me in the
storm. It was quiet and ominous stillness, and the ticking of a clock,
old and gray like the Missioner himself, filled the room. And Nada,
seated on the edge of Father John's bed, no longer looked like the
young girl of "seventeen goin' on eighteen." That afternoon, in the
hidden jackpine open, with its sweet-scented jasmines, its violets and
its crimson strawberries under their feet, the soul of a woman had
taken possession of her body. In that hour the first happiness of her
life had come to her. She had heard Jolly Roger McKay tell her those
things which she already knew--that he was an outlaw, and that he was
hiding down on the near-edge of civilization because the Royal Mounted
were after him farther north--and that he was not fit to love her, and
that it was a crime to let her love him. It was then the soul of the
woman had come to her in all its triumph. She had made her choice,
definitely and decisively, without hesitation and without fear. And
now, as she stared unseeingly at the window against which the rain was
beating, the woman in her girlish body rose in her mightier than in the
hour of her happiness, fighting to find a way--crying out for the man
she loved.

Her mind swept back in a single flash through all the years she had
lived, through her years of unhappiness and torment as the foster-girl
of Jed Hawkins and his broken, beaten wife; through summers and winters
that had seemed ages to her, eternities of desolation, of heartache, of
loneliness, with the big wilderness her one friend on earth. As the
window rattled in a fresh blast of storm, she thought of the day months
ago when she had accidentally stumbled upon the hiding-place of Roger
McKay. Since that day he had been her God, and she had lived in a
paradise. He had been father, mother, brother, and at last--what she
most yearned for--a lover to her. And this day, when for the first time
he had held her in his arms, when the happiness of all the earth had
reached out to them, God had put it into Jed Hawkins' heart to destroy
her--and Jolly Roger had killed him!

With a sharp little cry she sprang to her feet, so suddenly that Peter
fell with a thump to the floor. He looked up at her, puzzled, his jaws
half agape. She was breathing quickly. Her slender body was quivering.
Suddenly Peter saw the fire in her eyes and the flame that was rushing
into her white cheeks. Then she turned to him, and panted in a wild
little whisper, so low that t