coming to Murder Point strange stories had reached his ears concerning
the diverse and sudden ways in which its bygone agents had departed
this life: some by committing murder against themselves; some by
committing murder against others; some, having gone mad, by wandering
off into the winter wilderness to die; others, who were reckoned sane,
by attempting to make the six hundred and eighty mile journey back to
civilisation alone across the snow and ice. These rumours he had not
credited at first, supposing them to be fictions invented by Pilgrim
for the purpose of shattering his confidence, and thus inducing him to
leave at once. The last remark of the factor, however, inasmuch as it
had been reported to him by an honest man, the Jesuit priest Pere
Antoine, had proved to him that they were not all lies. When he had
questioned Pere Antoine himself, the kindly old man had shaken his
head, refusing to answer, and had departed on his way. This had
happened shortly after the occurrence in January; since then Granger
had been less than ever happy in his mind.

Luckily for him, about this time Beorn Ericsen, the Man with the Dead
Soul, as he was named, the only white Company trapper in the district,
had quarrelled with the factor over the price which had been offered
him for a silver fox; in revenge he had betaken himself to Granger,
bringing with him his half-breed daughter, Peggy, and his son,
Eyelids. Their chance coming had saved his sanity; moreover it had
furnished him with something to think about, besides himself, namely
Peggy. His courtship of her had been short and informal, as is the way
of white men when dealing with women of a darker shade: within a week
he had taken her to himself. But Peggy had had ideas of her own upon
the nebulous question of morals, ideas which she had gained in the two
years during which she had attended a Catholic school in Winnipeg; she
had refused to be regarded as a squaw, since the blood which flowed in
her veins was fully half white, and, after staying with him for a
fortnight, had taken herself off, joining her father on a hunting
trip, giving Granger clearly to understand that she would not live
with him again until Pere Antoine should have come that way and united
them according to the rites of the Roman Church.

As he stood by the window looking out across the frost-bound land
which once, years since, in Leicester Square, he in his ignorance had
so much desired, he re-pondered