CHAPTER XVI
It was Peter who roused Jolly Roger many hours later; Peter nosing aboutthe still burning embers of the fire, and at last muzzling his master'sface with increasing anxiety. McKay sat up out of his nest of balsamboughs and blankets and caught the bright glint of sunlight throughthe treetops. He rubbed his eyes and stared again to make sure. Then helooked at his watch. It was ten o'clock and peering in the direction ofthe open he saw the white edge of it glistening in the unclouded blazeof a sun. It was the first sun--the first real sun--he had seen for manydays, and with Peter he went to the rim of the barren a hundred yardsdistant. He wanted to shout. As far as he could see the white plain wasablaze with eye-blinding light, and never had the sky at Cragg's Ridgebeen clearer than the sky that was over him now.
He returned to the fire, singing. Back through the months leapt Peter'smemory to the time when his master had sung like that. It was in IndianTom's cabin, with Cragg's Ridge just beyond the creek, and it was inthose days before Terence Cassidy had come to drive them to anotherhiding place; in the happy days of Nada's visits and of their trystsunder the Ridge, when even the little gray mother mouse lived in aparadise with her nest of babies in the box on their cabin shelf. Hehad almost forgotten but it came back to him now. It was the old JollyRoger--the old master come to life again.
In the clear stillness of the morning one might have heard that shoutingsong half a mile away. But McKay was no longer afraid. As the stormseemed to have cleaned the world so the sun cleared his soul of its lastshadow of doubt. It was not merely an omen or a promise, but for himproclaimed a certainty. God was with him. Life was with him. His worldwas opening its arms to him again--and he sang as if Nada was only amile away from him instead of a thousand.
When he went on, after their breakfast, he laughed at the thought ofBreault discovering their trail. The Ferret would be more than human todo that after what wind and storm and fire had done for them.
This first day of their pilgrimage into the southland was a day of gloryfrom its beginning until the setting of the sun. There was no cloud inthe sky. And it grew warmer, until Jolly Roger flung back the hood ofhis parkee and turned up the fur of his cap. That night a million starslighted the heaven.
After this first day and night nothing could break down the hope andconfidence of Jolly Roger and his, dog. Peter knew they were goingsouth, in which direction lay everything he had ever yearned for; andeach night beside their campfire McKay made a note with pencil and paperand measured the distance they had come and the distance they had yetto go. Hope in a little while became certainty. Into his mind urged nothought of changes that might have taken place at Cragg's Ridge; or, ifthe thought did come, it caused him no uneasiness. Now that Jed Hawkinswas dead Nada would be with the little old Missioner in whose carehe had left her, and not for an instant did a doubt cloud the growinghappiness of his anticipations. Breault and the hunters of the law werethe one worry that lay ahead and behind him. If he outwitted them hewould find Nada waiting for him.
Day after day they kept south and west until they struck the Thelon; andthen through a country unmapped, and at times terrific in its coldand storm, they fought steadily to the frozen regions of the Dubawntwaterways. Only once in the first three weeks did they seek humancompany. This was at a small Indian camp where Jolly Roger bartered forcaribou meat and moccasins for Peter's feet. Twice between there andGod's Lake they stopped at trappers' cabins.
It was early in March when they struck the Lost Lake country, threehundred miles from Cragg's Ridge.
And here it was, buried under a blind of soft snow, that Peter nosedout the frozen carcass of a disemboweled buck which Boileau, the Frenchtrapper, had poisoned for wolves. Jolly Roger had built a fire and waswarming half a pint of deer tallow for a baking of bannock, when Peterdragged himself in, his rear legs already stiffening with the palsy ofstrychnine. In a dozen seconds McKay had the warm tallow down Peter'sthroat, to the last drop of it; and this he followed with another doseas quickly as he could heat it, and in the end Peter gave up what he hadeaten.
Half an hour later Boileau, who was eating his dinner, jumped up inwonderment when the door of his cabin was suddenly opened by a grim andwhite-faced man who carried the limp body of a dog in his arms.
For a long time after this the shadow of death hung over the Frenchman'strapping-shack. To Boileau, with his brotherly sympathy and regret thathis poison-bait had brought calamity, Peter was "just dog." But when atlast he saw the strong shoulders of the grim-faced stranger shaking overPeter's paralyzed body and listened to the sobbing grief that broke inpassionate protest from his white lips, he drew back a little awed. Itseemed for a time that Peter was dead; and in those moments JollyRoger put his arms about him and buried his despairing face in Peter'sscraggly neck, calling in a wild fit of anguish for him to come back, tolive, to open his eyes again. Boileau, crossing himself, felt of Peter'sbody and McKay heard his voice over him, saying that the dog was notdead, but that his heart was beating steadily and that he thoughtthe last stiffening blow of the poison was over. To McKay it was likebringing the dead back to life. He raised his head and drew away hisarms and knelt beside the bunk stunned and mutely hopeful while Boileautook his place and began dropping warm condensed milk down Peter'sthroat. In a little while Peter's eyes opened and he gave a great sigh.
Boileau looked up and shrugged his shoulders.
"That was a good breath, m'sieu," he said. "What is left of the poisonhas done its worst. He will live."
A bit stupidly McKay rose to his feet. He swayed a little, and for thefirst time sensed the hot tears that had blinded his eyes and wet hischeeks. And then there came a sobbing laugh out of his throat and hewent to the window of the Frenchman's shack and stared out into thewhite world, seeing nothing. He had stood in the presence of death manytimes before but never had that presence choked up his heart as in thishour when the soul of Peter, his comrade, had stood falteringly for aspace half-way between the living and the dead.
When he turned from the window Boileau was covering Peter's body withblankets and a warm bear skin. And for many days thereafter Peter wasnursed through the slow sickness which followed.
An early spring came this year in the northland. South of the Reindeerwaterway country the snows were disappearing late in March and ice wasrotting the first week in April. Winds came from the south and west andthe sun was warmer and clearer than Boileau had ever known it at thewinter's end in Lost Lake country. It was in this first week of Aprilthat Peter was able to travel, and McKay pointed his trail once more forCragg's Ridge.
He left a part of his winter dunnage at Boileau's shack and went onlight, figuring to reach Cragg's Ridge before the new "goose moon" hadworn itself out in the west. But for a week Peter lagged and until thedarker red in the rims of his eyes cleared away Jolly Roger checked theimpetus of his travel so that the goose moon had faded out and the "frogmoon" of May was in its full before they came down the last slope thatdipped from the Height of Land to the forests and lakes of the lowercountry.
And now, in these days, it seemed to Jolly Roger that a great kindness,and not tragedy, had delayed him so that his "home coming" was inthe gladness of spring. All about him was the sweetness and mysticwhispering of new life just awakening. It was in the sky and the sun; itwas underfoot, in the fragrance of the mold he trod upon, in the treesabout him, and in the mate-chirping of the birds flocking back from thesouthland. His friends the jays were raucous and jaunty again, bullyingand bluffing in the warmth of sunshine; the black glint of crows' wingsflashed across the opens; the wood-sappers and pewees and big-eyedmoose-birds were aflutter with the excitement of home planning;partridges were feasting on the swelling poplar buds--and then, oneglorious sunset, he heard the chirruping evening song of his firstrobin.
And the next day they would reach Cragg's Ridge!
Half of that last night he sat up, awake, or smoked in the glow of hisfire, waiting for the dawn. With the first lifting of darkness he wastraveling swiftly ahead o
f Peter and the morning was only half gonewhen he saw far ahead of him the great ridge which shut out Indian Tom'sswamp, and Nada's plain, and Cragg's Ridge beyond it.
It was noon when he stood at the crest of this. He was breathing hard,for to reach this last precious height from which he might look upon thecountry of Nada's home he had half run up its rock-strewn side. There,with his lungs gasping for air, his eager eyes shot over the countrybelow him and for a moment the significance of the thing which he sawdid not strike him. And then in another instant it seemed that his heartchoked up, like a fist suddenly tightened, and stopped its beating.
Reaching away from him, miles upon miles of it, east, west andsouth--was a dead and char-stricken world.
Up to the foot of the ridge itself had come the devastation of flame,and where it had swept, months ago, there was now no sign of theglorious spring that lay behind him.
He looked for Indian Tom's swamp, and where it had been there was nolonger a swamp but a stricken chaos of ten thousand black stubs, theshriven corpses of the spruce and cedar and jackpines out of which thewolves had howled at night.
He looked for the timber on Sucker Creek where the little oldMissioner's cabin lay, and where he had dreamed that Nada would bewaiting for him. And he saw no timber there but only the littleness andemptiness of a blackened world.
And then he looked to Cragg's Ridge, and along the bald crest of it,naked as death, he saw blackened stubs pointing skyward, paintingdesolation against the blue of the heaven beyond.
A cry came from him, a cry of fear and of horror, for he was lookingupon the fulfilment of Yellow Bird's prediction. He seemed to hear,whispering softly in his ears, the low, sweet voice of the sorceress, ason the night when she had told him that if he returned to Cragg's Ridgehe would find a world that had turned black with ruin and that it wouldnot be there he would ever find Nada.
After that one sobbing cry he tore like a madman dawn into the valley,traveling swiftly through the muck of fire and under-foot tanglewith Peter fighting behind him. Half an hour later he stood where theMissioner's cabin had been and he found only a ruin of ash and logsburned down to the earth. Where the trail had run there was no longera trail. A blight, grim and sickening, lay upon the earth that had beenparadise.
Peter heard the choking sound in his master's throat and chest. He, too,sensed the black shadow of tragedy and cautiously he sniffed theair, knowing that at last they were home--and yet it was not home.Instinctively he had faced Cragg's Ridge and Jolly Roger, seeing thedog's stiffened body pointing toward the break beyond which lay Nada'sold home, felt a thrill of hope leap up within him. Possibly the fartherplain had escaped the scourge of fire. If so, Nada would be there, andthe Missioner--
He started for the break, a mile away. As he came nearer to it his hopegrew less for he could see where the flames had swept in an inundatingsea along Cragg's Ridge. They passed over the meadow where the thickyoung jackpines, the red strawberries and the blue violets had been andPeter heard the strange sob when they came to the little hollow--theold trysting place where Nada had first given herself into his master'sarms. And there it was that Peter forgot master and caution and spedswiftly ahead to the break that cut the Ridge in twain.
When Jolly Roger came to that break and ran through it he was staggeringfrom the mad effort he had made. And then, all at once, the last of hiswind came in a cry of gladness. He swayed against a rock and stood therestaring wild-eyed at what was before him. The world was as black aheadof him as it was behind. But Jed Hawkins' cabin was untouched! The firehad crept up to its very door and there it had died.
He went on the remaining hundred yards and before the closed door ofNada's old home he found Peter standing stiff-legged and strange. Heopened the door and a damp chill touched his face. The cabin was empty.And the gloom and desolation of a grave filled the place.
He stepped in, a moaning whisper of the truth coming to his lips. Heheard the scurrying flight of a starved wood-rat, a flutter of loosepapers, and then the silence of death fell about him. The door of Nada'slittle room was open and he entered through it. The bed was naked andthere remained only the skeleton of things that had been.
He moved now like a man numbed by a strange sickness and Peter followedgloomily and silently in the footsteps of his master. They went outsideand a distance away Jolly Roger saw a thing rising up out of the char offire, ugly and foreboding, like the evil spirit of desolation itself. Itwas a rude cross made of saplings, up which the flames had licked theirway, searing it grim and black.
His hands clenched slowly for he knew that under the cross lay the bodyof Jed Hawkins, the fiend who had destroyed his world.
After that he re-entered the cabin and went into Nada's room, closingthe door behind him; and for many minutes thereafter Peter remainedoutside guarding the outer door, and hearing no sound or movement fromwithin.
When Jolly Roger came out his face was set and white, and he lookedwhere the thick forest had stood on that stormy night when he ran downthe trail toward Mooney's cabin. There was no forest now. But he foundthe old tie-cutters' road, cluttered as it was with the debris of fire,and he knew when he came to that twist in the trail where long ago JedHawkins had lain dead on his back. Half a mile beyond he came to therailroad. Here it was that the fire had burned hottest, for as far ashis vision went he could see no sign of life or of forest green alightin the waning sun.
And now there fell upon him, along with the desolation of despair, asomething grimmer and more terrible--a thing that was fear. About himeverywhere reached this graveyard of death, leaving no spot untouched.Was it possible that Nada and the Missioner had not escaped its fury?The fear settled upon him more heavily as the sun went down and thegloom of evening came, bringing with it an unpleasant chill and acloying odor of things burned dead.
He did not talk to Peter now. There was a lamp in the cabin and woodbehind the stove, and silently he built a fire and trimmed and lightedthe wick when darkness came. And Peter, as if hiding from the ghostsof 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 hecarried 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 throughthe 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 andswiftly it climbed over the ragged shoulder of Cragg's Ridge, floodingthe blackened world with light and filling the room with a soft andgolden radiance. It was a moon undimmed, full and round and yellow; andit seemed to smile in through the window as if some living spirit in ithad not yet missed Nada, and was embracing her in its glory. And now itcame upon Jolly Roger why she had loved it even more than she had lovedthe sun; for through the little window it shut out all the rest of theworld, and sitting up, he seemed to hear her heart beating at hisside and clearly he saw her face in the light of it and her slim armsout-reaching, as if to gather it to her breast. Thus--many times, shehad told him--had she sat up in her bed to greet the moon and to lookfor the smiling face that was almost always there, the face of the Manin the Moon, her friend and playmate in the sky.
For a space his heart leapt up; and then, as if discovery of the usurperin her room had come, a cloud swept over the face of the moon like amighty hand and darkness crowded him in. But the cloud sailed on and thelight drove out the gloom again. Then it was that Jolly Roger saw theOld Man in the Moon was up and awake tonight, for never had he seen hisface more clearly. Often had Nada pointed it out to him in her adorablefaith that the Old Man loved her, telling him how this feature changedand that feature changed, how sometimes the Old Man looked sick and atothers well, and how there were times when he smiled and was happy andother times when he was sad and stern and sat there in his castle in thesky 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 lookof the Man in the Moon," she had said to him. "He look
s down and tellsme even when the clouds are thick and he can only peep through now andthen. And he knows a lot about you, Mister--Jolly Roger--because I'vetold him everything."
Very quietly Jolly Roger got up from the bed and very strange seemed hismanner to Peter as he walked through the outer room and into the nightbeyond. There he stood making no sound or movement, like one of thelifeless stubs left by fire; and Peter looked up, as his master waslooking, trying to make out what it was he saw in the sky. And nothingwas there--nothing that he had not seen many times before; a billionstars, and the moon riding King among them all, and fleecy clouds as ifmade of web, and stillness, a great stillness that was like sleep in thelap of the world.
For a little Jolly Roger was silent and then Peter heard him saying,
"Yellow Bird was right--again. She said we'd find a black world downhere and we've found it. And we're going to find Nada where she told uswe'd find her, in that place she called The Country Beyond--the countrybeyond the forests, beyond the tall trees and the big swamps, beyondeverything we've ever known of the wild and open spaces; the countrywhere God lives in churches on Sunday and where people would laugh atsome of our queer notions, Pied-Bot. It's there we'll find Nada, drivenout by the fire, and waiting for us now in the settlements."
He spoke with a strange and quiet conviction, the haggard look dying outof his face as he stared up into the splendor of the sky.
And then he said.
"We won't sleep tonight, Peter. We'll travel with the moon."
Half an hour later, as the lonely figures of man and dog headed for thefirst settlement a dozen miles away, there seemed to come for an instantthe flash of a satisfied smile in the face of the Man in the sky.