sts
of yesterday, slunk into a corner and lay there unmoving and still.
And McKay did not get supper nor did he smoke, but after a long time he
carried his blankets into Nada's room, and spread them out upon her bed.
Then he put out the light and quietly laid himself down where through
the nights of many a month and year Nada had slept in the moon glow.

The moon was there tonight. The faint glow of it rose in the east and
swiftly it climbed over the ragged shoulder of Cragg's Ridge, flooding
the blackened world with light and filling the room with a soft and
golden radiance. It was a moon undimmed, full and round and yellow; and
it seemed to smile in through the window as if some living spirit in it
had not yet missed Nada, and was embracing her in its glory. And now it
came upon Jolly Roger why she had loved it even more than she had loved
the sun; for through the little window it shut out all the rest of the
world, and sitting up, he seemed to hear her heart beating at his
side and clearly he saw her face in the light of it and her slim arms
out-reaching, as if to gather it to her breast. Thus--many times, she
had told him--had she sat up in her bed to greet the moon and to look
for the smiling face that was almost always there, the face of the Man
in the Moon, her friend and playmate in the sky.

For a space his heart leapt up; and then, as if discovery of the usurper
in her room had come, a cloud swept over the face of the moon like a
mighty hand and darkness crowded him in. But the cloud sailed on and the
light drove out the gloom again. Then it was that Jolly Roger saw the
Old Man in the Moon was up and awake tonight, for never had he seen his
face more clearly. Often had Nada pointed it out to him in her adorable
faith that the Old Man loved her, telling him how this feature changed
and that feature changed, how sometimes the Old Man looked sick and at
others well, and how there were times when he smiled and was happy and
other times when he was sad and stern and sat there in his castle in the
sky sunk in a mysterious grief which she could not understand.

"And always I can tell whether I'm going to be glad or sorry by the look
of the Man in the Moon," she had said to him. "He looks down and tells
me even when the clouds are thick and he can only peep through now and
then. And he knows a lot about you, Mister--Jolly Roger--because I've
told him everything."

Very quietly Jolly Roger got up from the bed and ve