"I've had a little trouble with the police, Peter, and we've got to hit into the woods," he had said.
The suddenness of it had taken Peter's breath away. They did not wait to eat any of the dinner he had prepared. Even then the police almost caught them before they reached this log. There were four of them. His father had kept them back with his rifle, and Peter was disappointed in his marksmanship. He was sure he could have done better himself. His father missed every time, even though his bullets did go close enough to make their enemies dodge behind trees. And always before that he had been proud of his father's shooting!
His hand touched the cool barrel of the rifle, and a thrill ran through him. It was a thing he had never felt before. He was sure he would not miss if he could only be given a chance, for he had often hit rabbits at that distance of a hundred and fifty yards, and a man was many times larger than a rabbit. An inch at a time, slowly and carefully so that his father would not notice what he was doing, he poked the barrel of the rifle through the hole. He would be ready, anyway. He had forgotten fear. His blood was hot. His father had always talked to him about playing square, and never taking a mean advantage, and always to fight for women, no matter who they were. Well, there were no women here, but it wasn't playing square when four men came after his father like this. If they would come out, clean and sportsmanlike, one at a time, and fight with fists instead of guns....
"You see, Peter," his father was saying as he cut a thin strip from his boot top, "I couldn't leave you in the cabin alone. I've got to get you down to Five Fingers. If Simon McQuarrie isn't there, you wait for him. And don't show anyone else that paper in the bottle!"
Peter was not listening. His heart had given a sudden terrific jump and was half choking him. In the edge of a clump of dwarf banksians something had moved. And then his father turned—just in time to catch his hand, to stop his finger at the trigger, to drag him back from the hole. Never as long as he lived would he forget the terrible look that had come into his father's face. To hide it Donald McRae leaned over his son and hugged him close to his arms, and for a space the law might have descended upon them without resistance.
From the shelter of the evergreens Corporal Crear of the Provincial Police was looking toward the log. His men were lying close about him.
"We've got to go out and get him when it's dark enough," he said. "Don't shoot unless you have to, but if that happens—shoot straight. Only be sure it's not the kid. That's what puzzles me—why McRae has the kid with him out there behind the log!"
Only Donald McRae and Peter could have solved that mystery for Crear, and even then Crear might not have understood. It was something which belonged entirely to Peter and his father. As they waited for the sun to dip behind the tall evergreen forest across the river, they lay very close together, and their eyes met frequently and their hands and bodies touched.
There was something pathetically doglike in the man's dependence upon his boy. Take Peter away from him and his heart was gone, for Peter was the one thing he had left of a great faith and a great love that would never die. More than once a cold fear had swept over him at the thought of something happening to him, and he had always prayed that if anything did happen, it would come to both at the same time. Even now he would not have sent Peter back to the safety of the cabin. That would have meant dissolution for himself—and strangers and a heartbreaking tragedy of aloneness for Peter.
Across the river there was hope, and a refuge for Peter at Five Fingers with Simon McQuarrie. A woman had put an undying faith in the justness of God in Donald McRae's soul, and always there were two things in his breast, faith and memory of the woman, like stars which no darkness could dim. Their glow lay warmly in his eyes as he saw the courage with which the boy waited for the setting of the sun.