Murder Point

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 Père Antoine, had proved to him that they were not all lies. When he had questioned Père 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