wonderful something which he saw looking at him so clearly out of
her soul brought the truth to Jolly Roger, before she had spoken.

"I'm goin' with you and Peter."

The low cry that came from Jolly Roger was almost a sob as he
stepped back from her. He looked away from her--at Peter. But her
pale face, her parted red lips, her wide-open, wonderful eyes, her
radiant hair stirred by the wind--came between them. She was no
longer the little girl--"past seventeen, goin' on eighteen." To
Jolly Roger she was all that the world held of glorious womanhood.

"But--you can't!" he cried desperately. "I've come to tell you
things, Nada. I'm not fit. I'm not what you think I am. I've been
livin' a lie--"

He hesitated, and then lashed himself on to the truth.

"You'll hate me when I tell you, Nada. You think Jed Hawkins is
bad. But the law thinks I'm worse. The police want me. They've
wanted me for years. That's why I came down here, and hid over in
Indian Tom's cabin--near where I first met you. I thought they
wouldn't find me away down here, but they did. That's why Peter
and I moved over to the big rock-pile at the end of the Ridge.
I'm--an outlaw. I've done a lot of bad things--in the eyes of the
law, and I'll probably die with a bullet in me, or in jail. I'm
sorry, but that don't help. I'd give my life to be able to tell
you what's in my heart. But I can't. It wouldn't be square."

He wondered why no change came into the steady blue of her eyes as