ew Nada down beside him in a little fen, white and
yellow and blue with wildflowers, and boldly took her head in his arms
and kissed her--with Yellow Bird looking at them from behind a banksian
clump twenty feet away. So real was the kiss, and so real the warm
pressure of Nada's slim arms about his neck that he awoke with a glad
cry--and sat up to find the dawn had come.

For a few moments he sat stupidly, looking about him as if not quite
believing the unreality of it all. Then with Peter he went down to the
edge of the lake.

All that day Peter sensed a quiet change in his master. Jolly Roger did
not talk. He did not whistle or laugh, but moved quietly when he moved
at all, with a set, strange look in his face. He was making his last
big fight against the desire to return to Cragg's Ridge. Yellow Bird's
predictions, and her warning, had no influence with him now. He was
thinking of Nada alone. She was back there, waiting for him, praying
for his return, ready and happy to become a fugitive with him--to
accept her chances of life or death, of happiness or grief, in his
company. A dozen times the determination to return for her almost won.
But each time came the other picture--a vision of ceaseless flight, of
hiding, of hunger and cold and never ending hardship, and at the last,
inevitable as the dawning of another day--prison, and possibly the
hangman.

Not until late that afternoon did Peter see the old Jolly Roger in the
face of his master. And Jolly Roger said:

"We've made up our mind, _Pied-Bot_. We can't go back. We'll hit north
and spend the winter along the edge of the Barren Lands. It's the
biggest country I know of, and if Cassidy comes--"

He shrugged his shoulders grimly.

In half an hour they had started, with the sun beginning to sink in the
west.

For two days Jolly Roger and Peter paddled their way slowly up the
eastern shore of Wollaston. That he had correctly analyzed the mental
arguments which would guide Cassidy in his pursuit Jolly Roger had
little doubt. He would keep to the west shore, and up through the
Hatchet Lake and Black River waterways, as his quarry had never failed
to hit straight for the farther north in time of peril. Meanwhile Jolly
Roger had decided to make his way without haste up the east shore of
Wollaston, and paddle north and east through the Du Brochet and
Thiewiaza River waterways. If these courses were followed, each hour
would add to the distance between them, and