and suddenly
her eyes swept from him out into the night.

"Listen, Neekewa!"

Her fingers tightened in his hand. For a space he could hear the
beating of her heart.

"Twice I have heard it," she whispered then. "Neekewa, you must go!"

"Heard what?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Something--I don't know what. But it tells me there is danger. And I
saw danger over the tepee top, and I have heard whisperings of it all
about me. It is coming. It is coming slowly and cautiously. It is very
near. Hark, Neekewa! Was that not a sound out on the water?"

"I think it was the wing of a duck, Yellow Bird."

"And _that_!" she cried swiftly, her fingers tightening still more. "That
sound--as if wood strikes on wood!"

"The croak of a loon far up the shore, Yellow Bird."

She drew her hand away.

"Neekewa, listen to me," she importuned him in Cree. "The spirits have
made this night heavy with warning. I could not sleep. Sun Cloud
twitches and moans. Slim Buck whispers to himself. You were crying out
the name of Nada--Oo-Mee the Pigeon--when I came to you. I know. It is
danger. It is very near. And it is danger for you."

"And only a short time ago you were confident happiness and peace were
coming to me, Yellow Bird," reminded Jolly Roger. "The spirits, you
said, promised the law should never get me, and I would find Nada again
in that strange place you called the Country Beyond. Have the spirits
changed their message, because the night is heavy?"

Yellow Bird's eyes were staring into darkness.

"No, they have not changed," she whispered. "They have spoken the
truth. They want to tell me more, but for some reason it is impossible.
They have tried to tell me where lies this place they call the Country
Beyond--where you will again find Oo-Mee the Pigeon. But a cloud always
comes between. And they are trying to tell me what the danger is off
there--in the darkness." Suddenly she caught his arm. "Nee-kewa, _did
you hear_?"

"A fish leaping in the still water, Yellow Bird."

He heard a low whimper in Peter's throat, and looking down he saw
Peter's muzzle pointing toward the thick cloud of gloom over the lake.

"What is it, _Pied-Bot_?" he asked.

Peter whimpered again.

Jolly Roger touched the cold hand that rested on his arm.

"Go back to your bed, Yellow Bird. There is only one danger for me--the
red-coated police. And they do not travel in the dark hours of a night
like this."

"They are coming," she repli