Again and again as he sat alone at the window his mind went over the events which had passed so swiftly since the day before yesterday, when his father galloped in from the railroad settlement with the officers of the law at his heels, and together they ran into the safety of the woods, leaving the little cabin in the clearing which had been their home. After that had come the longer flight, two days and nights of exhaustion and hunger, and the final parting when they heard the axes of the men at Five Fingers. It was when he came to that point his heart rose up and choked him, and he wanted to cry out in the stillness of the night. If only his father had put greater faith in his strength and years, and had let him go along! He could run, and hide, and live without anything to eat for a long time, and he could sleep on the naked ground, and swim streams, and he wasn't afraid. But his father had sent him on alone to this strange settlement of Five Fingers, where he had met Mona, and Aleck Curry, and Simon McQuarrie....
When his thoughts came to Mona a bit of comfort crept into Peter's soul. It wasn't so bad, with Mona near him. She had come into his life in a most unexpected and beautiful way, and had helped him whip the beast of a boy who had kicked her dog. He could still feel the warm thrill of her little hand as she led him through the woods and slashings into Five Fingers and he could see her eyes glowing at him in the dusk as she said:
"Your father is alive and he _can_ come back. But mine can't, Peter. He is dead. And so is my mother."
Peter could almost hear her speaking those words now, whispering them, as if she realized in that instant the sacredness of the trust he had put in her. And she was right. His father was alive, and could come back, while hers....
The distant murmuring of the lake came to him faintly. It made him shiver. Out there, somewhere, her father and mother had been drowned. He wondered if Mona was awake and was also listening to that sound, so faint at times that it was like a breath of air. It must haunt her, he thought. It was always telling her about what had happened, just as she had told it to him, coming down the slope into Five Fingers, and probably it made her cry when she was alone nights. It was terrible to remember one's father and mother dying like that, both at once, and Peter shuddered.