He had not reasoned as a man should reason.

The hangman might be waiting for him at Cragg's Ridge, down on the rim of civilization, but that same grim executioner was also pursuing close at his heels.

He would always be pursuing in the form of a Breault, a Cassidy, a Tavish, or a Somebody Else of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police.

It would be that way until the end came.

And when the end did come, when they finally got him, the blow would be easier at Cragg's Ridge than up here on the edge of the Barren Land.
And again there was hope, a wild, almost unbelievable hope that with Nada he might find that place which Yellow Bird, the sorceress, had promised for them--that mystery-place of safety and of happiness which she had called The Country Beyond, where "all would end well." He had not the faith of Yellow Bird's people; he was not superstitious enough to believe fully in her sorcery, except that he seized upon it as a drowning man might grip at a floating sea-weed.