ghter.

Half an hour ago he believed that he had definitely made up his mind.
He had forced himself into forgetfulness of laws he had broken, and the
scarlet-coated men who were ever on the watch for his trail. They would
never seek him here, in the wilderness country close to the edge of
civilization, and time, he had told himself in that moment of optimism,
would blot out both his identity and his danger. Tomorrow he would go
over to Cragg's Ridge again, and then--

His mind was crowded with a vision of blue eyes, of brown curls glowing
in the pale sun, of a wistful, wide-eyed little face turned up to him,
and red lips that said falteringly, "I don't think it's wrong for you to
kiss me--if you want to, Mister Jolly Roger!"

Boldly he had talked about it to the bright-eyed little mother-mouse who
peered at him now and then over the edge of her box.

"You're a little devil of iniquity yourself," he told her. "You're a
regular Mrs. Captain Kidd, and you've eaten my cheese, and chawed my
snowshoe laces, and robbed me of a sock to make your nest. I ought
to catch you in a trap, or blow your head off. But I don't. I let you
live--and have a fam'ly. And it's you who have given me the Big Idea,
Mrs. Captain Kidd. You sure have! You've told me I've got a right to
have a nest of my own, and I'm going to have it--an' in that nest is
going to be the sweetest, prettiest little angel that God Almighty ever
forgot to make into a flower! Yessir. And if the law comes--"

And then, suddenly, the vision clouded, and there came into Jolly
Roger's face the look of a man who knew--when he stood the truth out
naked--that he was facing a world with his back to the wall.

And now, as the sun went down, and his supper waited--that cloud which
came to blot out his picture grew deeper and more sinister, and the
chill of it entered his heart. He turned from his table to the open
door, and his fingers drew themselves slowly into clenched fists, and he
looked out quietly and steadily into his world. The darkening depths
of the forest reached out before his eyes, mottled and painted in the
fading glory of the sun. It was his world, his everything--father,
mother, God. In it he was born, and in it he knew that some day he would
die. He loved it, understood it, and night and day, in sunshine and
storm, its mighty spirit was the spirit that kept him company. But it
held no message for him now. And his ears scarcely heard the raucous
scolding of t