des his whiskey. I'll--I'll put him
in jail, if I die for it!"

The woman's bony hands clutched at one of Nada's.

"No, no, you mustn't do that," she pleaded. "He was good to me once,
a long time ago, Nada. It ain't Jed that's bad--it's the whiskey. You
mustn't tell on him, Nada--you mustn't!"

"I've promised you I won't--if he don't hit you any more. He kin shake
me by the hair if he wants to. But if he hits you--"

She drew a deep breath, and also passed around the end of the cabin.

For a few moments Peter listened. Then he slipped back through the
tunnel he had made under the wood-vine, and saw Nada walking swiftly
toward the break in the ridge. He followed, so quietly that she was
through the break, and was picking her way among the tumbled masses
of rock along the farther foot of the ridge, before she discovered his
presence. With a glad cry she caught him up in her arms and hugged him
against her breast.

"Peter, Peter, where have you been?" she demanded. "I thought something
had happened to you, and I've been huntin' for you, and so has Roger--I
mean Mister Jolly Roger."

Peter was hugged tighter, and he hung limply until his mistress came
to a thick little clump of dwarf balsams hidden among the rocks. It
was their "secret place," and Peter had come to sense the fact that its
mystery was not to be disclosed. Here Nada had made her little bower,
and she sat down now upon a thick rug of balsam boughs, and held Peter
out in front of her, squatted on his haunches. A new light had come into
her eyes, and they were shining like stars. There was a flush in her
cheeks, her red lips were parted, and Peter, looking up--and being
just dog--could scarcely measure the beauty of her. But he knew that
something had happened, and he tried hard to understand.

"Peter, he was here ag'in today--Mister Roger--Mister Jolly Roger," she
cried softly, the pink in her cheeks growing brighter. "And he told me I
was pretty!"

She drew a deep breath, and looked out over the rocks to the valley and
the black forest beyond. And her fingers, under Peter's scrawny armpits,
tightened until he grunted.

"And he asked me if he could touch my hair--mind you he asked me that,
Peter!--And when I said 'yes' he just put his hand on it, as if he was
afraid, and he said it was beautiful, and that I must take wonderful
care of it!"

Peter saw a throbbing in her throat.

"Peter--he said he didn't want to do anything wrong to me, that he'd