It was, in fact, some of the Outliers who had not been at Deep Fern, drawn from their own places by that mysterious capacity of evil news to spread. They came hurrying all that day and the next. The Covers were peopled thick as a rabbit warren. Coveys of quail whirred up from it with a sharp explosive sound and broke toward the wooded land. Except for that, and the fact that the quail did not come back again, there was no sign. Men sat close in the tunnels, and it was dreadful to see the working in them of their resentment of betrayal. So much the worse because they knew it had been half invited. They had accepted a hostage of the Far-Folk, who never spoke straight nor did truly. What wonder, then, if he had done after his kind? They knew—at this point resentment rose to its burningest—they had always known, and knowing, could not have done otherwise. Ravenutzi came under honorable conditions, and they had served him honorably, being so much the debtor to their own natures. They were not only sick to be dishonored, they sickened of dishonor. As they sat in the green glooms of Windy Covers their bodies heaved and flushed, eyes reddened, hands wrenching at invisible things. Now and then, at the mention of a name or a circumstance, some quick, explosive breath would struggle with a curse; the gorge of the spirit rose. Never among the Outliers had I found myself so unfriended. I felt myself burned upon by their rages, but they cared nothing for my burning. To have harped upon my own resentment was to advertise myself a witness of their betrayal. I judged best to be as little in evidence as was compatible without making myself a target for the Far-Folk. I found myself as lonely as could well be expected. Late of the second day I went down to the edge of the chaparral where the trees began to invade it, standing apart and singly, and the chaparral had made itself small to run under the trees. I found an island of dry litter under a pine, and drew myself up in it, out of the pervading bitterness and betrayal, flooding so fiercely under Windy Covers.