was dead--or
dying, and for a moment he saw only the big staring eyes of the girl as
the gray-bearded man helped him with his burden. Not until the Irishman
was on a cot in the cabin did he discover how childishly weak he had
become and what a terrific struggle he had made with the weight on
his shoulders. He sank into a chair, while the old trapper worked over
Cassidy.

He heard the girl call him grandfather. She was no longer frightened,
and she moved like a swift bird about the cabin, getting water and
bandages and pillows, and the sight of fresh blood and of Cassidy's
dead-white face brought a glow of tenderness into her eyes. McKay,
sitting dumbly, saw that her hands were doing twice the work his own
could have accomplished, and not until he heard a low moan from the
wounded man did he come to her side.

"The bullet went through clean as a whistle," the old man said. "Lucky
you don't use soft nosed bullets, friend."

A deep sigh came from Cassidy's lips. His eyelids fluttered, and then
slowly his eyes opened. The girl was bending over him, and Cassidy saw
only her face, and the brown sheen of her hair.

"He'll live?" Jolly Roger said tremulously.

The older man remained mute. It was Cassidy, turning his head a little,
who answered weakly.

"Don't worry, McKay. I'll--live."

Jolly Roger bent over the cot, between Cassidy and the girl. Gently he
took one of the wounded man's hands in both his own.

"I'm sorry, old man," he whispered. "You won, fair and square. And I
won't go far away. I'll be waiting for you when you get on your feet. I
promise that. I'll wait."

A wan smile came over Cassidy's lips, and then he moaned again, and his
eyes closed. The girl thrust Jolly Roger back.

"No--you better not go far, an' you better wait," she said, and there
was an unspoken thing in the dark glow of her eyes that made him think
of Nada on that day when she told him how Jed Hawkins had struck her in
the cabin at Cragg's Ridge.

That night Jolly Roger made his camp close to the mouth of the Limping
Moose. And for three days thereafter his trail led only between this
camp and the cabin of old Robert Baron and his granddaughter, Giselle.
All this time Cassidy was telling things in a fever. He talked a great
deal about Jolly Roger. And the girl, nursing him night and day, with
scarcely a wink of sleep between, came to believe they had been great
comrades, and had been inseparable for a long time. Even then she
woul