Following this day Peter was observant of a strange excitement in the
cabin on the Burntwood. It was not so much a thing of physical
happening, but more the mysterious FEEL of something impending and very
near. The day following their arrival in the Pashkokogon country his
master seemed to have forgotten him entirely. It was Nada who noticed
him, but even she was different; and Father John went about, overseeing
two Indians whom he kept very busy, his pale, thin face luminous with
an anticipation which roused Peter's curiosity, and kept him watchful.
He was puzzled, too, by the odd actions of the humans about him. The
second morning Nada remained in her room, and Jolly Roger wandered off
into the woods without his breakfast, and Father John ate alone,
smiling gently as he looked at the tightly closed door of Nada's
bedroom. Even Oosimisk, the Leaf Bud, the sleek-haired Indian woman who
cared for the house, was nervously expectant as she watched for Nada,
and Mistoos, her husband, grunted and grimaced as he carried in from
the edge of the forest many loads of soft evergreens on his shoulders.
Into the forest Jolly Roger went alone, puffing furiously at his pipe.
He was all a-tremble and his blood seemed to quiver and dance as it ran
through his veins. Since the first rose-flush of dawn he had been
awake, fighting against this upsetting of every nerve that was in him.
He felt pitiably weak and helpless. But it was the weakness and
helplessness of a happiness too vast for him to measure. It was Nada in
her ragged shoes and dress, with the haunting torture of Jed Hawkins'
brutality in her eyes and face, that he had expected to find, if he
found her at all; someone to fight for, and kill for if necessary,
someone his muscle and brawn would always protect against evil. He had
not dreamed that in these many months with Father John she would change
from “a little kid goin' on eighteen” into--A WOMAN.
He tried to recall just what he had said to her last night--that he was
still an outlaw, and would always be, no matter how well he lived from
this day on; and that she, now that she had Father John's protection,
was very foolish to care for him, or keep her troth with him, and would
be happier if she could forget what had happened at Cragg's Ridge.
“You're a WOMAN now,” he said. “A WOMAN--” he had emphasized that--“and
you don't need me any more.”
And she had looked at him, without speaking, as if reading what was
inside him; and then, with a sudden little laugh, she swiftly pulled
her hair down about her shoulders, and repeated the very words she had
said to him a long time ago--“Without you--I'd want to
die--Mister--Jolly Roger,” and with that she turned and ran into the
cabin, her hair flying riotously, and he had not seen her again since
that moment.
Since then his heart had behaved like a thing with the fever, and it
was beating swiftly now as he looked at his watch and noted the quick
passing of time.
Back in the cabin Peter was sniffing at the crack under Nada's door,
and listening to her movement. For a long time he had heard her, but
not once had she opened the door. And he wondered, after that, why
Oosimisk and her husband and Father John piled evergreens all about,
until the cabin looked like the little jackpine trysting-place down at
Cragg's Ridge, even to the soft carpet of grass on the floor, and
flowers scattered all about.
Hopeless of understanding what it meant, he went outside, and waited in
the warm May-day sun until his master came back through the clearing.
What happened after that puzzled him greatly. When he followed Jolly
Roger into the cabin Mistoos and the Leaf Bud were seated in chairs,
their hands folded, and Father John stood behind a small table on which
lay an open book, and he was looking at his watch when they came in. He
nodded, and smiled, and very clearly Peter saw his master gulp, as if
swallowing something that was in his throat. And the ruddiness had gone
completely out of his smooth-shaven cheeks. It was the first time Peter
had seen his master so clearly afraid, and from his burrow in the
evergreens he growled under his breath, eyeing the open door with
sudden thought of an enemy.
And then Father John was tapping at Nada's door.
He went back to the table and waited, and as the knob of the door
turned very slowly Jolly Roger swallowed again, and took a step toward
it. It opened, and Nada stood there. And Jolly Roger gave a little cry,
so low that Peter could just hear it, as he held out his hands to her.
For Nada was no longer the Nada who had come to him in Father John's
clearing. She was the Nada of Cragg's Ridge, the Nada of that wild
night of storm when he had fled into the north. Her hair fell about
her, as in the old days when Peter and she had played together among
the rocks and flowers, and her wedding dress was faded and torn, for it
was the dress she had worn that night of despair when she sent her
message to Peter's master, and on her little feet were shoes broken and
disfigured by her flight in those last hours of her mighty effort to go
with the man she loved. In Father John's eyes, as she stood there, was
a great astonishment; but in Jolly Roger's there came such a joy that,
in answer to it, Nada went straight into his arms and held up her lips
to be kissed.
Her cheeks were very pink when she stood beside McKay, with Father John
before them, the open book in his hands; and then, as her long lashes
drooped over her eyes, and her breath came a little more quickly, she
saw Peter staring at her questioningly, and made a little motion to him
with her hand. He went to her, and her fingers touched his head as
Father John began speaking. Peter looked up, and listened, and was very
quiet in these moments. Jolly Roger was staring straight at the
balsam-decked wall opposite him, but there was something mighty strong
and proud in the way he held his head, and the fear had gone completely
out of his eyes. And Nada stood very close to him, so that her brown
head lightly touched his shoulder and he could see the silken shimmer
of loose tresses which with sweet intent she had let fall over his arm.
And her little fingers clung tightly to his thumb, as on that blessed
night when they had walked together across the plain below Cragg's
Ridge, with the moon lighting their way.
Peter, in his dog way, fell a-wondering as he stood there, but kept his
manners and remained still. When it was all over he felt a desire to
show his teeth and growl, for when Father John had kissed Nada, and was
shaking Jolly Roger's hand, he saw his mistress crying in that strange,
silent way he had so often seen her crying in his puppyhood days. Only
now her blue eyes were wide open as she looked at Jolly Roger, and her
cheeks were flushed to the pink of wild rose petals, and her lips were
trembling a little, and there was a tiny something pulsing in her soft
white throat. And all at once there 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 eyes were looking through miles upon
miles of deep forest, and at the end he saw the thin and pitiless face
of a man who was following his trail, Breault the Ferret.
His arms closed more tightly about her, and he pressed her face against
him.
“And I pray God you will never be sorry,” he said, still looking
through the miles of forest.
“No, no--sorry I shall never be,” she cried softly. “Not if we fly, and
go hungry, and fight--and die. Never shall I be sorry--with you,” and
he felt the tightening of her arms.
And then, as he remained silent, with his lips on the velvety
smoothness of her hair, she told him what Father John had already told
him--of her wild effort to overtake him in that night of storm when he
had fled from the Missioner's cabin at Cragg's Ridge; and in turn he
told her how Peter came to him in the break of the morning with the
treasure which had saved him heart and soul, and how he had given that
treasure into the keeping of Yellow Bird, on the shores of Wollaston.
And thereafter, for an hour, as they wandered through the May-time
sweetness of the forest, she would permit him to talk of only Yellow
Bird and Sun Cloud; and, one thing leading to another, she learned how
it was that Yellow Bird had been his fairy in childhood days, and how
he came to be an outlaw for her in later manhood. Her eyes were shining
when he had finished, and her red lips were a-tremble with the
quickness of her breathing.
“Some day--you'll take me there,” she whispered. “Oh, I'm so proud of
you, my Roger. And I love Yellow Bird. And Sun Cloud. Some day--we'll
go!”
He nodded, happiness overshadowing the fear of Breault that had grown
in his heart.
“Yes, we'll go. I've dreamed it, and the dream helped to keep me
alive--”
And then he told her of Cassidy, and of the paradise he had found with
Giselle and her grandfather on the other side of Wollaston.
And so it happened the hours passed swiftly, and it was afternoon when
they returned to Father John's cabin, and Nada went into her room.
In the early waning of the sun the feast which the Leaf Bud had been
preparing was ready, and not until then did Nada appear again.
And once more the lump rose up in Roger's throat at the wonder of her,
for very completely she had transformed herself into a woman again,
from the softly shining coils of hair on the crown of her head to the
coquettish little slippers that set off her dainty feet. And he saw the
white gleam of soft shoulders and tender arms where once had been rags
and bruises, and held there by the slim beauty and exquisite daintiness
of her he stared like a fool, until suddenly she laughed joyously at
his amaze, and ran to him with wide-open arms, and kissed him so
soundly that Peter cocked up his ears a bit startled. And then she
kissed Father John, and after that was mistress at the table, radiant
in her triumph and her eyes starry with happiness.
And she was no longer shy in speaking his name, but called him Roger
boldly and many times, and twice during that meal of marvelous
forgetfulness--though long lashes covered her eyes when she spoke
it--she called him 'my husband.'
In truth she was a woman and for the most part Roger McKay--fighting
man and very strong though he was--looked at her in dumb worship,
speaking little, his heart a-throb, and his brain reeling in the marvel
of what at last had come into his possession.
And yet, even in this hour of supreme happiness that held him half
mute, there was always lurking in the back of his brain a thought of
Breault, the Ferret.