"God be with you and care for you, Peter, and give me strength to bear this parting," sobbed Donald McRae.
With white and haggard face he turned into the North.
[CHAPTER VI]
Beyond the thicket of young jack pines Peter did not hurry. His feet dragged, and he listened, hoping he would hear his father's voice calling him back. In half an hour he did not travel far beyond the evergreens. Then he knew his father was gone. He continued in the direction of Five Fingers, recalling his promises. Tonight or tomorrow his father would return. He hoped it would be tonight, for there was a lump in his throat which he could not get rid of, and something in his heart which frightened him with suspicions and fears which he was too young to analyze. But he knew his father would not lie. He would come back. He wondered what was written on the paper he was taking to Simon McQuarrie. Probably it told about the wickedness of the police, and Simon would help in some way. Other questions came into his mind now that he was alone. Why hadn't his father gone on to Five Fingers with him?
The chopping of the axes had ceased, but he knew he was heading in the right direction. He came into openings filled with the stumps of trees that had been cut down, and these clearings were carpeted with white and pink spring flowers and masses of violets. He had never seen such beautiful violets, or so many birds at this season of the year. There were robins and thrushes and dozens of little warblers and brush sparrows, and the cutting down of trees seemed to have brought all the sapsuckers and woodpeckers and gaudily colored blue jays in the woods. The sun was delightfully warm, too, though in another hour it would be settling behind the tree tops. In this glory of peace and quiet he proceeded quietly and cautiously, for his father had taught him always to do that in the forest. So he came without sound of footfall or crackling brush to the edge of a little opening beyond a thicket of poplars and birch, and here he stopped suddenly and his heart jumped up into his mouth.
Standing in a warm pool of sunlight not twenty feet away from his concealment was a young girl. She was almost as tall as Peter and so lovely to look upon that he stared at her in amazement and admiration. He thought she had seen him, and his first vision was of her face and a pair of beautiful dark eyes, laughing up at a red squirrel, chattering in a tree top a few paces away. Then she sat down, gathering her flowers about her, and eyes and face were lost to him in a mass of shining, black hair that fell quickly about her, almost touching the ground she was seated upon.
At first he was astonished. Then timidity and fear crept upon him and he wanted to steal away as quietly as he had come. He drew back a step and was preparing for the next when an unexpected interruption rooted him to the spot. The wild and agonized yelping of a dog came from the thick brush beyond the girl. Instantly she was on her feet, her slim body quivering with the tension in which she waited. And then she called, "Buddy—Buddy—come here!"
With a series of pain-filled yelps the creature called Buddy responded. He darted out of the brush and came like a streak across the open. It seemed to Peter the half-grown pup was all legs and head and tail, and that from the sounds he made he must be mortally hurt. Whimpering and crying, he cringed at the girl's feet and kissed the hand she reached down to him. But she did not look at him. She had dropped her flowers and her attitude was fierce and expectant as she waited.