he blue-jay in the fire-tipped crest of the tall black
spruce.

And then that something which was bigger than desire came up within him,
and forced itself in words between his grimly set lips.

"She's only a--a kid," he said, a fierce, low note of defiance in his
voice. "And I--I'm a damned pirate, and there's jails waiting for me,
and they'll get me sooner or later, sure as God lets me live!"

He turned from the sun to his shadowing cabin, and for a moment a
ghost of a smile played in his face as he heard the little mother-mouse
rustling among her papers.

"We can't do it," he said. "We simply can't do it, Mrs. Captain Kidd.
She's had hell enough without me taking her into another. And it'd be
that, sooner or later. It sure would, Mrs. Captain Kidd. But I'm glad,
mighty glad, to think she'd let me kiss her--if I wanted to. Think of
that, Mrs. Captain Kidd!--if I wanted to. Oh, Lord!"

And the humor of it crept in alongside the tragedy in Jolly Roger's
heart, and he chuckled as he bent over his partridge breasts.

"If I wanted to," he repeated. "Why, if I had a life to give, I'd give
it--to kiss her just once! But, as it happens, Mrs. Captain Kidd--"

Jolly Roger's breath cut itself suddenly short, and for an instant he
grew tense as he bent over the stove. His philosophy had taught him one
thing above all others, that he was a survival of the fittest--only so
long as he survived. And he was always guarding against the end. His
brain was keen, his ears quick, and every fibre in him trained to
its duty of watchfulness. And he knew, without turning his head, that
someone was standing in the doorway behind him. There had come a faint
noise, a shadowing of the fading sun-glow on the wall, the electrical
disturbance of another presence, gazing at him quietly, without motion,
and without sound. After that first telegraphic shock of warning he
stabbed his fork into a partridge breast, flopped it over, chuckled
loudly--and then with a lightning movement was facing the door, his
forty-four Colt leveled waist-high at the intruder.

Almost in the same movement his gun-arm dropped limply to his side.

"Well, I'll be--"

He stared. And the face in the doorway stared back at him.

"Nada!" he gasped. "Good Lord, I thought--I thought--" He swallowed as
he tried to lie. "I thought--it might be a bear!"

He did not, at first, see that the slim, calico-dressed little figure
of Jed Hawkins' foster-girl was almost dripping wet.