t out over the rocks, his boots making hollow sounds in the
deadness of the world about them. Again he followed where once had been
the trail that led to Mooney's shack, over on the wobbly line of rail
that rambled for eighty miles into the wilderness from Fort William.
The P. D. & W. it was named--Port Arthur, Duluth & Western; but it had
never reached Duluth, and there were those who had nicknamed it
Poverty, Destruction & Want. Many times Jolly Roger had laughed at the
queer stories Nada told him about it; how a wrecking outfit was always
carried behind on the twice-a-week train, and how the crew picked
berries in season, and had their trapping lines, and once chased a bear
half way to Whitefish Lake while the train waited for hours. She called
it the "Cannon Ball," because once upon a time it had made sixty-nine
miles in twenty-four hours. But there was nothing of humor about it as
Jolly Roger and Peter came out upon it tonight. It stretched out both
ways from them, a thin, grim line of tragedy in the moonlight, and from
where they stood it appeared to reach into a black and abysmal sea.

Once more man and dog paused, and looked back at what had been. And the
whine came in Peter's throat again and something tugged inside him,
urging him to bark up into the face of the moon, as he had often barked
for Nada in the days of his puppyhood, and afterward.

But his master went on and Peter followed him, stepping the uneven ties
one by one. And with the black chaos of the world under and about them,
and the glorious light of the moon filling; the sky over their heads,
the journey they made seemed weirdly unreal. For the silver and gold of
the moon and the black muck of the fire refused to mingle, and while
over their heads they could see the tiniest clouds and beyond to the
farthest stars, all was black emptiness when they looked about them
upon what once had been a living earth. Only the two lines of steel
caught the moon-glow and the charred ends of the fire-shriven stubs
that rose up out of the earth shroud and silhouetted themselves against
the sky.

To Peter it was not what he failed to see, but what he did not hear or
smell that oppressed him and stirred him to wide-eyed watchfulness
against impending evil. Under many moons he had traveled with his
master in their never-ending flight from the law, and many other nights
with neither moon nor stars had they felt out their trails together.
But always, under him and ove