Granger away to be hanged. He had
heard Robert Pilgrim and the sergeant arranging it together, and had
come on ahead to give him warning. He believed that the pursuers were
not far behind. His quarrel had been with Spurling, not with Granger;
he was emphatic about that. He would not have accompanied his father,
had he not gathered from words which he had let fall in his delirium,
that Granger hated Spurling as much as any of them. He had thought
that he would understand their purpose in going southward, and would
be willing to guard Spurling in order that he might be betrayed. And
now he had come to make him an offer: there was yet time to escape; he
would hide him so securely in the forest that he never would be
tracked.

Granger thought that he discovered in Eyelids' vehemence the
blustering confusion of a repentant Judas.

He shook his head, "No," he answered, "I intend to wait."

Eyelids pressed him for a reason. "I must see Peggy," he replied: "she
will certainly be here to-night. Even if she had already arrived and
were willing to go with me, I should stay."

For a man of Indian training, Eyelids used many words to persuade him.
When he saw that he had failed, he relapsed into sullen silence. Beorn
paid no attention, but stared grimly before him with his dead-soul
eyes, as though he had heard nothing. Granger fancied that he must
often have worn that same expression when, crouched beneath the
auriferous ledges of the Fair-haired Annie, he had listened to the
picks of his enemies drawing nearer, and had waited to deal out
unhurried and impartial death to the men of the Bloody Thunder Mine.

There was the sound of long striding steps ascending the mound; it was
not the tread of Peggy. Without the formality of knocking, the latch
was raised and Pere Antoine towered in the doorway. His garments were
frosted and glistened, so that he seemed to be clothed in a vaporous
incandescence. His face was very stern and sad. He said nothing, but
gazing full on Granger, he beckoned to him that he should come
outside.

Casting his capote about him and drawing on his mittens, he obeyed.
Antoine led the way to the back of the store, till they stood on the
edge of the clearing, where the forest began. The full moon shining
down on the country made it appear legendary and ghostlike, a
veritable Hollow land, such as the Indians believed in, entering into
which a man might wander on forever, without home-coming, and never
taste