d and sleet.
Through this shell he cut a small door with his knife, and after that
dug out the soft snow from within until he had a room half as big as
his cabin, and so snug and warm after a little with the body heat of
himself and Peter that he could throw off the thick coat which he wore.

To Peter, in the first night of this storm, it seemed as though all the
people in the world were shrieking and wailing and sobbing in the
blackness outside. Jolly Roger sat smoking his pipe at intervals in the
gloom, though there was little pleasure in smoking a pipe in darkness.
The storm did not oppress him, but filled him with an odd sense of
security and comfort. The wind shrieked and lashed itself about his
snow-dune, but it could not get at him. Its mightiest efforts to
destroy only beat more snow upon him, and made him safer and warmer. In
a way, there was something of humor as well as tragedy in its wild
frenzy, and Peter heard him laugh softly in the darkness. More and more
frequently he had heard that laugh since those warm days of autumn when
they had last met the red-headed man, Terence Cassidy, of the Royal
Northwest Mounted Police, and his master had shot him on the white
shore of Wollaston.

"You see," said McKay, caressing Peter's hairy neck in the gloom.
"Everything is turning out right for us, and I'm beginning to believe
more and more what Yellow Bird told us, and that in the end we're going
to be happy--somewhere--with Nada. What do you think, _Pied-Bot_? Shall
we take a chance, and go back to Cragg's Ridge in the spring?"

Peter wriggled himself in answer, as a wild shriek of wind wailed over
the huge snow-dune.

Jolly Roger's fingers tightened at Peter's neck.

"Well, we're going," he said, as though he was telling Peter something
new. "I'm believing Yellow Bird, _Pied-Bot_. I'm believing her--now. What
she told us was more than fortune-telling. It wasn't just Indian
sorcery. When she shut herself up and starved for those three days and
nights in her little conjurer's house, just for you and me--SOMETHING
HAPPENED. Didn't it? Wouldn't you say something happened?"

Peter swallowed and his teeth clicked as he gave evidence of
understanding.

"She told us a lot of truth," went on Jolly Roger, with deep faith in
his voice "And we must believe, _Pied-Bot_. She told us Cassidy was
coming after us, and he came. She said the spirits promised her the law
would never get us, and we thought it looked bad when Cas