ey waited for dusk, and when deep shadows had gathered in the valley
McKay led the way out of the rock-pile.

An hour later they came cautiously through the darkness that lay
between the broken shoulders of Cragg's Ridge. There was a light in the
cabin, but Nada's window was dark. Peter crouched down under the
warning pressure of McKay's hand.

"I'll go on alone," he said. "You stay here."

It seemed a long time that he waited in the darkness. He could not hear
the low _tap, tap, tap_ of his master's fingers against the glass of
Nada's darkened window. And Jolly Roger, in response to that
signal-tapping, heard nothing from within, except a monotone of voice
that came from the outer room. For half an hour he waited, repeating
the signals at intervals. At last a door opened, and Nada stood
silhouetted against the light of the room beyond.

McKay tapped again, very lightly, and the door closed quickly behind
the girl. In a moment she was at the window, which was raised a little
from the bottom.

"Mister--Roger--" she whispered. "Is it--_you_?"

"Yes," he said, finding a little hand in the darkness. "It's me."

The hand was cold, and its fingers clung tightly to his, as if the girl
was frightened. Peter, restless with waiting, had come up quietly in
the dark, and he heard the low, trembling whisper of Nada's voice at
the window. There was something in the note of it, and in the caution
of Jolly Roger's reply, that held him stiff and attentive, his ears
wide-open for approaching sound. For several minutes he stood thus, and
then the whispering voices at the window ceased and he heard his master
retreating very quietly through the night. When Jolly Roger spoke to
him, back under the broken shoulder of the ridge, he did not know that
Peter had stood near the window.

McKay stood looking back at the pale glow of light in the cabin.

"Something happened there tonight--something she wouldn't tell me
about," he said, speaking half to Peter and half to himself. "I could
_feel_ it. I wish I could have seen her face."

He set out over the plain; and then, as if remembering that he must
explain the matter to Peter, he said:

"She can't get out tonight, _Pied-Bot_, but she'll come to us in the
jackpines tomorrow afternoon. We'll have to wait."

He tried to say the thing cheerfully, but between this night and
tomorrow afternoon seemed an interminable time, now that he was
determined to make a clean breast of his affairs to