d not let McKay take her place at Cassidy's side. The third day she
started him off for a post sixty miles away to get a fresh supply of
bandages and medicines.

It was evening, three days later, when Jolly Roger and Peter returned.
The windows of the cabin were brightly lighted, and McKay came up to one
of these windows and looked in. Cassidy was bolstered up in his cot.
He was very much alive, and on the floor at his side, sitting on a
bear rug, was the girl. A lump rose in Jolly Roger's throat. Quietly he
placed the bundle which he had brought from the post close up against
the door, and knocked. When Giselle opened it he had disappeared into
darkness, with Peter at his heels.

The next morning he found old Robert and said to him:

"I'm restless, and I'm going to move a little. I'll be back in two
weeks. Tell Cassidy that, will you?"

Ten minutes later he was paddling up the shore of Wollaston, and for a
week thereafter he haunted the creeks and inlets, always on the move.
Peter saw him growing thinner each day. There was less and less of cheer
in his voice, seldom a smile on his lips, and never did his laugh ring
out as of old. Peter tried to understand, and Jolly Roger talked to him,
but not in the old happy way.

"We might have finished him, an' got rid of him for good," he said to
Peter one chilly night beside their campfire. "But we couldn't, just
like we couldn't have brought Nada up here with us. And we're going
back. I'm going to keep that promise. We're going back, Peter, if we
hang for it!"

And Jolly Roger's jaw would set grimly as he measured the time between.

The tenth day came and he set out for the mouth of the Canoe River. On
the afternoon of the twelfth he paddled slowly into Limping Moose
Creek. Without any reason he looked at his watch when he started for
old Robert's cabin. It was four o'clock. He was two days ahead of his
promise, and there was a bit of satisfaction in that. There was an
odd thumping at his heart. He had faith in Cassidy, a belief that the
Irishman would call their affair a draw, and tell him to take another
chance in the big open. He was the sort of man to live up to the letter
of a wager, when it was honestly made. But, if he didn't--

Jolly Roger paused long enough to take the cartridges from his gun.
There would be no more shooting'--on his part.

The mellow autumn sun was flooding the open door of the cabin when he
came up. He heard laughter. It was Giselle. She w