They had had to go a long way south before they had met with the winter patrol and had been able to give their information. They had been coming back with Sergeant Shattuck to make the arrest, when they had fallen in with an Indian of the Sucker tribe. He had given them news that a month ago a man had been murdered at the Dead Rat Portage by the agent at the Point, where he believed they had quarrelled, though why and what about he could not guess.
Arriving at God's Voice, they had learnt that gold had been found, scattered above the grave at the Dead Rat. And now the Mounted Police were coming, Eyelids said, to take 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.