CHAPTER X
North and west, in the direction of Yellow Bird's people, went JollyRoger and Peter after that night. They traveled slowly and cautiously,and with each day Peter came to understand more clearly there wassome reason why they must be constantly on their guard. His master,he noticed, was thrillingly attentive whenever a sound came to theirears--perhaps the cracking of a twig, a mysterious movement of brush, orthe tread of a cloven hoof. And instinctively he came to know they wereevading Man. He remembered vividly their escape from Cassidy and theirquiet hiding for many days in the mass of sun-baked rocks which JollyRoger had called the Stew-Kettle. The same vigilance seemed to be a partof his master's movements now. He did not laugh, or sing, or whistle, ortalk loudly. He built fires so small that at first Peter was absorbedin an almost scientific analysis of them; and instead of shootinggame which could have been easily secured he set little snares in theevening, and caught fish in the streams. At night they always slepthalf a mile or more from the place where they had built their tinysupper-fire. And during these hours of sleep Peter was ready to rousehimself at the slightest sound of movement near them. Scarcely a nightpassed that his low growl of warning did not bring Jolly Roger out ofhis slumber, a hand on his gun, and his eyes and ears wide open.
Whether he would have used the gun had the red-coated police suddenlyappeared, McKay had not quite assured himself. Day after day the sameold fight went on within him. He analyzed his situation from every pointof view, and always--no matter how he went about it--eventually foundhimself face to face with the same definite fact. If the law succeededin catching Him it would not trouble itself to punish him for stealingback the Treaty Money, or for holding up Government mails, or for any ofhis other misdemeanors. It would hang him for the murder of Jed Hawkins.And the minions of the law would laugh at the truth, even if he toldit--which he never would. More than once his imaginative genius haddrawn up a picture of that impossible happening. For it was a truth soinconceivable that he found the absurdity of it a grimly humorous thing.Even Nada believed he had killed her scoundrelly foster-father. Yet itwas she--herself--who had killed him! And it was Nada whom the law wouldhang, if the truth was known--and believed.
Frequently he went back over the scenes of that tragic night at Cragg'sRidge when all the happiness in the world seemed to be offering itselfto him--the night when Nada was to go with him to the Missioner's,to become his wife, And then--the dark trail--the disheveled girlstaggering to him through the starlight, and her sobbing story of howJed Hawkins had tried to drag her through the forest to Mooney's cabin,and how--at last--she had saved herself by striking him down with astick which she had caught up out of the darkness. Would the policebelieve HIM--an outlaw--if he told the rest of the story?--how he hadgone back to give Jed Hawkins the beating of his life, and had found himdead in the trail, where Nada had struck him down? Would they believehim if, in a moment of cowardice, he told them that to protect the girlhe loved he had fastened the responsibility of the crime upon himself?No, they would not. He had made the evidence too complete. The worldwould call him a lying yellow-back if he betrayed what had actuallyhappened on the trail between Cragg's Ridge and Mooney's cabin.
And this, after all, was the one remaining bit of happiness in JollyRoger's heart, the knowledge that he had made the evidence utterlycomplete, and that Nada would never know, and the world would neverknow--the truth. His love for the blue-eyed girl-woman who had givenher heart and her soul into his keeping, even when she knew he was anoutlaw, was an undying thing, like his love for the mother of years ago."It will be easy to die for her," he told Peter, and this, in the end,was what he knew he was going to do. Thought of the inevitable did notmake him afraid. He was determined to keep his freedom and his lifeas long as he could, but he was fatalistic enough, and sufficientlyacquainted with the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, to know what theultimate of the thing would be. And yet, with tragedy behind him, and astill grimmer tragedy ahead, the soul of Jolly Roger was not dead or inutter darkness. In it, waking and sleeping, he enshrined the girl whohad been willing to give up all other things in the world for him,who had pleaded with him in the last hour of storm down on the edgeof civilization that she be given the privilege of accompanying himwherever his fate might lead. That he was an outlaw had not destroyedher faith in him. That he had killed a man--a man unfit to live--hadonly drawn her arms more closely about him, and had made her morecompletely a part of him. And a thousand times the maddening thoughtpossessed Jolly Roger--was he wrong, and not right, in refusing toaccept the love and companionship which she had begged him to accept, inspite of all that had happened and all that might happen?
Day by day he slowly won for himself, and at last, as they traveled inthe direction of Yellow Bird's country, he crushed the final doubt thatoppressed him, and knew that he was right. In his selfishness he had notshackled her to an outlaw. He had left her free. Life and hope and otherhappiness were ahead of her. He had not destroyed her, and this thoughtwould strengthen him and leave something of gladness in his heart,even in that gray dawn when the law would compel him to make his finalsacrifice.
It is a strange peace which follows grief, a secret happiness no othersoul but one can understand. Out of it excitement and passion have beenburned, and it is then the Great God of things comes more closely intothe possession of his own. And now, as they went westward and northtoward the Wollaston Lake country, this peace possessed Jolly Roger. Itmellowed his world. It was half an ache, half a steady and undying pain,but it drew Life nearer to him than he had ever known it before. Hislove for the sun and the sky, for the trees and flowers and all growingthings of the earth was more worship of the divine than a love forphysical things, and each day he felt it drawing more closely about himin its comradeship, whispering to him of its might, and of its power tocare for him in the darkest hours of stress that might come.
He did not travel fast after he had reached the decision to go to YellowBird's people. And he tried to imagine, a great deal of the time, thatNada was with him. He succeeded in a way that bewildered Peter, forquite frequently the man talked to someone who was not there.
The slowness and caution with which they traveled developed Peter'smental faculties with marvelous swiftness. His master, free of egoismand prejudice, had placed him on a plane of intimate equality, and Peterstruggled each day to live up a little more to the responsibility ofthis intimacy and confidence. Instinct, together with human training,taught him woodcraft until in many ways he was more clever than hismaster. And along with this Jolly Roger slowly but surely impressed uponhim the difference between wanton slaughter and necessary killing.
"Everything that's got a breath of life must kill--up to a certainpoint," Jolly Roger explained to him, repeating the lesson over andover. "And that isn't wrong, Peter. The sin is in killing when youdon't have to. See that tree over there, with a vine as big as my wristwinding around it, like a snake? Well, that vine is choking the life outof the tree, and in time the tree will die. But the vine is doing justwhat God A'mighty meant it to do. It needs a tree to live on. But I'mgoing to cut the vine, because I think more of the tree than I do thevine. That's MY privilege--following my conscience. And we're eatingyoung partridges tonight, because we had to have something to keep usalive. It's the necessity of the thing that counts, Peter. Think you canunderstand that?"
It was pretty hard for Peter at first, but he was observant, and hismind worked quickly. The crime of destroying birdlings in their nest, oron the ground, was impressed upon him. He began to understand there wasa certain humiliating shame attached to an attack upon a creature weakerthan himself, unless there was a reason for it. He looked chiefly tohis master for decisions in the matter. Snowshoe rabbits, young and halfgrown, were very tame in this month of August, and ordinarily he wouldhave destroyed many of them in a day's travel. But unless JollyRoger gave him a signal, or he was hungry, he would pass a snowshoeunconcernedly. This phase of Peter's development interested JollyRoger greatly. The outlaw's philosoph
y had not been punctured by theegotistical "I am the only reasoning being" arguments of narrow-gaugednature scientists. He believed that Peter possessed not only a brain andsuper-instinct, but also a very positive reasoning power which he washelping to develop. And the process was one that fascinated him. When hewas not sleeping, or traveling, or teaching Peter he was usually readingthe wonderful little red volumes of history which he had purloined fromthe mail sledge up near the Barren Lands. He knew their contents nearlyby heart. His favorites were the life-stories of Napoleon, Margaret ofAnjou, and Peter the Great, and always when he compared his owntroubles with the difficulties and tragedies over which these peoplehad triumphed he felt a new courage and inspiration, and faced the worldwith better cheer. If Nature was his God and Bible, and Nada his Angel,these finger-worn little books written by a man half a century deadwere voices out of the past urging him on to his best. Their pages werefilled with the vivid lessons of sacrifice, of courage and achievement,of loyalty, honor and dishonor--and of the crashing tragedy which comesalways with the last supreme egoism and arrogance of man. He marked thedividing lines, and applied them to himself. And he told Peter of hisconclusions. He felt a consuming tenderness for the glorious Margaret ofAnjou, and his heart thrilled one day when a voice seemed to whisper tohim out of the printed page that Nada was another Margaret--only morewonderful because she was not a princess and a queen.
"The only difference," he explained to Peter, "is that Margaretsacrificed and fought and died for a king, and our Nada is willing todo all that for a poor beggar of an outlaw. Which makes Margaret asecond-rater compared with Nada," he added. "For Margaret wanted akingdom along with her husband, and Nada would take--just you and me.And that's where we're pulling some Peter the Great stuff," he tried tolaugh. "We won't let her do it!"
And so they went on, day after day, toward the Wollaston waterways--thecountry of Yellow Bird and her people.
It was early September when they crossed the Geikie and struck up thewestern shore of Wollaston Lake. The first golden tints were ripening inthe canoe-birch leaves, and the tremulous whisper of autumn was in therustle of the aspen trees. The poplars were yellowing, the ash wereblood red with fruit, and in cool, dank thickets wild currants wereglossy black and lusciously ripe. It was the season which Jolly Rogerloved most of all, and it was the beginning of Peter's first September.The days were still hot, but at night there was a bracing something inthe air that stirred the blood, and Peter found a sharp, new note in thevoices of the wild. The wolf howled again in the middle of the night.The loon forgot his love-sickness, and screamed raucous defiance at themoon. The big snowshoes were no longer tame, but wary and alert, and theowls seemed to slink deeper into darkness and watch with more cunning.And Jolly Roger knew the human masters of the wilderness were returningfrom the Posts to their cabins and trap-lines, and he advanced withstill greater caution. And as he went, watching for smoke and listeningfor sound, he began to reflect upon the many changes which fiveyears might have produced among Yellow Bird's people. Possibly othermisfortunes had come, other winters of hunger and pestilence, scatteringand destroying the tribe. It might even be that Yellow Bird was dead.
For three days he followed slowly the ragged shore of WollastonLake, and foreboding of evil was oppressing him when he came upon thefish-racks of the Indians. They had been abandoned for many days, forblack bear tracks fairly inundated the place, and Peter saw two of thebears--fat and unafraid--nosing along the shore where the fish offal hadbeen thrown.
It was the next day, in the hour before sunset, that Jolly Roger andPeter came out on the edge of a shelving beach where Indian childrenwere playing in the white sand. Among these children, playing andlaughing with them, was a woman. She was tall and slim, with a skirt ofsoft buckskin that came only a little below her knees, and two shiningblack braids which tossed like velvety ropes when she ran. And she wasrunning when they first saw her--running away from them, pursued by thechildren; and then she twisted suddenly, and came toward them, untilwith a startled cry she stopped almost within the reach of Jolly Roger'shands. Peter was watching. He saw the half frightened look in her face,then the slow widening of her dark eyes, and the quick intake of herbreath. And in that moment Jolly Roger cried out a name.
"Yellow Bird!"
He went to her slowly, wondering if it could be possible the years hadtouched Yellow Bird so lightly; and Yellow Bird reached out her hands tohim, her face flaming up with sudden happiness, and Peter wondered whatit was all about as he cautiously eyed the half dozen brown-faced littleIndian children who had now gathered quietly about them. In anothermoment there was an interruption. A girl came through the fringe ofwillows behind them. It was as if another Yellow Bird had come to puzzlePeter--the same slim, graceful little body, the same shining eyes, andyet she was half a dozen years younger than Nada. For the first timePeter was looking at Sun Cloud, the daughter of Yellow Bird. And in thatmoment he loved her, just as something gave him confidence and faith inthe starry-eyed woman whose hands were in his master's. Then Yellow Birdcalled, and the girl went to her mother, and Jolly Roger hugged her inhis arms and kissed her on the scarlet mouth she turned up to him.Then they hurried along the shore toward the fishing camp, the childrenracing ahead to tell the news, led by Sun Cloud--with Peter running ather heels.
Never had Peter heard anything from a man's throat like the two yellsthat came from Slim Buck, Yellow Bird's husband and chief of the tribe,after he had greeted Jolly Roger McKay. It was a note harking back tothe old war trails of the Crees, and what followed it that night wasmost exciting to Peter. Big fires were built of white driftwood, andthere was singing and dancing, and a great deal of laughter and eating,and the interminable howling of half a hundred Siwash dogs. Peter didnot like the dogs, but he did no fighting because his love for Sun Cloudkept him close to the touch of her little brown hand.
That night, in the glow of the big fire outside of Slim Buck's tepee,Jolly Roger's heart thrilled with a pleasure which it had not known fora long time. He loved to look at Yellow Bird. Five years had not changedher. Her eyes were starry bright. Her teeth were like milk. The colorstill came and went in her brown cheeks, even as it did in Sun Cloud's.All of which, in this heart of a wilderness, meant that she had beenhappy and prosperous. And he also loved to look at Sun Cloud, whopossessed all of that rare wildflower beauty sometimes given to thenorthern Crees. And it did him good to look at Slim Buck. He wasa splendid mate, and a royal father, and Jolly Roger found himselfstrangely happy in their happiness. In the eyes of men and women andlittle children he saw that happiness all about him. For three wintersthere had been splendid trapping, Slim Buck told him, and this seasonthey had caught and dried enough fish to carry them through thefollowing winter, even if black days should come. His people were rich.They had many warm blankets, and good clothes, and the best of tepeesand guns and sledges, and several treasures besides. Two of these YellowBird and her husband disclosed to Jolly Roger this first night. One ofthem was a sewing machine, and the other--a phonograph! And Jolly Rogerlistened to "Mother Machree" and "The Rosary" that night as he sat byWollaston Lake with six hundred miles of wilderness between him andCragg's Ridge.
Later, when the camp slept, Yellow Bird and Slim Buck and Jolly Rogerstill sat beside the red embers of their fire, and Jolly Roger toldof what had happened down at the edge of civilization. It was whathis heart needed, and he left out none of the details. Slim Buck waslistening, but Jolly Roger knew he was talking straight at Yellow Bird,and that her warm heart was full of understanding. Softly, in thatlow Cree voice which is the sweetest of all voices, she asked him manyquestions about Nada, and gently her slim fingers caressed the tress ofNada's hair which he let her take in her hands. And after a long time,she said.
"I have given her a name. She is Oo-Mee, the Pigeon."
Slim Buck started at the strange note in her voice.
"The Pigeon," he repeated,
"Yes, Oo-Mee, the Pigeon," Yellow Bird nodded. She was not looking atthem. In the fireli
ght her eyes were glowing pools. Her body had growna little tense. Without asking Jolly Roger's permission she placed thetress of Nada's hair in her bosom. "Oo-Mee, the Pigeon," she said again,looking far away. "That is her name, because the Pigeon flies fast andstraight and true. Over forests and lakes and worlds the Pigeon flies.It is tireless. It is swift. It always--flies home."
Slim Buck rose quietly to his feet.
"Come," he whispered, looking at Jolly Roger,
Yellow Bird did not look at them or speak to them, and Slim Buck--withhis hand on Jolly Roger's arm--pulled him gently away. In his eyes was alittle something of fear, and yet along with it a sublime faith.
"Her spirit will be with Oo-Mee, the Pigeon, tonight," he said ina voice struck with awe. "It will go to this place which you havedescribed, and it will live in the body of the girl, and through YellowBird it will tell you tomorrow what has happened, and what is going tohappen."
In the edge of the shore-willows Jolly Roger stood for a time watchingYellow Bird as she sat under the stars, motionless as a figure gravenout of stone. He felt a curious tingling at his heart, somethingstirring uneasily in his breast, and he stood alone even after SlimBuck had stretched himself out in the soft sand to sleep. He was notsuperstitious. Yet it was equally a part of his philosophy and his creedto believe in the overwhelming power of the mind. "If you have faithenough, and think hard enough, you can think anything until it comestrue," he had told himself more than once. And he knew Yellow Birdpossessed that illimitable faith, and that behind her divination laygenerations and centuries of an unbreakable certainty in the power ofmind over matter. He realized his own limitations, but a mysteriousvoice in the still night seemed whispering to him that in the crudewisdom of Yellow Bird's brain lay the secret to strange achievement,and that on this night her mind might perform for him what he, in hisgreater wisdom, would call a miracle. He had seen things like thathappen. And he sat down in the sand, sleepless, and with Peter at hisfeet waited for Yellow Bird to stir.
He could see the dull shimmer of starlight in her hair, but the rest ofher was a shadow that gave no sign of life. The camp was asleep. Eventhe dogs were buried in their wallows of sand, and the last red spark ofthe fires had died out. The hour passed, and another hour followed, andthe lids of Jolly Roger's eyes grew heavier as the fading stars seemedto be sinking deeper into infinity. At last he slept, with his backleaning against a sand-dune the children had made. He dreamed, and wasflying through the air with Yellow Bird. She was traveling swift andstraight, like an arrow, and he had difficulty in keeping up with her,and at last he cried out for her to wait--that he could go no farther.The cry roused him. He opened his eyes, and found cool, gray dawn inthe sky. Peter, alert, was muzzling his hand. Slim Buck lay in the sand,still asleep. There was no stir in the camp. And then, with a suddencatch in his breath, he looked toward Yellow Bird's tepee.
Yellow Bird still sat in the sand. Through the hours of fading starlightand coming dawn she had not moved. Slowly McKay rose to his feet.When he came to her, making no sound, she looked up. The shimmer ofglistening dew was in her hair. Her long lashes were wet with it. Herface was very pale, and her eyes so large and dark that for a momentthey startled him. She was tired. Exhaustion was in her slim, limp body.
A sigh came from her lips, and her shoulders swayed a little.
"Sit down, Neekewa," she whispered, drawing the ropes of her hair abouther as if she were cold.
Then she drew a slim hand over her eyes, and shivered.
"It is well, Neekewa," she spoke softly. "I have gone through the cloudsto where lives Oo-Mee, the Pigeon. I found her crying in a trail. Iwhispered to her and happiness came, and that happiness is going tolive--for Neekewa and The Pigeon. It cannot die. It cannot be killed.The Red Coated men of the Great White Father will never destroy it.You will live. She will live. You will meet again--in happiness. Andhappiness will follow ever after. That much I learned, Neekewa. Inhappiness--you will meet again."
"Where? When?" whispered Jolly Roger, his heart beating with suddenswiftness.
Again Yellow Bird passed her hand over her eyes, and as she held itthere for a moment she bowed her head until Jolly Roger could see onlyher dew-wet hair and she said,
"In the Country Beyond, Neekewa."
Her eyes were looking at him again, big, dark and filled with mystery.
"And where is this country, Yellow Bird?" he asked, a strange chilldriving the warmth out of his heart. "You mean--up there?" And hepointed to the gray sky above them.
"No, it is happiness to come in life, not in death," said Yellow Birdslowly. "It is not beyond the stars. It is--"
He waited, leaning toward her.
"In the Country Beyond," she repeated with a tired little droop of herhead. "And where that is I do not know, Neekewa. I could not pass beyondthe great white cloud that shut me out. But it is--somewhere, I willfind it. And then I will tell you--and The Pigeon."
She stood up, and swayed in the gray light, like one worn out by hardtravel. Then she passed into the tepee, and Jolly Roger heard her fallon her blanket-bed.
And still stranger whisperings filled his heart as he faced the east,where the first red blush of day drove back the star-mists of dawn. Heheard a step in the soft sand, and Slim Buck stood beside him. And heasked.
"Did you ever hear of the Country Beyond?" Slim Buck shook his head, andboth looked in silence toward the rising sun.
Peter was glad when the camp roused itself out of sleep with wakingvoices, and laughter, and the building of fires. He waited eagerly forSun Cloud. At last she came out of Yellow Bird's tepee, rubbing her eyesin the face of the glow in the east, and then her white teeth flashed asmile of welcome at him. Together they ran down to the edge of thelake, and Peter wagged his tail while Sun Cloud went out knee-deep andscrubbed her pretty face with handfuls of the cool water. It was a happyday for him. He was different from the Indian dogs, and Sun Cloud andher playmates made much of him. But never, even in their most excitingplay, did he entirely lose track of his master.
Jolly Roger, to an extent, forgot Peter. He tried to deaden within himthe impulses which Yellow Bird's conjuring had roused. He tried to seein them a menace and a danger, and he repeated to himself the follyof placing credence in Yellow Bird's "medicine." But his efforts werefutile, and he was honest enough to admit it. The uneasiness was inhis breast. A new hope was rising up. And with that hope were fear andsuspense, for deep in him was growing stronger the conviction thatwhat Yellow Bird would tell him would be true. He noted the calm anddignified stiffness with which Slim Buck greeted the day. The youngchief passed quietly among his people. A word traveled in whispers,voices and footsteps were muffled and before the sun was an hour highthere was no tepee standing but one on that white strip of beach. Andthe one tepee was Yellow Bird's,
Not until the camp was gone, leaving her alone, did Yellow Bird comeout into the day. She saw the food placed at her tepee door. She sawthe empty places where the homes of her people had stood, and in the wetsand of the beach the marks of their missing canoes. Then she turned herpale face and tired eyes to the sun, and unbraided her hair so that itstreamed glistening all about her and covered the white sand when shesat down again in front of the smoke-darkened canvas that had become herconjurer's house.
Two miles up the beach Slim Buck's people made another camp. But SlimBuck and Jolly Roger remained in the cover of a wooded headland onlyhalf a mile from Yellow Bird. They saw her when she came out. Theywatched for an hour after she sat down in the sand. And then Slim Buckgrunted, and with a gesture of his hands said they would go. Jolly Rogerprotested. It was not safe for Yellow Bird to remain entirely beyondtheir protection. There were bears prowling about. And human beastsoccasionally found their way through the wilderness. But Slim Buck'sface was like a bronze carving in its faith and pride.
"Yellow Bird only goes with the good spirits," he assured Jolly Roger."She does not do witchcraft with the bad. And no harm can come while thegood spirits are with her. It is thus s
he has brought us happiness andprosperity since the days of the famine, Neekewa!"
He spoke these words in Cree, and McKay answered him in Cree as theyturned in the direction of the camp. Half way, Sun Cloud came to meetthem, with Peter at her side. She put a brown little hand in JollyRoger's. It was quite new and pleasant to be kissed as Jolly Roger hadkissed her, and she held up her mouth to him again. Then she ran ahead,with Peter yipping foolishly and happily at her moccasined heels.
And Jolly Roger said,
"I wish I was your brother, Slim Buck, and Nada was Yellow Bird'ssister--and that I had many like her," and his eyes followed Sun Cloudwith hungry yearning.
And as he said these words, Yellow Bird sat with bowed head and closedeyes, with the soft tress of Nada's hair in her hands. It was thephysical union between them, and all that day, and the night thatfollowed, Yellow Bird held it in her hand or against her breast as shestruggled to send out the soul that was in her on its mission to Oo-Meethe Pigeon. In darkness she buried the food that was left her, andstamped on it with her feet. The sacrifice of her body had begun, andfor two days thereafter Jolly Roger and Slim Buck saw no movement oflife about the lone tepee in the sand.
But the third morning they saw the smoke of a little greenwood firerising straight up from in front of it.
Slim Buck drew in a deep breath. It was the signal fire.
"She knows," he said, pointing for Jolly Roger to go. "She is callingyou!"
The tenseness was gone from the bronze muscles of his face. He waslonely without Yellow Bird, and the signal fire meant she would be withhim again soon. Jolly Roger walked swiftly over the white beach.Again he tried to tell himself what folly it all was, and that he wasanswering the signal-fire only to humor Yellow Bird and Slim Buck. Butwords, even spoken half aloud, did not quiet the eager beating of hisheart.
Not until he was very near did Yellow Bird come out of the tepee. And itwas then Jolly Roger stopped short, a gasp on his lips. She was changed.Her radiant hair was still down, polished smooth; but her face waswhiter than he had ever seen it, and drawn and pinched almost as in thedays of the famine. For two days and two nights she had taken no food,and for two days and two nights she had not slept. But there was triumphin her big, wide-open eyes, and Jolly Roger felt something strangerising up in his breast.
Yellow Bird held out her hands toward him.
"We have been together, The Pigeon and I," she said. "We have sleptin each other's arms, and the warmth of her head has lain against mybreast. I have learned the secrets, Neekewa--all but one. The spiritswill not tell me where lies the Country Beyond. But it is not upthere--beyond the stars. It is not in death, but in life you will findit. That they have told me. And you must not go back to where The Pigeonlives, for you will find black desolation there--but always you mustkeep on and on, seeking for the Country Beyond. You will find it. Andthere also you will find The Pigeon--and happiness. You cannot fail,Neekewa, yet my heart stings me that I cannot tell you where thatstrange country is. But when I came to it gold and silver clouds shut itin, and I could see nothing, and yet out of it came the singing of birdsand the promise of sweet voices that it shall be found--if you seekfaithfully, Neekewa. I am glad."
Each word that she spoke in her soft and tremulous Cree was a newmessage of hope in the empty heart of Jolly Roger McKay. The world mightlaugh. Men might tap their heads and smile. His own voice might argueand taunt. But deep in his heart he believed.
Something of the radiance of the new day came into his face, even as itwas returning into Yellow Bird's. He looked about him--east, west, northand south--upon the sunlit glory of water and earth, and suddenly hereached out his arms.
"I'll find it, Yellow Bird," he cried. "I'll find this place you callthe Country Beyond! And when I do--"
He turned and took one of Yellow Bird's slim hands in both his own.
"And when I do, we'll come back to you, Yellow Bird," he said.
And like a cavalier of old he touched his lips gently to the palm ofYellow Bird's little brown hand.
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