s the eye could reach no movement of human life
appeared on the quiet surface of Wollaston. Not until that hazy hour
between sunset and dusk did he build a fire and cook a meal from the
supplies in Cassidy's pack, for he knew smoke could be discerned much
farther than a canoe. Yet even as he observed this caution he was
confident there was no longer any danger in returning to Yellow Bird
and her people.

"You see, _Pied-Bot_," he said, discussing the matter with Peter, while
he smoked a pipeful of tobacco in the early evening, "Cassidy thinks
we're on our way north, as fast as we can go. He'll hit for the upper
end of the Lake and the Black River waterway, and keep right on into
the Porcupine country. It's a big country up there, and we've always
taken plenty of space for our travels. Shall we go back to Yellow Bird,
Peter? And Sun Cloud?"

Peter tried to answer, and thumped his tail, but even as he asked the
questions there was a doubt growing in Jolly Roger's mind. He wanted to
go back, and as darkness gathered about him he was urged by a great
loneliness. Only Yellow Bird grieved with him in his loss of Nada, and
understood how empty life had become for him. She had, in a way, become
a part of Nada; her presence raised him out of despair, her voice gave
him hope, her unconquerable spirit--fighting for his
happiness--inspired him until he saw light where there had been only
darkness. The impelling desire to return to her brought him to his feet
and down to the pebbly shore of the lake, where the water rippled
softly in the thickening gloom. But a still more powerful force held
him back, and he went to his blankets, spread over a thick couch of
balsam boughs. For hours his eyes were wide open and sleepless.

He no longer thought of Cassidy, but of Yellow Bird. Doubt--a
charitable inclination to half believe--gave way in him to a conviction
which he could not fight down. More than once in his years of
wilderness life strange facts had compelled him to give some credence
to the power of the Indian conjurer. Belief in the mastery of the mind
was part of his faith in nature. It had come to him from his mother,
who had lived and died in the strength of her creed.

"Think hard, and with faith, if you want anything to come true," she
had told him. And this was also Yellow Bird's creed. Was it possible
she had told him the truth? Had her mind actually communed with the
mind of Nada? Had she, through the sheer force of her