when there came the sudden quick snapping of a bone--but even then he
turned his head so that he could thrust out his hot tongue against the
back of his man-friend's hand. And Jolly Roger, as he worked, was giving
instructions to the girl, who was quick as a bird to bring him cloth
which she tore into bandages, so that at the end of ten minutes Peter's
right hind leg was trussed up so tightly that it was as stiff and as
useless as a piece of wood.

"His hip was dislocated and his leg-bone broken," said Jolly Roger when
he had finished. "He is all right now, and inside of three weeks will be
on his feet again."

He lifted Peter gently, and made him a nest among the blankets in his
bunk. And then, still with that strange, gray look in his face, he
turned to Nada.

She was standing partly facing the door, her eyes straight on him. And
Jolly Roger saw in them that wonderful something which had given his
storm-beaten soul a glimpse of paradise earlier that day. They were
blue, so blue that he had never seen violets like them--and he knew that
in her heart there was no guile behind which she could hide the secret
they were betraying. A yearning such as had never before come into his
life urged him to open his arms to her, and he knew that she would have
come into them; but a still mightier will held them tense and throbbing
at his side. Her cheeks were aflame as she looked at him, and he told
himself that God could not have made a lovelier thing, as she stood
there in her worn dress and her ragged shoes, with that light of glory
in her face, and her damp hair waving and curling about her in the last
light of the day.

"I knew you'd fix him, Mister-Roger," she whispered, a great pride and
faith and worship in the low thrill of her voice. "I knew it!"

Something choked Jolly Roger, and he turned to the stove and began
spearing the crisp brown potatoes on the end of a fork. And he said,
with his back toward her,

"You came just in time for supper, Nada. We'll eat--and then I'll go
home with you, as far as the Ridge."

Peter watched them. His pain was gone, and it was nice and comfortable
in Jolly Roger's blanket, and with his whiskered face on his fore-paws
his bright eyes followed every movement of these two who so completely
made up his world. He heard that sweet little laugh which came only now
and then from Nada's lips, when for a moment she was happy; he saw her
shake out her hair in the glow of the lamp which Joll