ide. For
barely an instant he paused, picking up the fresh scent of Nada and
Jolly Roger. It was easy to follow--straight to the pool, and from the
pool twenty paces down-stream, where a little finger of sand and
pebbles had been formed by the eddies. In this bar was fresh imprint of
the canoe, and here the footprints ended.

Peter whimpered, peering into the tunnel of darkness between forest
trees, where the water rippled and gurgled softly on its way into a
deeper and more tangled wilderness. He waded belly-deep into the
current, half determined to swim; and then he waited, listening
intently, but could hear no sound of voice or paddle stroke.

Yet he knew Jolly Roger and Nada could not be far away.

He returned to the edge of the pool, and began sniffing his way
down-stream, pausing every two or three minutes to listen. Now and then
he caught the presence of those he sought, in the air, but those
intervals in which he stopped to catch sound of voice or paddle lost
him time, so the canoe was traveling faster than Peter.

Half way between himself and the bow of that canoe McKay could dimly
make out Nada's pale face in the star glow that filtered like a mist
through the tops of the close-hanging trees.

Scarcely above his breath he laughed in joyous confidence.

"At last my dream is coming true, Nada," he whispered. "You are mine.
And we are going into another world. And no one will ever find us
there--no one but Father John, when we send him word. You are not
afraid?"

Her voice trembled a little in the gloom.

"No, I am not afraid. But it is dark--so dark--"

"The moon will be with us again in a few nights--your moon, with the
Old Man smiling down on us. I know how the Man in the Moon must feel
when he's on the other side of the world, and can't see you, Nada."

Her silence made him lean toward her, striving to get a better view of
her face where the starlight broke through an opening in the tree-tops.

And in that moment he heard a little breath that was almost a sob.

"It's Peter," she said, before he could speak. "Oh, Roger, why didn't
we bring Peter?"

"Possibly--we should have," he replied, skipping a stroke with his
paddle. "But I think we have done the best thing for Peter. He is a
wilderness dog, and has never known anything different. Over there,
where we are going--"

"I understand. And some day, Father John will bring him?"

"Yes. He has promised that. Peter will come to us when Father Joh