sidy had us
covered with his gun on the shore at Wollaston. But something more than
luck was with us, and we shot him. Then we brought him back to life and
lugged him to a cabin, and the little stranger girl took him, and
nursed him, and Cassidy fell in love with her--and married her. So
Yellow Bird was right again, _Pied-Bot_. We've got to believe her. And
she says everything is coming out right for us, and that we are going
back to Nada, and be happy--"

Jolly Roger's pipe-bowl glowed in the blackness.

"I'm going to light the alcohol lamp," he said. "We can't sleep. And I
want a good smoke. It isn't fun when you can't see the smoke. Too bad
God forgot to make you so you could use a pipe, Peter. You don't know
what you are missing--in times like these."

He fumbled in his pack and found the alcohol lamp, which was fresh
filled and screwed tight. Peter heard him working for a moment in the
darkness. Then he struck a match, and the yellow flare of it lighted up
his face. In his joy Peter whined. It was good to see his master. And
then, in another moment, the little lamp was filling their white-walled
refuge with a mellow glow. Jolly Roger's eyes, coming suddenly out of
darkness, were wide and staring. His face was covered with a scrub
beard. But there was something of cheer about him even in this night of
terror outside, and when he had driven his snowshoe into the snow wall,
and had placed the lamp on it, he grinned companionably at Peter.

Then, with a deep breath of satisfaction, he puffed out clouds of smoke
from his pipe, and stood up to look about their room.

"Not so bad, is it?" he asked. "We could have a big house here if we
wanted to dig out rooms--eh, Peter? Parlors, and bed-rooms, and a
library--and not a policeman within a million miles of us. That's the
nice part of it, _Pied-Bot_--none of the Royal Mounties to trouble us.
They would never think of looking for us in the heart of a big
snow-dune out in this God-forsaken barren, would they?"

The thought was a pleasing one to Jolly Roger. He spread out his
blankets on the snow floor, and sat down on them, facing Peter.

"We've got 'em beat," he said, a chuckling note of pride in his voice.
"The world is small when it comes to hiding, _Pied-Bot_, but all the
people in it couldn't find us here--not in a million years. If we could
only find a place as safe as this--where a girl could live--and had
Nada with us--"

Many times during the past few weeks P