He could see the dull shimmer of starlight in her hair, but the rest of her was a shadow that gave no sign of life.  The camp was asleep.  Even the dogs were buried in their wallows of sand, and the last red spark of the fires had died out.  The hour passed, and another hour followed, and the lids of Jolly Roger’s eyes grew heavier as the fading stars seemed to be sinking deeper into infinity.  At last he slept, with his back leaning against a sand-dune the children had made.  He dreamed, and was flying through the air with Yellow Bird.  She was traveling swift and straight, like an arrow, and he had difficulty in keeping up with her, and at last he cried out for her to wait—­that he could go no farther.  The cry roused him.  He opened his eyes, and found cool, gray dawn in the sky.  Peter, alert, was muzzling his hand.  Slim Buck lay in the sand, still asleep.  There was no stir in the camp.  And then, with a sudden catch in his breath, he looked toward Yellow Bird’s tepee.

Yellow Bird still sat in the sand.  Through the hours of fading starlight and coming dawn she had not moved.  Slowly McKay rose to his feet.  When he came to her, making no sound, she looked up.  The shimmer of glistening dew was in her hair.  Her long lashes were wet with it.  Her face was very pale, and her eyes so large and dark that for a moment they startled him.  She was tired.  Exhaustion was in her slim, limp body.

A sigh came from her lips, and her shoulders swayed a little.

“Sit down, Neekewa,” she whispered, drawing the ropes of her hair about her as if she were cold.

Then she drew a slim hand over her eyes, and shivered.

“It is well, Neekewa,” she spoke softly.  “I have gone through the clouds to where lives Oo-Mee, the Pigeon.  I found her crying in a trail.  I whispered to her and happiness came, and that happiness is going to live—­for Neekewa and The Pigeon.  It cannot die.  It cannot be killed.  The Red Coated men of the Great White Father will never destroy it.  You will live.  She will live.  You will meet again—­in happiness.  And happiness will follow ever after.  That much I learned, Neekewa.  In happiness—­you will meet again.”

“Where?  When?” whispered Jolly Roger, his heart beating with sudden swiftness.

Again Yellow Bird passed her hand over her eyes, and as she held it there for a moment she bowed her head until Jolly Roger could see only her dew-wet hair and she said,

“In the Country Beyond, Neekewa.”

Her eyes were looking at him again, big, dark and filled with mystery.

“And where is this country, Yellow Bird?” he asked, a strange chill driving the warmth out of his heart.  “You mean—­up there?” And he pointed to the gray sky above them.

“No, it is happiness to come in life, not in death,” said Yellow Bird slowly.  “It is not beyond the stars.  It is—­”

He waited, leaning toward her.

“In the Country Beyond,” she repeated with a tired little droop of her head.  “And where that is I do not know, Neekewa.  I could not pass beyond the great white cloud that shut me out.  But it is—­ somewhere, I will find it.  And then I will tell you—­and The Pigeon.”