Through the blizzard Jolly Roger made his way a score of miles
southward from the big dune on the Barren. For a day and a night he
made his camp in the scrub timber which edged the vast treeless tundras
reaching to the Arctic. He believed he was safe, for the unceasing wind
and the blasts of shot-like snow filled his tracks a few moments after
they were made. He struck a straight line for his cabin after that
first day and night in the scrub timber. The storm was still a thing of
terrific force out on the barren, but in the timber he was fairly well
sheltered. He was convinced the police patrol would find his cabin very
soon after the storm had worn itself out. Porter and Tavish did not
trouble him. But from Breault he knew there was no getting away.
Breault would nose out his cabin. And for that reason he was determined
to reach it first.
The second night he did not sleep. His mind was a wild thing--wild as a
_Loup-Garou_ seeking out its ghostly trails; it passed beyond his
mastery, keeping sleep away from him though he was dead tired. It
carried him back over all the steps of his outlawry, visioning for him
the score of times he had escaped, as he was narrowly escaping now; and
it pictured for him, like a creature of inquisition, the tightening net
ahead of him, the final futility of all his effort. And at last, as if
moved by pity to ease his suffering a little, it brought him back
vividly to the green valley, the flowers and the blue skies of Cragg's
Ridge--and Nada.
It was like a dream. At times he could scarcely assure himself that he
had actually lived those weeks and months of happiness down on the edge
of civilization; it seemed impossible that Nada had come like an Angel
into his life down there, and that she had loved him, even when he
confessed himself a fugitive from the law and had entreated him to take
her with him. He closed his eyes and that last roaring night of storm
at Cragg's Ridge was about him again. He was in the little old
Missioner's cabin, with thunder and lightning rending earth and sky
outside and Nada was in his arms, her lips against his, the piteous
heartbreak of despair in her eyes. Then he saw her--a moment later--a
crumpled heap down beside the chair, the disheveled glory of her hair
hiding her white face from him as he hesitated for a single instant
before opening the door and plunging out into the night.
With a cry he sprang up, dashing the vision from him, and threw fresh
fuel on the fire. And he cried out the same old thought to Peter.
"It would have been murder for us to bring her, _Pied-Bot_. It would have
been murder!"
He looked about him at the swirling chaos outside the rim of light made
by his fire and listened to the moaning of the wind over the treetops.
Beyond the circle of light the dry snow, which crunched like sand under
his feet, was lost in ghostly gloom. It was forty degrees below zero.
And he was glad, even with this sickness of despair in his heart, that
she was not a fugitive with him tonight.
Yet he built up a little make-believe world for himself as he sat with
a blanket hugged close about him, staring into the fire. In a hundred
different ways he saw her face, a will-o-the-wisp thing amid the
flames; an illusive, very girlish, almost childish face--yet always
with the light of a woman's soul shining in it. That was the miracle
which startled him at last. It seemed as if the fiction he built up in
his despair transformed itself subtly into fact and that her soul had
come to him from out of the southland and was speaking to him with eyes
which never changed or faltered in their adoration, their faith and
their courage. She seemed to come to him, to creep into his arms under
the folds of the blanket and he sensed the soft crush of her hair, the
touch of her lips, the warm encircling of her arms about his neck.
Closer to him pressed the mystery, until the beating of her heart was a
living pulse against him; and then--suddenly, as an irresistible
impulse closed his arms to hold the spirit to him, his eyes were drawn
to the heart of the fire, and he saw there for an instant, wide-eyed
and speaking to him, the face of Yellow Bird the Indian sorceress. The
flames crept up the long braids of her hair, her lips moved, and then
she was gone--but slowly, like a ghost slipping upward into the mist of
smoke and night.
Peter heard his master's cry. And after that Jolly Roger rose up and
threw off the blanket and walked back and forth until his feet trod a
path in the snow. He told himself it was madness to believe, and yet he
believed. Faith fought itself back into that dark citadel of his heart
from which for a time it had been driven. New courage lighted up again
the black chaos of his soul. And at last he fell down on his knees and
gripped Peter's shaggy head between his two hands.
"_Pied-Bot_, she said everything would come out right in the end," he
cried, a new note in his voice. "That's what Yellow Bird told us,
wasn't it? Mebby they would have burned her as a witch a long time ago
because she's a sorceress, and says she can send her soul out of her
body and see what we can't see. _But we believe_!" His voice choked up,
and he laughed. "They were both here tonight," he added. "Nada--and
Yellow Bird. And I believe--I believe--I know what it means!"
He stood up again, and Peter saw the old smile on his master's lips as
Jolly Roger looked up into the swirling black canopy of the
spruce-tops. And the wailing of the storm seemed no longer to hold
menace and taunt, but in it he heard the whisper of fierce, strong
voices urging upon him the conviction that had already swept indecision
from his heart.
And then he said, holding out his arms as if encompassing something
which he could not see.
"Peter, we're going back to Nada!"
Dawn was a scarcely perceptible thing when it came. Darkness seemed to
fade a little, that was all. Frosty shapes took form in the gloom, and
the spruce-tops became tangible in an abyss of sepulchral shadow
overhead.
Through this beginning of the barren-land day Jolly Roger set out in
the direction of his cabin and in his blood was that new singing thing
of fire and warmth that more than made up for the hours of sleep he had
lost during the night. The storm was dying out, he thought, and it was
growing warmer; yet the wind whistled and raved in the open spaces and
his thermometer registered the fortieth and a fraction degree below
zero. The air he breathed was softer, he fancied, yet it was still
heavy with the stinging shot of blizzard; and where yesterday he had
seen only the smothering chaos of twisted spruce and piled up snow,
there was now--as the pale day broadened--his old wonderland of savage
beauty, awaiting only a flash of sunlight to transform it into the pure
glory of a thing indescribable. But the sun did not come and Jolly
Roger did not miss it over-much for his heart was full of Nada, and
a-thrill with the inspiration of his home-going.
"That's what it means, _going home_," he said to Peter, who nosed close in
the path of his snowshoes. "There's a thousand miles between us and
Cragg's Ridge, a thousand miles of snow and ice--and hell, mebby. But
we'll make it!"
He was sure of himself now. It was as if he had come up from out of the
shadow of a great sickness. He had been unwise. He had not reasoned as
a man should reason. The hangman might be waiting for him at Cragg's
Ridge, down on the rim of civilization, but that same grim executioner
was also pursuing close at his heels. He would always be pursuing in
the form of a Breault, a Cassidy, a Tavish, or a Somebody Else of the
Royal Northwest Mounted Police. It would be that way until the end
came. And when the end did come, when they finally got him, the blow
would be easier at Cragg's Ridge than up here on the edge of the Barren
Land.
And again there was hope, a wild, almost unbelievable hope that with
Nada he might find that place which Yellow Bird, the sorceress, had
promised for them--that mystery-place of safety and of happiness which
she had called The Country Beyond, where "all would end well." He had
not the faith of Yellow Bird's people; he was not superstitious enough
to believe fully in her sorcery, except that he seized upon it as a
drowning man might grip at a floating sea-weed. Yet was the
under-current of hope so persistent that at times it was near faith. Up
to this hour Yellow Bird's sorcery had brought him nothing but the
truth. For him she had conjured the spirits of her people, and these
spirits, speaking through Yellow Bird's lips, had saved him from
Cassidy at the fishing camp and had performed the miracle on the shore
of Wollaston and had predicted the salvation that had come to him out
on the Barren. And so--was it not conceivable that the other would also
come true?
But these visions came to him only in flashes. As he traveled through
the hours the one vital desire of his being was to bring himself
physically into the presence of Nada, to feel the wild joy of her in
his arms once more, the crush of her lips to his, the caress of her
hands in their old sweet way at his face--and to hear her voice, the
girl's voice with the woman's soul behind it, crying out its undying
love, as he had last heard it that night in the Missioner's cabin many
months ago. After this had happened, then--if fate decreed it so--all
other things might end. Breault, the Ferret, might come. Or Porter. Or
that Somebody Else who was always on his trail. If the game finished
thus, he would be satisfied.
When he stopped to make a pot of black tea and warm a snack to eat
Jolly Roger tried to explain this new meaning of life to Peter.
"The big thing we must do is to get there--safely," he said, already
beginning to make plans in the back of his head. And then he went on,
building up his fabric of new hope before Peter, while he crunched his
luncheon of toasted bannock and fat bacon. There was something joyous
and definite in his voice which entered into Peter's blood and body.
There was even a note of excitement in it, and Peter's whiskers
bristled with fresh courage and his eyes gleamed and his tail thumped
the snow comprehendingly. It was like having a master come back to him
from the dead.
And Jolly Roger even laughed, softly, under his breath.
"This is February," he said. "We ought to make it late in March. I mean
Cragg's Ridge, _Pied-Bot_."
After that they went on, traveling hard to reach their cabin before the
darkness of night, which would drop upon them like a thick blanket at
four o'clock. In these last hours there pressed even more heavily upon
Jolly Roger that growing realization of the vastness and emptiness of
the world. It was as if blindness had dropped from his eyes and he saw
the naked truth at last. Out of this world everything had emptied
itself until it held only Nada. Only she counted. Only she held out her
arms to him, entreating him to keep for her that life in his body which
meant so little in all other ways. He thought of one of the little worn
books which he carried in his shoulder-pack--Jeanne D'Arc. As she had
fought, with the guidance of God, so he believed the blue-eyed girl
down at Cragg's Ridge was fighting for him, and had sent her spirit out
in quest of him. And he was going back to her. _Going_!
The last word, as it came from his lips, meant that nothing would stop
them. He almost shouted it. And Peter answered.
In spite of their effort, darkness closed in on them. With the first
dusk of this night there came sudden lulls in which the blizzard seemed
to have exhausted itself. Jolly Roger read the signs. By tomorrow there
would be no storm and Breault the Ferret would be on the trail again,
along with Porter and Tavish.
It was his old craft, his old cunning, that urged him to go on.
Strangely, he prayed for the blizzard not to give up the ghost.
Something must be accomplished before its fury was spent; and he was
glad when after each lull he heard again the moaning and screeching of
it over the open spaces, and the slashing together of spruce tops where
there was cover. In a chaos of gloom they came to the low ridge which
reached across an open sweep of tundra to the finger of shelter where
the cabin was built. An hour later they were at its door. Jolly Roger
opened it and staggered in. For a space he stood leaning against the
wall while his lungs drank in the warmer air. The intake of his breath
made a whistling sound and he was surprised to find himself so near
exhaustion. He heard the thud of Peter's body as it collapsed to the
floor.
"Tired, _Pied-Bot_?"
It was difficult for his storm-beaten lips to speak the words.
Peter thumped his tail. The rat-tap-tap of it came in one of those
lulls of the storm which Jolly Roger had begun to dread.
"I hope it keeps up another two hours," he said, wetting his lips to
take the stiffness out of them. "If it doesn't--"
He was thinking of Breault as he drew off his mittens and fumbled for a
match. It was Breault he feared. The Ferret would find his cabin and
his trail if the storm died out too soon.
He lighted the tin lamp on his table and after that, assured that
wastefulness would cost him nothing now, he set two bear-drip candles
going, one at each end of the cabin. The illumination filled the single
room. There was little for it to reveal--the table he had made, a
chair, a battered little sheet-iron stove, and the humped up blanket in
his bunk, under which he had stored the remainder of his possessions.
Back of the stove was a pile of dry wood, and in another five minutes
the roar of flames in the chimney mingled with a fresh bluster of the
wind outside.
Defying the exhaustion of limbs and body, Jolly Roger kept steadily at
work. He threw off his heavier garments as the freezing atmosphere of
the room became warmer, and prepared for a feast.
"We'll call it Christmas, and have everything we've got, _Pied-Bot_.
We'll cook a quart of prunes instead of six. No use stinting
ourselves--tonight!"
Even Peter was amazed at the prodigality of his master. An hour later
they ate, and McKay drank a quart of hot coffee before he was done.
Half of his fatigue was gone and he sat back for a few minutes to
finish off with the luxury of his pipe. Peter, gorged with caribou
meat, stretched himself out to sleep. But his eyes did not close. His
master puzzled him. For after a little Jolly Roger put on his heavy
coat and parkee and pocketed his pipe. After that he slipped the straps
of his pack over head and shoulders and then, even more to Peter's
bewilderment, emptied a quart bottle of kerosene over the pile of dry
wood behind the hot stove. To this he touched a lighted match. His next
movement drew from Peter a startled yelp. With a single thrust of his
foot he sent the stove crashing into the middle of the floor.
Half an hour later, when Peter and Jolly Roger looked back from the
crest of the ridge, a red pillar of flame lighted up the gloomy chaos
of the unpeopled world they were leaving behind them. The wind was
driving fiercely from the Barren and with it came stinging volleys of
the fine drift-snow. In the teeth of it Roger McKay stared back.
"It's a good fire," he mumbled in his hood. "Half an hour and it will
be out. There'll be nothing for Breault to find if this wind keeps up
another two hours--nothing but drift-snow, with no sign of trail or
cabin."
He struck out, leaving the shelter of the ridge. Straight south he
went, keeping always in the open spaces where the wind-swept drift
covered his snowshoe trail almost as soon as it was made. Darkness did
not trouble him now. The open barren was ahead, miles of it, while only
a little to the westward was the shelter of timber. Twice he blundered
to the edge of this timber, but quickly set his course again in the
open, with the wind always quartering at his back. He could only guess
how long he kept on. The time came when he began to count the swing of
his snowshoes, measuring off half a mile, or a mile, and then beginning
over again until at last the achievement of five hundred steps seemed
to take an immeasurable length of time and great effort. Like the ache
of a tooth came the first warning of snowshoe cramp in his legs. In the
black night he grinned. He knew what it meant--a warning as deadly as
swimmer's cramp in deep water. If he continued much longer he would be
crawling on his hands and knees.
Quickly he turned in the direction of the timber. He had traveled three
hours, he thought, since abandoning his cabin to the flames. Another
half hour, with the caution of slower, shorter steps, brought him to
the timber. Luck was with him and he cried aloud to Peter as he felt
himself in the darkness of a dense cover of spruce and balsam. He freed
himself from his entangled snowshoes and went on deeper into the
shelter. It became warmer and they could feel no longer a breath of the
wind.
He unloaded his pack and drew from it a jackpine torch, dried in his
cabin and heavy with pitch. Shortly the flare of this torch lighted up
their refuge for a dozen paces about them. In the illumination of it,
moving it from place to place, he gathered dry fire wood and with his
axe cut down green spruce for the smouldering back-fire that would last
until morning. By the time the torch had consumed itself the fire was
burning, and where Jolly Roger had scraped away the snow from the thick
carpet of spruce needles underfoot he piled a thick mass of balsam
boughs, and in the center of the bed he buried himself, wrapped warmly
in his blankets, and with Peter snuggled close at his side.
Through dark hours the green spruce fire burned slowly and steadily.
For a long time there was wailing of wind out in the open. But at last
it died away, and utter stillness filled the world. No life moved in
these hours which followed the giving up of the big storm's last
gasping breath. Slowly the sky cleared. Here and there a star burned
through. But Jolly Roger and Peter, deep in the sleep of exhaustion,
knew nothing of the change.