Barbaric instrumentation and shouting did not keep him awake after darkness closed in. He would have lain awake if a dog had not stirred in Cross Village. He heard the wind change and strike the east side of his house with gusts of rain. Fires must die down to wet ashes in the grove. He knew the cross stood white and tall in scudding mist, and on the crosses in the cemetery chaplets and flowers made of white rags hung bedraggled. He foresaw the kind of day which would open before his poor penitent and be a symbol of the life that was to follow. It was the priest himself who introduced Moses to this day, opening the door and standing unheeding under the overflow of the eaves. The hiss of rain could be heard, and daylight penetrated reluctantly abroad. Moses sat drooped forward with his elbows on his knees by the open fire. Lucy hurried to answer the summons, believing the priest had found some new haven for Moses while her cousin was out of the house. But there stood Catharine behind the priest, the spell of her fierceness broken, and at her side was Frank Chibam, undrowned and amiably grinning, his dark red skin stung by the weather, indeed, but otherwise little changed by water. “Tell Moses I want him!” said the priest. “And Catharine, you go into the house!” This time Catharine nimbly obeyed. As for Lucy, she made no outcry. She merely satisfied herself it was Frank Chibam before hurrying her husband to the spectacle. Moses stepped out bareheaded into the rain, and his jaw dropped. The priest closed the door behind him. Frank took his hand. Moses felt the young man's firm sinew and muscle. He looked piteously at the priest, his head sagging to one side, his face working in a spasm. “I should have prepared him, Frank. This comes too suddenly on him.” They took Moses between them and walked with him along the fence at the foot of the cross. The raindrops moved down his face like tears. He did not speak, but listened with a child's intentness, first to one and then to the other, leaning his arm on his partner's shoulder. “I don't understand why he was so certain he had killed you, Frank. He told me he struck you with an oar and saw you go down in the water like a stone.” “Whiskey, father,” explained Frank in trader's brief English. “Plenty very bad whiskey. It make me sick for a week. The boom knocked us both down, and I fell into the water. The fisherman from one of the little islands who pull me out say that. Moses, he drunker than me; he too drunk to bring the boat home.” “The poor fellow told lies to cover the crime he thought he had committed. He has suffered, Frank. And I have suffered. We will say nothing about Catharine. Why didn't you come sooner?” “I take the boat and go fishing. I say, 'Moses, that lazy Chippewa, leave the boat for me to bring home; I make him wait for it.’” “Did you quarrel at all?” “Maybe so,” said Frank. “Whiskey not let you remember much. But I could kill Moses easier than he could kill me.”