And she mustn't know.

We mustn't let anyone know--" And there he stopped, and Peter felt him growing rigid as stone, and for many moments Jolly Roger's body seemed as lifeless as that of the man who lay with up-turned face in the trail.

Then he fumbled in a pocket and found a pencil and an old envelope.

And on the envelope, with the darkness so thick he could not see his hand, he scribbled, "I killed Jed Hawkins," and after that he signed his name firmly and fully--"Jolly Roger McKay." Then he tucked the envelope under Jed Hawkins' body, where the rain could not get at it.

And after that, to make the evidence complete, he covered the dead man's face with his coat.
"We've got to do it, Peter," he said, and there was a new note in his voice as he stood up on his feet again.