lowly into clenched fists, and
he looked out quietly and steadily into his world. The darkening depths
of the forest reached out before his eyes, mottled and painted in the
fading glory of the sun. It was his world, his everything--father,
mother, God. In it he was born, and in it he knew that some day he
would die. He loved it, understood it, and night and day, in sunshine
and storm, its mighty spirit was the spirit that kept him company. But
it held no message for him now. And his ears scarcely heard the raucous
scolding of the blue-jay in the fire-tipped crest of the tall black
spruce.

And then that something which was bigger than desire came up within
him, and forced itself in words between his grimly set lips.

"She's only a--a kid," he said, a fierce, low note of defiance in his
voice. "And I--I'm a damned pirate, and there's jails waiting for me,
and they'll get me sooner or later, sure as God lets me live!"

He turned from the sun to his shadowing cabin, and for a moment a ghost
of a smile played in his face as he heard the little mother-mouse
rustling among her papers.

"We can't do it," he said. "We simply can't do it, Mrs. Captain Kidd.
She's had hell enough without me taking her into another. And it'd be
that, sooner or later. It sure would, Mrs. Captain Kidd. But I'm glad,
mighty glad, to think she'd let me kiss her--if I wanted to. Think of
that, Mrs. Captain Kidd!--if I wanted to. Oh, Lord!"

And the humor of it crept in alongside the tragedy in Jolly Roger's
heart, and he chuckled as he bent over his partridge breasts.

"If I wanted to," he repeated. "Why, if I had a life to give, I'd give
it--to kiss her just once! But, as it happens, Mrs. Captain Kidd--"

Jolly Roger's breath cut itself suddenly short, and for an instant he
grew tense as he bent over the stove. His philosophy had taught him one
thing above all others, that he was a survival of the fittest--only so
long as he survived. And he was always guarding against the end. His
brain was keen, his ears quick, and every fibre in him trained to its
duty of watchfulness. And he knew, without turning his head, that
someone was standing in the doorway behind him. There had come a faint
noise, a shadowing of the fading sun-glow on the wall, the electrical
disturbance of another presence, gazing at him quietly, without motion,
and without sound. After that first telegraphic shock of warning he
stabbed his fork into a partridge breast, flopped it o