Jolly Roger did not cross the ford that day.





CHAPTER V


It was in the third week after his hurt that Peter saw Nada. By
that time he could easily follow Jolly Roger as far as the
fording-place, and there he would wait, sometimes hours at a
stretch, while his comrade and master went over to Cragg's Ridge.
But frequently Jolly Roger would not cross, but remained with
Peter, and would lie on his back at the edge of a grassy knoll
they had found, reading one of the little old-fashioned red books
which Peter knew were very precious to him. Often he wondered what
was between the faded red covers that was so interesting, and if
he could have read he would have seen such titles as "Margaret of
Anjou," "History of Napoleon," "History of Peter the Great,"
"Caesar," "Columbus the Discoverer," and so on through the twenty
volumes which Jolly Roger had taken from a wilderness mail two
years before, and which he now prized next to his life.

This afternoon, as they lay in the sleepy quiet of June, Jolly
Roger answered the questioning inquisitiveness in Peter's face and
eyes.

"You see, Pied-Bot, it was this way," he said, beginning a little