d them, sobbing as she came, was Nada.
Jolly Roger's blazing eyes saw everything in that vivid light of the
moon. Her hair was tangled and twisted about her shoulders and over her
breast. One arm was bare where the sleeve had been torn away, and her
girlish breast gleamed white where her waist had been stripped half
from her body. And then she saw Jolly Roger in the trail, with
wide-open, reaching arms, and with a cry such as Peter had never heard
come from her lips before she ran into them, and held up her face to
him in the yellow moon-light. In her eyes--great, tearless, burning
pools--he saw the tragedy and yet it was only that, and not horror, not
despair, _not_ the other thing. His arms closed crushingly about her. Her
slim body seemed to become a part of him. Her hot lips reached up and
clung to his.

And then,

"Did--he get you--to--Mooney's shack--" He felt her body stiffen
against him.

"No," she panted. "I fought--every inch. He dragged me, and hit me, and
tore my clothes--but I fought. And up there--in the trail--he turned
his back for a moment, when he thought I was done, and I hit him with a
club. And he's there, now, on his back--"

She did not finish. Jolly Roger thrust her out from him, arm's length.
A cloud under the moon hid his face. But his voice was low, and
terrible.

"Nada, go to the Missioner's as fast as you can," he said, fighting to
speak coolly. "Take Peter--and go. You will make it before the storm
breaks. I am going back to have a few words with Jed Hawkins--alone.
Then I will join you, and the Missioner will marry us--"

The cloud was gone, and he saw joy and radiance in her face. Fear had
disappeared. Her eyes were luminous with the golden glow of the night.
Her red lips were parted, entreating him with the lure of their purity
and love, and for a moment he held her close in his arms again, kissing
her as he might have kissed an angel, while her little hands stroked
his face, and she laughed softly and strangely in her happiness--the
wonder of a woman's soul rising swiftly out of the sweetness of her
girlhood.

And then Jolly Roger set her firmly in the direction she was to go.

"Hurry, little girl," he said. "Hurry--before the storm breaks!"

She went, calling Peter softly, and Jolly Roger strode down the trail,
not once looking back, and bent only upon the vengeance he would this
night wreak upon the two lowest brutes in creation. Never before had he
felt the desire to kill