illimitable
faith, projected her subconscious self into the future that she might
show him the way? His eyes were staring, his ears unhearing, as he
thought of the proof which Yellow Bird had given to him. A few hours
ago she had brought him warning of impending danger. There had been no
hesitation and no doubt. She had come to him unequivocal and sure.
Without seeing, without hearing, she knew Cassidy was stealing upon him
through the night.

In the darkness Jolly Roger sat up, his heart beating fast. Without
effort, and with no thought of the necessity of proof, Yellow Bird had
given him a test of her power. It had been a spontaneous and unstaged
thing, a woman's heart reaching out for him--as she had promised that
it would. And yet, even as the simplicity and truth of it pressed upon
him, doubt followed with its questions. If, after this, Yellow Bird had
told him to return to Nada as swiftly as he could, he would have
believed, and this night would have seen him on his way. But she had
warned him against this, predicting desolation and grief if he
returned. She had urged him to go on, somewhere, anywhere, seeking for
an illusion and an unreality which the spirits had named, to her as the
Country Beyond. And when he reached this Country Beyond, wherever it
might be, he would possess Nada again, and happiness for all time.
After all, there was something archaically crude in what he was trying
to believe, when he came to analyze it. Yellow Bird possessed her
powers, but they were definitely limited. And to believe beyond those
limitations, to ride upon the wings of superstition and imagination,
was sheer savagery.

Jolly Roger stretched himself upon his blankets again, repeating this
final argument to himself. But as the night drew closer about him, and
his eyes closed, and sleep came, there was a lightness in his heart
which he had not known for many days. He dreamed, and his dream was of
Nada. He was with her again and it seemed, in this dream, that Yellow
Bird was always watching them, and they could not quite get away from
her. They ran through the jackpine openings where the strawberries and
blue violets grew, and he always ran behind Nada, so he could see her
brown curls flying about her.

But they never could rid themselves of Yellow Bird, no matter how fast
they ran or where they tried to hide. From somewhere Yellow Bird's dark
eyes would look out at them, and finally, laughing at his own
discomfiture, he dr