t we might live. If they remember those things, and lie, I would not
be afraid to curse them. But they do not lie."

Jolly Roger McKay did not answer. Deep down in him that strange
something was at work again, compelling him to believe Yellow Bird. She
did not look at him, but in her low Cree voice, soft as the mellow notes
of a bird, she was saying:

"You will be going very soon, Neekewa, and I shall not see you again for
a long time. Do not forget what I have told you. And you must believe.
Somewhere there is this place called the Country Beyond. The spirits
have said so. And it is there you will find your Oo-Mee the Pigeon--and
happiness. But if you go back to the place where you left The Pigeon
when you fled from the red-coated men of the law, you will find only
blackness and desolation. Believe, and you shall be guided. If you
disbelieve--"

She stopped.

"You heard that, Neekewa? It was not the wing of a duck, nor was it the
croak of a loon far up the shore, or a fish leaping in the still water.
IT WAS A PADDLE!"

In the star-gloom Jolly Roger McKay bowed his head, and listened.

"Yes, a paddle," he said, and his voice sounded strange to him.
"Probably it is one of your people returning to camp, Yellow Bird."

She turned toward him, and stood very near. Her hands reached out to
him. Her hair and eyes were filled with the velvety glow of the stars,
and for an instant he saw the tremble of her parted lips.

"Goodby, Neekewa," she whispered.

And then, without letting her hands touch him, she was gone. Swiftly she
ran to Slim Buck's tepee, and entered, and very soon she came out again
with Slim Buck beside her. Jolly Roger did not move, but watched as
Yellow Bird and her husband went down to the edge of the lake, and
stood there, waiting for the strange canoe to pass--or come in. It
was approaching. Slowly it came up, an indistinct shadow at first, but
growing clearer, until at last he could see the silhouette of it against
the star-silvered water beyond. There were two people in it. Before the
canoe reached the shore Slim Buck stood out knee-deep in the water and
hailed it.

A voice answered. And at the sound of that voice McKay dropped like
a shot beside Peter, and Peter's lips curled up, and he snarled. His
master's hand warned him, and together they slipped back into the
shadows, and from under a piece of canvas Jolly Roger dragged forth his
pack, and quietly strapped it over his shoulders while he wa