He had not closed the door, and Peter saw his chance. The Leaf Bud saw him pass like a shot out into the night, but as he went she made no effort to call him back, for her ears were wide open as Breault repeated his question,
"Where is McKay, Father?"
Peter heard the man-hunter's voice from the darkness outside. For barely an instant he paused, picking up the fresh scent of Nada and Jolly Roger. It was easy to follow—straight to the pool, and from the pool twenty paces down-stream, where a little finger of sand and pebbles had been formed by the eddies. In this bar was fresh imprint of the canoe, and here the footprints ended.
Peter whimpered, peering into the tunnel of darkness between forest trees, where the water rippled and gurgled softly on its way into a deeper and more tangled wilderness. He waded belly-deep into the current, half determined to swim; and then he waited, listening intently, but could hear no sound of voice or paddle stroke.
Yet he knew Jolly Roger and Nada could not be far away.
He returned to the edge of the pool, and began sniffing his way down-stream, pausing every two or three minutes to listen. Now and then he caught the presence of those he sought, in the air, but those intervals in which he stopped to catch sound of voice or paddle lost him time, so the canoe was traveling faster than Peter.
Half way between himself and the bow of that canoe McKay could dimly make out Nada's pale face in the star glow that filtered like a mist through the tops of the close-hanging trees.
Scarcely above his breath he laughed in joyous confidence.
"At last my dream is coming true, Nada," he whispered. "You are mine. And we are going into another world. And no one will ever find us there—no one but Father John, when we send him word. You are not afraid?"
Her voice trembled a little in the gloom.