He fumbled in his pack and found the alcohol lamp, which was fresh filled and screwed tight.  Peter heard him working for a moment in the darkness.  Then he struck a match, and the yellow flare of it lighted up his face.  In his joy Peter whined.  It was good to see his master.  And then, in another moment, the little lamp was filling their white-walled refuge with a mellow glow.  Jolly Roger’s eyes, coming suddenly out of darkness, were wide and staring.  His face was covered with a scrub beard.  But there was something of cheer about him even in this night of terror outside, and when he had driven his snowshoe into the snow wall, and had placed the lamp on it, he grinned companionably at Peter.

Then, with a deep breath of satisfaction, he puffed out clouds of smoke from his pipe, and stood up to look about their room.

“Not so bad, is it?” he asked.  “We could have a big house here if we wanted to dig out rooms—­eh, Peter?  Parlors, and bed-rooms, and a library—­and not a policeman within a million miles of us.  That’s the nice part of it, pied-bot—­none of the Royal Mounties to trouble us.  They would never think of looking for us in the heart of a big snow-dune out in this God-forsaken barren, would they?”

The thought was a pleasing one to Jolly Roger.  He spread out his blankets on the snow floor, and sat down on them, facing Peter.

“We’ve got ’em beat,” he said, a chuckling note of pride in his voice.  “The world is small when it comes to hiding, Pied-Bot, but all the people in it couldn’t find us here—­not in a million years.  If we could only find a place as safe as this—­where a girl could live—­and had Nada with us—­”

Many times during the past few weeks Peter had seen the light that flamed up now in his master’s eyes.  That, and the strange thrill in Jolly Roger’s voice, stirred him more than the words to which he listened, and tried to understand.

“And we’re going to,” finished McKay, almost fiercely, his hands clenching as he leaned toward Peter.  “We have made a big mistake, Pied-Bot, and it has taken us a long time to see it.  It will be hard for us to leave our north country, but that is what we must do.  Maybe Yellow Bird’s good spirits meant that when they said we would find happiness with Nada in a place called The Country Beyond.  There are a lot of ‘Countries Beyond,’ Peter, and as soon as the spring break-up comes and we can travel without leaving trails behind us we will go back to Cragg’s Ridge and get Nada, and hit for some place where the law won’t expect to find us.  There’s China, for instance.  A lot of yellow people.  But what do we care for color as long as we have her with us?  I say—­”