into it. And a wild and
terrible yell came from Jed Hawkins as he loosed the girl's hair. Peter
heard the yell, and his teeth sank deeper in the flesh of the first
thing he had ever hated. It was the girl, more than Peter, who realized
the horror of what followed. The man bent down and his powerful fingers
closed round Peter's scrawny neck, and Peter felt his wind suddenly shut
off, and his mouth opened. Then Jed Hawkins drew back the arm that held
him, as he would have drawn it back to fling a stone.

With a scream the girl tore at him as his arm straightened out, and
Peter went hurtling through the air. Her stick struck him fiercely
across the face, and in that same moment there was a sickening, crushing
thud as Peter's loosely-jointed little body struck against the face of
the great rock. When Nada turned Peter was groveling in the sand, his
hips and back broken down, but his bright eyes were on her, and without
a whimper or a whine he was struggling to drag himself toward her. Only
Jolly Roger could tell the story of how Peter's mother had died for a
woman, and in this moment it must have been that her spirit entered into
Peter's soul, for the pain of his terrible hurt was forgotten in his
desire to drag himself back to the feet of the girl, and die facing her
enemy--the man. He did not know that he was dragging his broken body
only an inch at a time through the sand. But the girl saw the terrible
truth, and with a cry of agony which all of Hawkin's torture could
not have wrung from her she ran to him, and fell upon her knees, and
gathered him tenderly in her arms. Then, in a flash, she was on her
feet, facing Jed Hawkins like a little demon.

"For that--I'll kill you!" she panted. "I will. I'll kill you!"

The blow of her stick had half blinded the bootlegger's one eye, but he
was coming toward her. Swift as a bird Nada turned and ran, and as the
man's footsteps crunched in the gravel and rock behind her a wild fear
possessed her--fear for Peter, and not for herself. Very soon Hawkins
was left behind, cursing at the futility of the pursuit, and at the fate
that had robbed him of an eye.

Down the coulee and out into the green meadowland of the plain ran Nada,
her hair streaming brightly in the sun, her arms clutching Peter to her
breast. Peter was whimpering now, crying softly and piteously, just as
once upon a time she had heard a baby cry--a little baby that was dying.
And her soul cried out in agony, for she