nge country is. But when I came to it gold and silver clouds shut it
in, and I could see nothing, and yet out of it came the singing of birds
and the promise of sweet voices that it shall be found--if you seek
faithfully, Neekewa. I am glad."

Each word that she spoke in her soft and tremulous Cree was a new
message of hope in the empty heart of Jolly Roger McKay. The world might
laugh. Men might tap their heads and smile. His own voice might argue
and taunt. But deep in his heart he believed.

Something of the radiance of the new day came into his face, even as it
was returning into Yellow Bird's. He looked about him--east, west, north
and south--upon the sunlit glory of water and earth, and suddenly he
reached out his arms.

"I'll find it, Yellow Bird," he cried. "I'll find this place you call
the Country Beyond! And when I do--"

He turned and took one of Yellow Bird's slim hands in both his own.

"And when I do, we'll come back to you, Yellow Bird," he said.

And like a cavalier of old he touched his lips gently to the palm of
Yellow Bird's little brown hand.

CHAPTER XI

Days of new hope and gladness followed in the camp of Yellow Bird and
Slim Buck. It was as if McKay, after a long absence, had come back to
his own people. The tenderness of mother and sister lay warm in Yellow
Bird's breast. Slim Buck loved him as a brother. The wrinkled faces of
the old softened when he came near and spoke to them; little children
followed him, and at dusk and dawn Sun Cloud held up her mouth to be
kissed. For the first time in years McKay felt as if he had found home.
The northland Indian Summer held the world in its drowsy arms, and
the sun-filled days and the starry nights seemed overflowing with the
promise of all time. Each day he put off his going until tomorrow, and
each day Slim Buck urged him to remain with them always.

But in Yellow Bird's eyes was a strange, quiet mystery, and she did not
urge. Each day and night she was watching--and waiting.

And at last that for which she watched and waited came to pass.

It was night, a dark, still night with a creeping restlessness in it.
This restlessness was like the ghostly pulse of a great living body,
still for a time, then moving, hiding, whispering between the clouds in
the sky and the deeper shadowed earth below. A night of uneasiness, of
unseen forces chained and stifled, of impending doubt and oppressive
lifelessness.

There was no wind, yet under th