y passed over the meadow where the thick
young jackpines, the red strawberries and the blue violets had been and
Peter heard the strange sob when they came to the little hollow--the
old trysting place where Nada had first given herself into his master's
arms. And there it was that Peter forgot master and caution and sped
swiftly ahead to the break that cut the Ridge in twain.

When Jolly Roger came to that break and ran through it he was
staggering from the mad effort he had made. And then, all at once, the
last of his wind came in a cry of gladness. He swayed against a rock
and stood there staring wild-eyed at what was before him. The world was
as black ahead of him as it was behind. But Jed Hawkins' cabin was
untouched! The fire had crept up to its very door and there it had died.

He went on the remaining hundred yards and before the closed door of
Nada's old home he found Peter standing stiff-legged and strange. He
opened the door and a damp chill touched his face. The cabin was empty.
And the gloom and desolation of a grave filled the place.

He stepped in, a moaning whisper of the truth coming to his lips. He
heard the scurrying flight of a starved wood-rat, a flutter of loose
papers, and then the silence of death fell about him. The door of
Nada's little room was open and he entered through it. The bed was
naked and there remained only the skeleton of things that had been.

He moved now like a man numbed by a strange sickness and Peter followed
gloomily and silently in the footsteps of his master. They went outside
and a distance away Jolly Roger saw a thing rising up out of the char
of fire, ugly and foreboding, like the evil spirit of desolation
itself. It was a rude cross made of saplings, up which the flames had
licked their way, searing it grim and black.

His hands clenched slowly for he knew that under the cross lay the body
of Jed Hawkins, the fiend who had destroyed his world.

After that he re-entered the cabin and went into Nada's room, closing
the door behind him; and for many minutes thereafter Peter remained
outside guarding the outer door, and hearing no sound or movement from
within.

When Jolly Roger came out his face was set and white, and he looked
where the thick forest had stood on that stormy night when he ran down
the trail toward Mooney's cabin. There was no forest now. But he found
the old tie-cutters' road, cluttered as it was with the debris of fire,
and he knew when he came to t