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Updated: June 12, 2025
There was still a faint twilight in the tunnel, and in this twilight Jolly Roger McKay packed his possessions; and then, with fingers that trembled as if they were committing a sacrilege, he drew Nada's few treasures from her bundle and placed them tenderly with his own. And all the time Peter heard him saying things under his breath, so softly that it was like the whispered drone of song.
"Pied-Bot, you devil you little devil " His fingers closed in the cloth about Peter's neck, and his heart jumped when he saw what it was a piece of Nada's dress. Peter, realizing that at last the importance of his mission was understood, waited in eager watchfulness while his master untied the knot.
The world was as black ahead of him as it was behind. But Jed Hawkins' cabin was untouched! The fire had crept up to its very door and there it had died. He went on the remaining hundred yards and before the closed door of Nada's old home he found Peter standing stiff-legged and strange. He opened the door and a damp chill touched his face. The cabin was empty.
And in another moment, out in the clean and glorious sun that had followed storm, McKay held the shining tress of Nada's hair. It was a real sob that broke in his throat now, and Peter saw him crush the shining thing to his face, and hold it there, while strange quivers ran through his strong shoulders, and a wetness that was not rain gathered in his eyes. "God bless her!" he whispered.
Half way between himself and the bow of that canoe McKay could dimly make out Nada's pale face in the star glow that filtered like a mist through the tops of the close-hanging trees. Scarcely above his breath he laughed in joyous confidence. "At last my dream is coming true, Nada," he whispered. "You are mine. And we are going into another world.
The last faint gleam of the alcohol lamp died out. Jolly Roger did not look back. Blindly he stumbled ahead, counting his footsteps as he went, and shouting Nada's name. Twice he thought he heard a reply, and each time the will-o'-the-wisp voice seemed to be still farther ahead of him. Then, with a fiercer blast of the wind beating upon his back, he stumbled and fell forward upon his face.
The rain had washed away the scent of his master's feet but he knew they were following Jolly Roger, and that the girl was running to overtake him. In him was the desire to rush ahead, to travel faster through the night, but Nada's stumbling feet and her panting breath and the strange white pictures he saw of her when the sky split open with fire held him back.
"Still it's safer," argued Breault, a wicked glitter in his eyes. "Hold out one hand, please " The manacle snapped over Jolly Roger's wrist. "I'm Breault not Terence Cassidy," he chuckled. "Never take a chance, you know. Never!" Swift as a flash was his movement then, as the companion bracelet snapped over Nada's wrist. He stepped back, facing them with a grin.
Nor could he speak in words the message which he carried in his heart that last crying agony of the girl when she had sent him out on the trail of Roger McKay, entreating him to bring back the man she loved and would always love in spite of all the broken and unbroken laws in the world. That night, as they lay beside the Burntwood, Peter heard his master crying out Nada's name in his sleep.
And even Nada's face he seemed to see through a silvery mist, and he felt her arms strangely about his neck, as if it was all half like a dream a dream of the kind that had come to him beside his campfire. It was a little cry from Nada that drove the unreality away.
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