uth and west and
the sun was warmer and clearer than Boileau had ever known it at the
winter's end in Lost Lake country. It was in this first week of April
that Peter was able to travel, and McKay pointed his trail once more
for Cragg's Ridge.

He left a part of his winter dunnage at Boileau's shack and went on
light, figuring to reach Cragg's Ridge before the new "goose moon" had
worn itself out in the west. But for a week Peter lagged and until the
darker red in the rims of his eyes cleared away Jolly Roger checked the
impetus of his travel so that the goose moon had faded out and the
"frog moon" of May was in its full before they came down the last slope
that dipped from the Height of Land to the forests and lakes of the
lower country.

And now, in these days, it seemed to Jolly Roger that a great kindness,
and not tragedy, had delayed him so that his "home coming" was in the
gladness of spring. All about him was the sweetness and mystic
whispering of new life just awakening. It was in the sky and the sun;
it was underfoot, in the fragrance of the mold he trod upon, in the
trees about him, and in the mate-chirping of the birds flocking back
from the southland. His friends the jays were raucous and jaunty again,
bullying and bluffing in the warmth of sunshine; the black glint of
crows' wings flashed across the opens; the wood-sappers and pewees and
big-eyed moose-birds were aflutter with the excitement of home
planning; partridges were feasting on the swelling poplar buds--and
then, one glorious sunset, he heard the chirruping evening song of his
first robin.

And the next day they would reach Cragg's Ridge!

Half of that last night he sat up, awake, or smoked in the glow of his
fire, waiting for the dawn. With the first lifting of darkness he was
traveling swiftly ahead of Peter and the morning was only half gone
when he saw far ahead of him the great ridge which shut out Indian
Tom's swamp, and Nada's plain, and Cragg's Ridge beyond it.

It was noon when he stood at the crest of this. He was breathing hard,
for to reach this last precious height from which he might look upon
the country of Nada's home he had half run up its rock-strewn side.
There, with his lungs gasping for air, his eager eyes shot over the
country below him and for a moment the significance of the thing which
he saw did not strike him. And then in another instant it seemed that
his heart choked up, like a fist suddenly tightened, and stopped