The short December daylight wore away and night fell. He spread a meal for four people, with fare which was unusually ample. Having lit the lamp and built up a roaring fire in the stove, he sat down to await the arrival of his guests.
To evade his excitement of anticipation, which was becoming painful, he drove his thoughts back to other Christmas Eves, and tried to imagine and share in the innocent happiness which the season was bringing to children, still illusioned and unwise, all the world over that night. He had almost succeeded in beguiling himself into the belief that he was again a child, when the huskies commenced to howl, giving warning of someone's approach.
Listening acutely, he caught the distant shouting of dog-drivers, coming down-river, across the ice. He ran to the window and saw the forms of two men, stooping down unharnessing their teams at the Point. He recognised them, but did not go outside to make them welcome, since he had not yet learnt their purpose. The door opened, and Beorn and Eyelids entered.
There was nothing altered in Beorn's appearance; but Eyelids looked haggard and fatigued with travel.
He came towards Granger with a stealthy tread, yet so slowly that he seemed rather to be drawing back. "Where's Peggy?" were the first words he uttered. "She's gone away," Granger said. Then, seeing her brother's genuine concern, he commenced to explain a little of what had taken place in his absence. He was recounting his discovery of Spurling's flight, when his listener, taking it for granted that he already knew the rest, broke in impatiently, with "You damn fool! Why'd you kill him?"
Granger smiled. He was amused at the half-breed's new air of domineering boldness and the change which it made in his countenance. "Oh, so you know that?" he inquired. Eyelids came over and shook him by the arm, as though he thought that he needed awakening.
Speaking rapidly, tumbling over his words, sometimes relapsing into the Cree dialect, he commenced to give a hurried account of his own actions. There had been a thousand dollars offered for Spurling's capture, and he had gone to claim it. It was not covetousness altogether which had prompted him to do that; the reward was only an incident. His father was determined to be revenged for the trespass of the Forbidden River, and he had accompanied his father, hoping, by so doing, to save his brother-in-law's life—the handing over of Spurling to justice would have proved him innocent of complicity in Strangeway's death.
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.