and then did the moon gleam through the slow-moving masses of
black cloud when he came to the edge of the Indian settlement clearing
three miles away, where stood the cabin of the Missioner. The storm had
not broken, but seemed holding back its forces for one mighty onslaught
upon the world. The thunder was repressed, and the lightning held in
leash, with escaping flashes of it occasionally betraying the impending
ambuscades of the sky.

The clearing itself was a blot of stygian darkness, with a yellow patch
of light in the center of it--the window of the Missioner's cabin. And
Jolly Roger stood looking at it for a space, as a carven thing of rock
might have stared. His heart was dead. His soul crushed. His dream
broken. There remained only his brain, his mind made up, his worship
for the girl--a love that had changed from a thing of joy to a fire of
agony within him. Straight ahead he looked, knowing there was only one
thing for him to do. And only one. There was no alternative. No hope.
No change of fortune that even the power of God might bring about. What
lay ahead of him was inevitable.

After all, there is something unspeakable in the might and glory of
dying for one's country--or for a great love. And Jolly Roger McKay
felt that strength as he strode through the blackness, and knocked at
the door, and went in to face Nada and the little old gray-haired
Missioner in the lampglow.

Swift as one of the flashes of lightning in the sky the anxiety and
fear had gone out of Nada's face, and in an instant it was flooded with
the joy of his coming. She did not mark the strange change in him, but
went to him as she had gone to him in the trail, and Jolly Roger's arms
closed about her, but gently this time, and very tenderly, as he might
have held a little child he was afraid of hurting. Then she felt the
chill of his lips as she pressed her own to them. Startled, she looked
up into his eyes. And as he had done in the trail, so now Jolly Roger
stood her away from him, and faced the Missioner. In a cold, hard voice
he told what had happened to Nada that evening, and of the barbarous
effort Jed Hawkins had made to sell her to Mooney. Then, from a pocket
inside his shirt, he drew out a small, flat leather wallet, and thrust
it in the little Missioner's hand.

"There's close to a thousand dollars in that," he said. "It's mine. And
I'm giving it to you--for Nada. I want you to keep her, and care for
her, and mebby some day-