolly Roger, as he returned to the setting of his table, laughed
again--and the laugh rolled out into the golden sunset, and from the
top of a spruce at the edge of the creek a big blue-jay answered it in
a riotous challenge.
But at the bottom of that laugh, if one could have looked a bit deeper,
was something more than the naked little mice in the nest of torn-up
paper. Today happiness had strangely come this gay-hearted freebooter's
way, and he might have reached out, and seized it, and have kept it for
his own. But in the hour of his opportunity he had refused it--because
he was an outlaw--because strong within him was a peculiar code of
honor all his own. There was nothing of man-made religion in the soul
of Roger McKay. Nature was his god; its manifestations, its life, and
the air it gave him to breathe were the pages which made up the Book
that guided him. And within the last hour, since the sun had begun to
drop behind the tips of the tallest trees, these things had told him
that he was a fool for turning away from the one great thing in all
life--simply because his own humors of existence had made him an
outcast and hunted by the laws of men. So the change had come, and for
a space his soul was filled with the thrill of song and laughter.
Half an hour ago he believed that he had definitely made up his mind.
He had forced himself into forgetfulness of laws he had broken, and the
scarlet-coated men who were ever on the watch for his trail. They would
never seek him here, in the wilderness country close to the edge of
civilization, and time, he had told himself in that moment of optimism,
would blot out both his identity and his danger. Tomorrow he would go
over to Cragg's Ridge again, and then--
His mind was crowded with a vision of blue eyes, of brown curls glowing
in the pale sun, of a wistful, wide-eyed little face turned up to him,
and red lips that said falteringly, "I don't think it's wrong for you
to kiss me--if you want to, Mister Jolly Roger!"
Boldly he had talked about it to the bright-eyed little mother-mouse
who peered at him now and then over the edge of her box.
"You're a little devil of iniquity yourself," he told her. "You're a
regular Mrs. Captain Kidd, and you've eaten my cheese, and chawed my
snowshoe laces, and robbed me of a sock to make your nest. I ought to
catch you in a trap, or blow your head off. But I don't. I let you
live--and have a fam'ly. And it's you who have given me the Big Idea,
Mrs. Captain Kidd. You sure have! You've told me I've got a right to
have a nest of my own, and I'm going to have it--an' in that nest is
going to be the sweetest, prettiest little angel that God Almighty ever
forgot to make into a flower! Yessir. And if the law comes--"
And then, suddenly, the vision clouded, and there came into Jolly
Roger's face the look of a man who knew--when he stood the truth out
naked--that he was facing a world with his back to the wall.
And now, as the sun went down, and his supper waited--that cloud which
came to blot out his picture grew deeper and more sinister, and the
chill of it entered his heart. He turned from his table to the open
door, and his fingers drew themselves slowly into clenched fists, and
he looked out quietly and steadily into his world. The darkening depths
of the forest reached out before his eyes, mottled and painted in the
fading glory of the sun. It was his world, his everything--father,
mother, God. In it he was born, and in it he knew that some day he
would die. He loved it, understood it, and night and day, in sunshine
and storm, its mighty spirit was the spirit that kept him company. But
it held no message for him now. And his ears scarcely heard the raucous
scolding of the blue-jay in the fire-tipped crest of the tall black
spruce.
And then that something which was bigger than desire came up within
him, and forced itself in words between his grimly set lips.
"She's only a--a kid," he said, a fierce, low note of defiance in his
voice. "And I--I'm a damned pirate, and there's jails waiting for me,
and they'll get me sooner or later, sure as God lets me live!"
He turned from the sun to his shadowing cabin, and for a moment a ghost
of a smile played in his face as he heard the little mother-mouse
rustling among her papers.
"We can't do it," he said. "We simply can't do it, Mrs. Captain Kidd.
She's had hell enough without me taking her into another. And it'd be
that, sooner or later. It sure would, Mrs. Captain Kidd. But I'm glad,
mighty glad, to think she'd let me kiss her--if I wanted to. Think of
that, Mrs. Captain Kidd!--if I wanted to. Oh, Lord!"
And the humor of it crept in alongside the tragedy in Jolly Roger's
heart, and he chuckled as he bent over his partridge breasts.
"If I wanted to," he repeated. "Why, if I had a life to give, I'd give
it--to kiss her just once! But, as it happens, Mrs. Captain Kidd--"
Jolly Roger's breath cut itself suddenly short, and for an instant he
grew tense as he bent over the stove. His philosophy had taught him one
thing above all others, that he was a survival of the fittest--only so
long as he survived. And he was always guarding against the end. His
brain was keen, his ears quick, and every fibre in him trained to its
duty of watchfulness. And he knew, without turning his head, that
someone was standing in the doorway behind him. There had come a faint
noise, a shadowing of the fading sun-glow on the wall, the electrical
disturbance of another presence, gazing at him quietly, without motion,
and without sound. After that first telegraphic shock of warning he
stabbed his fork into a partridge breast, flopped it over, chuckled
loudly--and then with a lightning movement was facing the door, his
forty-four Colt leveled waist-high at the intruder.
Almost in the same movement his gun-arm dropped limply to his side.
"Well, I'll be--"
He stared. And the face in the doorway stared back at him.
"Nada!" he gasped. "Good Lord, I thought--I thought--" He swallowed as
he tried to lie. "I thought--it might be a bear!"
He did not, at first, see that the slim, calico-dressed little figure
of Jed Hawkins' foster-girl was almost dripping wet. Her blue eyes were
shining at him, wide and startled. Her cheeks were flushed. A strange
look had frozen on her parted red lips, and her hair was falling loose
in a cloud of curling brown tresses about her shoulders. Jolly Roger,
dreaming of her in his insane happiness of a few minutes ago, sensed
nothing beyond the beauty and the unexpectedness of her in this first
moment. Then--swiftly--he saw the other thing. The last glow of the sun
glistened in her wet hair, her dress was sodden and clinging, and
little pools of water were widening slowly about her ragged shoes.
These things he might have expected, for she had to cross the creek.
But it was the look in her eyes that startled him, as she stood there
with Peter, the mongrel pup, clasped tightly in her arms.
"Nada, what's happened?" he asked, laying his gun on the table. "You
fell in the creek--"
"It--it's Peter," she cried, with a sobbing break in her voice. "We
come on Jed Hawkins when he was diggin' up some of his whiskey, and he
was mad, and pulled my hair, and Peter bit him--and then he picked up
Peter and threw him against a rock--and he's terribly hurt! Oh, Mister
Jolly Roger--"
She held out the pup to him, and Peter whimpered as Jolly Roger took
his wiry little face between his hands, and then lifted him gently. The
girl was sobbing, with passionate little catches in her breath, but
there were no tears in her eyes as they turned for an instant from
Peter to the gun on the table.
"If I'd had that," she cried, "I'd hev killed him!"
Jolly Roger's face was coldly gray as he knelt down on the floor and
bent over Peter.
"He--pulled your hair, you say?"
"I--forgot," she whispered, close at his shoulder. "I wasn't goin' to
tell you that. But it didn't hurt. It was Peter--"
He felt the damp caress of her curls upon his neck as she bent over him.
"Please tell me, Mister Jolly Roger--is he hurt--bad?"
With the tenderness of a woman Jolly Roger worked his fingers over
Peter's scrawny little body. And Peter, whimpering softly, felt the
infinite consolation of their touch. He was no longer afraid of Jed
Hawkins, or of pain, or of death. The soul of a dog is simple in its
measurement of blessings, and to Peter it was a great happiness to lie
here, broken and in pain, with the face of his beloved mistress over
him and Jolly Roger's hands working to mend his hurt. He whimpered when
Jolly Roger found the broken place, and he cried out like a little
child when there came the sudden quick snapping of a bone--but even
then he turned his head so that he could thrust out his hot tongue
against the back of his man-friend's hand. And Jolly Roger, as he
worked, was giving instructions to the girl, who was quick as a bird to
bring him cloth which she tore into bandages, so that at the end of ten
minutes Peter's right hind leg was trussed up so tightly that it was as
stiff and as useless as a piece of wood.
"His hip was dislocated and his leg-bone broken," said Jolly Roger when
he had finished. "He is all right now, and inside of three weeks will
be on his feet again."
He lifted Peter gently, and made him a nest among the blankets in his
bunk. And then, still with that strange, gray look in his face, he
turned to Nada.
She was standing partly facing the door, her eyes straight on him. And
Jolly Roger saw in them that wonderful something which had given his
storm-beaten soul a glimpse of paradise earlier that day. They were
blue, so blue that he had never seen violets like them--and he knew
that in her heart there was no guile behind which she could hide the
secret they were betraying. A yearning such as had never before come
into his life urged him to open his arms to her, and he knew that she
would have come into them; but a still mightier will held them tense
and throbbing at his side. Her cheeks were aflame as she looked at him,
and he told himself that God could not have made a lovelier thing, as
she stood there in her worn dress and her ragged shoes, with that light
of glory in her face, and her damp hair waving and curling about her in
the last light of the day.
"I knew you'd fix him, Mister-Roger," she whispered, a great pride and
faith and worship in the low thrill of her voice. "I knew it!"
Something choked Jolly Roger, and he turned to the stove and began
spearing the crisp brown potatoes on the end of a fork. And he said,
with his back toward her,
"You came just in time for supper, Nada. We'll eat--and then I'll go
home with you, as far as the Ridge."
Peter watched them. His pain was gone, and it was nice and comfortable
in Jolly Roger's blanket, and with his whiskered face on his fore-paws
his bright eyes followed every movement of these two who so completely
made up his world. He heard that sweet little laugh which came only now
and then from Nada's lips, when for a moment she was happy; he saw her
shake out her hair in the glow of the lamp which Jolly Roger lighted,
and he observed Jolly Roger standing at the stove--looking at her as
she did it--a worship in his face which changed the instant her eyes
turned toward him. In Peter's active little brain this gave birth to
nothing of definite understanding, except that in it all he sensed
happiness, for--somehow--there was always that feeling when they were
with Jolly Roger, no matter whether the sun was shining or the day was
dark and filled with gloom. Many times in his short life he had seen
grief and tears in Nada's face, and had seen her cringe and hide
herself at the vile cursing and witch-like voice of the man and woman
back in the other cabin. But there was nothing like that in Jolly
Roger's company. He had two eyes, and he was not always cursing, and he
did not pull Nada's hair--and Peter loved him from the bottom of his
soul. And he knew that his mistress loved him, for she had told him so,
and there was always a different look in her eyes when she was with
Jolly Roger, and it was only then that she laughed in that glad little
way--as she was laughing now.
Jolly Roger was seated at the table, and Nada stood behind him, her
face flushed joyously at the wonderful privilege of pouring his coffee.
And then she sat down, and Jolly Roger gave her the nicest of the
partridge breasts, and tried hard to keep his eyes calm and quiet as he
looked at the adorable sweetness of her across the table from him. To
Nada there was nothing of shame in what lay behind the happiness in the
violet radiance of her eyes. Jolly Roger had brought to her the only
happiness that had ever come into her life. Next to her God, which Jed
Hawkins and his witch-woman had not destroyed within her, she thought
of this stranger who for three months had been hiding in Indian Tom's
cabin. And, like Peter, she loved him. The innocence of it lay naked in
her eyes.
"Nada," said Jolly Roger. "You're seventeen--"
"Goin' on eighteen," she corrected quickly. "I was seventeen two weeks
ago!"
The quick, undefined little note of eagerness in her voice made his
heart thump. He nodded, and smiled.
"Yes, going on eighteen," he said. "And pretty soon some young fellow
will come along, and see you, and marry you--"
"O-o-o-h-h-h!"
It was a little, strange cry that came to her lips, and Jolly Roger saw
a quick throbbing in her bare throat, and her eyes were so wide-open
and startled as she looked at him that he felt, for a moment, as if the
resolution in his soul was giving way.
"Where are you goin', Mister Roger?"
"Me? Oh, I'm not going anywhere--not for a time, at least. But
you--you'll surely be going away with some one--some day."
"I won't," she denied hotly. "I hate men! I hate all but you, Mister
Jolly Roger. And if you go away--"
"Yes, if I go away--
"I'll kill Jed Hawkins!"
Involuntarily she reached out a slim hand to the big gun on the corner
of the table.
"I'll kill 'im, if you go away," she threatened again, "He's broken his
wife, and crippled her, and if it wasn't for her I'd have gone long
ago. But I've promised, and I'm goin' to stay--until something happens.
And if you go--now--"
At the choking throb in her throat and the sudden quiver that came to
her lips, Jolly Roger jumped up for the coffee pot, though his cup was
still half full.
"I won't go, Nada," he cried, trying to laugh. "I promise--cross my
heart and hope to die! I won't go--until you tell me I can."
And then, feeling that something had almost gone wrong for a moment,
Peter yipped from his nest in the bunk, and the gladness in Nada's eyes
thanked Jolly Roger for his promise when he came back with the coffee
pot. Standing behind her, he made pretense of refilling her cup, though
she had scarcely touched it, and all the time his eyes were looking at
her beautiful head, and he saw again the dampness in her hair.
"What happened in the creek, Nada?" he asked.
She told him, and at the mention of his name Peter drew his bristling
little head erect, and waited expectantly. He could see Jolly Roger's
face, now staring and a bit shocked, and then with a quick smile
flashing over it; and when Nada had finished, Jolly Roger leaned a
little toward her in the lampglow, and said,
"You've got to promise me something, Nada. If Jed Hawkins ever hits you
again, or pulls your hair, or even threatens to do it--will you tell
me?" Nada hesitated.
"If you don't--I'll take back my promise, and won't stay," he added.
"Then--I'll promise," she said. "If he does it, I'll tell you. But I
ain't--I mean I am not afraid, except for Peter. Jed Hawkins will sure
kill him if I take him back, Mister Roger. Will you keep him here?
And--o-o-o-h!--if I could only stay, too--"
The words came from her in a frightened breath, and in an instant a
flood of color rushed like fire into her cheeks. But Jolly Roger turned
again to the stove, and made as if he had not seen the blush or heard
her last words, so that the shame of her embarrassment was gone as
quickly as it had come.
"Yes, I'll keep Peter," he said over his shoulder. And in his heart
another voice which she could not hear, was crying, "And I'd give my
life if I could keep you!"
Devouring his bits of partridge breast, Peter watched Jolly Roger and
Nada out of the corner of his eye as they left the cabin half an hour
later. It was dark when they went, and Jolly Roger closed only the
mosquito-screen, leaving the door wide open, and Peter could hear their
footsteps disappearing slowly into the deep gloom of the forest. It was
a little before moonrise, and under the spruce and cedar and thick
balsam the world was like a black pit. It was very still, and except
for the soft tread of their own feet and the musical ripple of water in
the creek there was scarcely a sound in this first hour of the night.
In Jolly Roger there rose something of exultation, for Nada's warm
little hand lay in his as he guided her through the darkness, and her
fingers had clasped themselves tightly round his thumb. She was very
close to him when he paused to make sure of the unseen trail, so close
that her cheek rested against his arm, and--bending a little--his lips
touched the soft ripples of her hair. But he could not see her in the
gloom, and his heart pounded fiercely all the way to the ford.
Then he laughed a strange little laugh that was not at all like Jolly
Roger.
"I'll try and not let you get wet again, Nada," he said.
Her fingers still held to his thumb, as if she was afraid of losing him
there in the blackness that lay about them like a great ink-blotch. And
she crept closer to him, saying nothing, and all the power in his soul
fought in Jolly Roger to keep him from putting his arms about her slim
little body and crying out the worship that was in him.
"I ain't--I mean I'm not afraid of gettin' wet," he heard her whisper
then. "You're so big and strong, Mister Roger--"
Gently he freed his thumb from her fingers, and picked her up, and held
her high, so that she was against his breast and above the deepest of
the water. Lightly at first Nada's arms lay about his shoulders, but as
the flood began to rush higher and she felt him straining against
it,--her arms tightened, until the clasp of them was warm and thrilling
round Jolly Roger's neck. She gave a big gasp of relief when he stood
her safely down upon her feet on the other side. And then again she
reached out, and found his hand, and twined her fingers about his big
thumb--and Jolly Roger went on with her over the plain toward Cragg's
Ridge, dripping wet, just as the rim of the moon began to rise over the
edge of the eastern forests.