nest for Peter on the floor, and stretched himself out in the
bunk; and after that, for a long time, there seemed to be
something heavier than the gloom of night in the cabin for Peter,
and he listened and waited and prayed in his dog way for Nada's
return, and wondered why it was that she left him so long. And the
Night People held high carnival under the yellow moon, and there
was flight and terror and slaughter in the glow of it--and Jolly
Roger slept, and the wolf howled nearer, and the creek chortled
its incessant song of running water, and in the end Peter's eyes
closed, and a red-eyed ermine peeped over the sill into the man-
and dog-scented stillness of the outlaw's cabin.

For many days after this first night in the cabin, Peter did not
see Nada. There was more rain, and the creek flooded higher, so
that each time Jolly Roger went over to Cragg's Ridge he took his
life in his hands in fording the stream. Peter saw no one but
Jolly Roger, and at the end of the second week he was going about
on his mended leg. But there would always be a limp in his gait,
and always his right hind-foot would leave a peculiar mark in the
trail.

These two weeks of helplessness were an education in Peter's life
and were destined to leave their mark upon him always. He learned
to know Jolly Roger, not alone from seeing events, but through an
intuitive instinct that grew swiftly somewhere in his shrewd head.
This instinct, given widest scope in these weeks of helplessness,
developed faster than any other in him, until in the end, he could
judge Jolly Roger's humor by the sound of his approaching
footsteps. Never was there a waking hour in which he was not
fighting to comprehend the mystery of the change that had come