"Get up, Makar, old man!" he was saying, "and let us be going."
"Where must I go?" asked Makar with displeasure. He supposed that once dead he ought to lie still, and that there was no need for him now to be wandering about the forest, losing his way. If he had to do that, then why had he died?
"Let us go to the great Toyon."[1]
"Why should I go to him?" Makar asked.
"He is going to judge you," answered the priest in a sorrowful, compassionate voice.
Makar recollected that, in fact, one did have to appear at some judgment after one died. He had heard that at church. The priest was right after all; he would have to get up.
So Makar rose, muttering under his breath that they couldn't even let a man alone after he was dead.
The priest walked before and Makar followed. They went always straight ahead, and the larches stood meekly aside and allowed them to pass; they were going eastward.
Makar noted with surprise that Father Ivan left no tracks in the snow behind him; he looked under his own feet and saw no tracks either; the snow lay as fresh and smooth as a table cloth.
How easy it would be now, he reflected, to rob other men's traps, as no one could find him out! But the priest must have read his secret thought, for he
- ↑ Toyon: Chief.
