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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Flaming Forest, by James Oliver Curwood
+#5 in our series by James Oliver Curwood
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+Title: The Flaming Forest
+
+Author: James Oliver Curwood
+
+Release Date: December, 2003 [Etext #4702]
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+[This file was first posted on March 3, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+
+THE FLAMING FOREST
+
+BY JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD
+
+AUTHOR OF THE VALLEY OF SILENT MEN, THE COUNTRY BEYOND, THE
+ALASKAN, ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FLAMING FOREST
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+An hour ago, under the marvelous canopy of the blue northern sky,
+David Carrigan, Sergeant in His Most Excellent Majesty's Royal
+Northwest Mounted Police, had hummed softly to himself, and had
+thanked God that he was alive. He had blessed McVane,
+superintendent of "N" Division at Athabasca Landing, for detailing
+him to the mission on which he was bent. He was glad that he was
+traveling alone, and in the deep forest, and that for many weeks
+his adventure would carry him deeper and deeper into his beloved
+north. Making his noonday tea over a fire at the edge of the
+river, with the green forest crowding like an inundation on three
+sides of him, he had come to the conclusion--for the hundredth
+time, perhaps--that it was a nice thing to be alone in the world,
+for he was on what his comrades at the Landing called a "bad
+assignment."
+
+"If anything happens to me," Carrigan had said to McVane, "there
+isn't anybody in particular to notify. I lost out in the matter of
+family a long time ago."
+
+He was not a man who talked much about himself, even to the
+superintendent of "N" Division, yet there were a thousand who
+loved Dave Carrigan, and many who placed their confidences in him.
+Superintendent Me Vane had one story which he might have told, but
+he kept it to himself, instinctively sensing the sacredness of it.
+Even Carrigan did not know that the one thing which never passed
+his lips was known to McVane.
+
+Of that, too, he had been thinking an hour ago. It was the thing
+which, first of all, had driven him into the north. And though it
+had twisted and disrupted the earth under his feet for a time, it
+had brought its compensation. For he had come to love the north
+with a passionate devotion. It was, in a way, his God. It seemed
+to him that the time had never been when he had lived any other
+life than this under the open skies. He was thirty-seven now. A
+bit of a philosopher, as philosophy comes to one in a sun-cleaned
+and unpolluted air, A good-humored brother of humanity, even when
+he put manacles on other men's wrists; graying a little over the
+temples--and a lover of life. Above all else he was that. A lover
+of life. A worshiper at the shrine of God's Country.
+
+So he sat, that hour ago, deep in the wilderness eighty miles
+north of Athabasca Landing, congratulating himself on the present
+conditions of his existence. A hundred and eighty miles farther on
+was Fort McMurray, and another two hundred beyond that was
+Chipewyan, and still beyond that the Mackenzie and its fifteen-
+hundred-mile trail to the northern sea. He was glad there was no
+end to this world of his. He was glad there were few people in it.
+But these people he loved. That hour ago he had looked out on the
+river as two York boats had forged up against the stream, craft
+like the long, slim galleys of old, brought over through the
+Churchill and Clearwater countries from Hudson's Bay. There were
+eight rowers in each boat. They were singing. Their voices rolled
+between the walls of the forests. Their naked arms and shoulders
+glistened in the sun. They rowed like Vikings, and to him they
+were symbols of the freedom of the world. He had watched them
+until they were gone up-stream, but it was a long time before the
+chanting of their voices had died away. And then he had risen from
+beside his tiny fire, and had stretched himself until his muscles
+cracked. It was good to feel the blood running red and strong in
+one's veins at the age of thirty-seven. For Carrigan felt the
+thrill of these days when strong men were coming out of the north
+--days when the glory of June hung over the land, when out of the
+deep wilderness threaded by the Three Rivers came romance and
+courage and red-blooded men and women of an almost forgotten
+people to laugh and sing and barter for a time with the outpost
+guardians of a younger and more progressive world. It was north of
+Fifty-Four, and the waters of a continent flowed toward the Arctic
+Sea. Yet soon would the strawberries be crushing red underfoot;
+the forest road was in bloom, scarlet fire-flowers reddened the
+trail, wild hyacinths and golden-freckled violets played hide-
+and-seek with the forget-me-nots in the meadows, and the sky was a
+great splash of velvety blue. It was the north triumphant--at the
+edge of civilization; the north triumphant, and yet paying its
+tribute. For at the other end were waiting the royal Upper Ten
+Thousand and the smart Four Hundred with all the beau monde behind
+them, coveting and demanding that tribute to their sex--the silken
+furs of a far country, the life's blood and labor of a land
+infinitely beyond the pale of drawing-rooms and the whims of
+fashion.
+
+Carrigan had thought of these things that hour ago, as he sat at
+the edge of the first of the Three Rivers, the great Athabasca.
+From down the other two, the Slave and the Mackenzie, the fur
+fleets of the unmapped country had been toiling since the first
+breakups of ice. Steadily, week after week, the north had been
+emptying itself of its picturesque tide of life and voice, of
+muscle and brawn, of laughter and song--and wealth. Through, long
+months of deep winter, in ten thousand shacks and tepees and
+cabins, the story of this June had been written as fate had
+written it each winter for a hundred years or more. A story of the
+triumph of the fittest. A story of tears, of happiness here and
+there, of hunger and plenty, of new life and quick death; a story
+of strong men and strong women, living in the faith of their
+forefathers, with the best blood of old England and France still
+surviving in their veins.
+
+Through those same months of winter, the great captains of trade
+in the city of Edmonton had been preparing for the coming of the
+river brigades. The hundred and fifty miles of trail between that
+last city outpost of civilization and Athabasca Landing, the door
+that opened into the North, were packed hard by team and dog-
+sledge and packer bringing up the freight that for another year
+was to last the forest people of the Three River country--a domain
+reaching from the Landing to the Arctic Ocean. In competition
+fought the drivers of Revillon Brothers and Hudson's Bay, of free
+trader and independent adventurer. Freight that grew more precious
+with each mile it advanced must reach the beginning of the
+waterway. It started with the early snows. The tide was at full by
+midwinter. In temperature that nipped men's lungs it did not
+cease. There was no let-up in the whip-hands of the masters of
+trade at Edmonton, Winnipeg, Montreal, and London across the sea.
+It was not a work of philanthropy. These men cared not whether
+Jean and Jacqueline and Pierre and Marie were well-fed or hungry,
+whether they lived or died, so far as humanity was concerned. But
+Paris, Vienna, London, and the great capitals of the earth must
+have their furs--and unless that freight went north, there would
+be no velvety offerings for the white shoulders of the world.
+Christmas windows two years hence would be bare. A feminine wail
+of grief would rise to the skies. For woman must have her furs,
+and in return for those furs Jean and Jacqueline and Pierre and
+Marie must have their freight. So the pendulum swung, as it had
+swung for a century or two, touching, on the one side, luxury,
+warmth, wealth, and beauty; on the other, cold and hardship, deep
+snows and open skies--with that precious freight the thing
+between.
+
+And now, in this year before rail and steamboat, the glory of
+early summer was at hand, and the wilderness people were coming up
+to meet the freight. The Three Rivers--the Athabasca, the Slave,
+and the Mackenzie, all joining in one great two-thousand-mile
+waterway to the northern sea--were athrill with the wild impulse
+and beat of life as the forest people lived it. The Great Father
+had sent in his treaty money, and Cree song and Chipewyan chant
+joined the age-old melodies of French and half-breed. Countless
+canoes drove past the slower and mightier scow brigades; huge York
+boats with two rows of oars heaved up and down like the ancient
+galleys of Rome; tightly woven cribs of timber, and giant rafts
+made tip of many cribs were ready for their long drift into a
+timberless country. On this two-thousand-mile waterway a world had
+gathered. It was the Nile of the northland, and each post and
+gathering place along its length was turned into a metropolis,
+half savage, archaic, splendid with the strength of red blood,
+clear eyes, and souls that read the word of God in wind and tree.
+
+And up and down this mighty waterway of wilderness trade ran the
+whispering spirit of song, like the voice of a mighty god heard
+under the stars and in the winds.
+
+But it was an hour ago that David Carrigan had vividly pictured
+these things to himself close to the big river, and many things
+may happen in the sixty minutes that follow any given minute in a
+man's life. That hour ago his one great purpose had been to bring
+in Black Roger Audemard, alive or dead--Black Roger, the forest
+fiend who had destroyed half a dozen lives in a blind passion of
+vengeance nearly fifteen years ago. For ten of those fifteen years
+it had been thought that Black Roger was dead. But mysterious
+rumors had lately come out of the North. He was alive. People had
+seen him. Fact followed rumor. His existence became certainty. The
+Law took up once more his hazardous trail, and David Carrigan was
+the messenger it sent.
+
+"Bring him back, alive or dead," were Superintendent McVane's last
+words.
+
+And now, thinking of that parting injunction, Carrigan grinned,
+even as the sweat of death dampened his face in the heat of the
+afternoon sun. For at the end of those sixty minutes that had
+passed since his midday pot of tea, the grimly, atrociously
+unexpected had happened, like a thunderbolt out of the azure of
+the sky.
+
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Huddled behind a rock which was scarcely larger than his body,
+groveling in the white, soft sand like a turtle making a nest for
+its eggs, Carrigan told himself this without any reservation. He
+was, as he kept repeating to himself for the comfort of his soul,
+in a deuce of a fix. His head was bare--simply because a bullet
+had taken his hat away. His blond hair was filled with sand. His
+face was sweating. But his blue eyes were alight with a grim sort
+of humor, though he knew that unless the other fellow's ammunition
+ran out he was going to die.
+
+For the twentieth time in as many minutes he looked about him. He
+was in the center of a flat area of sand. Fifty feet from him the
+river murmured gently over yellow bars and a carpet of pebbles.
+Fifty feet on the opposite side of him was the cool, green wall of
+the forest. The sunshine playing in it seemed like laughter to him
+now, a whimsical sort of merriment roused by the sheer effrontery
+of the joke which fate had inflicted upon him.
+
+Between the river and the balsam and spruce was only the rock
+behind which he was cringing like a rabbit afraid to take to the
+open. And his rock was a mere up-jutting of the solid floor of
+shale that was under him. The wash sand that covered it like a
+carpet was not more than four or five inches deep. He could not
+dig in. There was not enough of it within reach to scrape up as a
+protection. And his enemy, a hundred yards or so away, was a
+determined wretch--and the deadliest shot he had ever known.
+
+Three times Carrigan had made experiments to prove this, for he
+had in mind a sudden rush to the shelter of the timber. Three
+times he had raised the crown of his hat slightly above the top of
+the rock, and three times the marksmanship of the other had
+perforated it with neatness and dispatch. The third bullet had
+carried his hat a dozen feet away. Whenever he showed a patch of
+his clothing, a bullet replied with unerring precision. Twice they
+had drawn blood. And the humor faded out of Carrigan's eyes.
+
+Not long ago he had exulted in the bigness and glory of this
+country of his, where strong men met hand to hand and eye to eye.
+There were the other kind in it, the sort that made his profession
+of manhunting a thing of reality and danger, but he expected
+these--forgot them--when the wilderness itself filled his vision.
+But his present situation was something unlike anything that had
+ever happened in his previous experience with the outlawed. He had
+faced dangers. He had fought. There were times when he had almost
+died. Fanchet, the half-breed who had robbed a dozen wilderness
+mail sledges, had come nearest to trapping him and putting him out
+of business. Fanchet was a desperate man and had few scruples. But
+even Fanchet--before he was caught--would not have cornered a man
+with such bloodthirsty unfairness as Carrigan found himself
+cornered now. He no longer had a doubt as to what was in the
+other's mind. It was not to wound and make merely helpless. It was
+to kill. It was not difficult to prove this. Careful not to expose
+a part of his arm or shoulder, he drew a white handkerchief from
+his pocket, fastened it to the end of his rifle, and held the flag
+of surrender three feet above the rock. And then, with equal
+caution, he slowly thrust up a flat piece of shale, which at a
+distance of a hundred yards might appear as his shoulder or even
+his head. Scarcely was it four inches above the top of the rock
+before there came the report of a rifle, and the shale was
+splintered into a hundred bits.
+
+Carrigan lowered his flag and gathered himself in tighter. The
+accuracy of the other's marksmanship was appalling. He knew that
+if he exposed himself for an instant to use his own rifle or the
+heavy automatic in his holster, he would be a dead man before he
+could press a trigger. And that time, he felt equally sure, would
+come sooner or later. His muscles were growing cramped. He could
+not forever double himself up like a four-bladed jackknife behind
+the altogether inefficient shelter of the rock.
+
+His executioner was hidden in the edge of the timber, not directly
+opposite him, but nearly a hundred yards down stream. Twenty times
+he had wondered why the fiend with the rifle did not creep up
+through that timber and take a good, open pot-shot at him from the
+vantage point which lay at the end of a straight line between his
+rock and the nearest spruce and balsam. From that angle he could
+not completely shelter himself. But the man a hundred yards below
+had not moved a foot from his ambush since he had fired his first
+shot. That had come when Carrigan was crossing the open space of
+soft, white sand. It had left a burning sensation at his temple--
+half an inch to the right and it would have killed him. Swift as
+the shot itself, he dropped behind the one protection at hand, the
+up-jutting shoulder of shale.
+
+For a quarter of an hour he had been making efforts to wriggle
+himself free from his bulky shoulder-pack without exposing himself
+to a coup-de-grace. At last he had the thing off. It was a
+tremendous relief when he thrust it out beside the rock, almost
+doubling the size of his shelter. Instantly there came the crash
+of a bullet in it, and then another. He heard the rattle of pans,
+and wondered if his skillet would be any good after today.
+
+For the first time he could wipe the sweat from his face and
+stretch himself. And also he could think. Carrigan possessed an
+unalterable faith in the infallibility of the mind. "You can do
+anything with the mind," was his code. "It is better than a good
+gun."
+
+Now that he was physically more at ease, he began reassembling his
+scattered mental faculties. Who was this stranger who was pot-
+shotting at him with such deadly animosity from the ambush below?
+Who--
+
+Another crash of lead in tinware and steel put an unpleasant
+emphasis to the question. It was so close to his head that it made
+him wince, and now--with a wide area within reach about him--he
+began scraping up the sand for an added protection. There came a
+long silence after that third clatter of distress from his cooking
+utensils. To David Carrigan, even in his hour of deadly peril,
+there was something about it that for an instant brought back the
+glow of humor in his eyes. It was hot, swelteringly hot, in that
+packet of sand with the unclouded sun almost straight overhead. He
+could have tossed a pebble to where a bright-eyed sandpiper was
+cocking itself backward and forward, its jerky movements
+accompanied by friendly little tittering noises. Everything about
+him seemed friendly. The river rippled and murmured in cooling
+song just beyond the sandpiper. On the other side the still cooler
+forest was a paradise of shade and contentment, astir with subdued
+and hidden life. It was nesting season. He heard the twitter of
+birds. A tiny, brown wood warbler fluttered out to the end of a
+silvery birch limb, and it seemed to David that its throat must
+surely burst with the burden of its song. The little fellow's
+brown body, scarcely larger than a butternut, was swelling up like
+a round ball in his effort to vanquish all other song.
+
+"Go to it, old man," chuckled Carrigan. "Go to it!"
+
+The little warbler, that he might have crushed between thumb and
+forefinger, gave him a lot of courage.
+
+Then the tiny chorister stopped for breath. In that interval
+Carrigan listened to the wrangling of two vivid-colored Canada
+jays deeper in the timber. Chronic scolds they were, never without
+a grouch. They were like some people Carrigan had known, born
+pessimists, always finding something to complain about, even in
+their love days.
+
+And these were love days. That was the odd thought that came to
+Carrigan as he lay half on his face, his fingers slowly and
+cautiously working a loophole between his shoulder-pack and the
+rock. They were love days all up and down the big rivers, where
+men and women sang for joy, and children played, forgetful of the
+long, hard days of winter. And in forest, plain, and swamp was
+this spirit of love also triumphant over the land. It was the
+mating season of all feathered things. In countless nests were the
+peeps and twitters of new life; mothers of first-born were
+teaching their children to swim and fly; from end to end of the
+forest world the little children of the silent places, furred and
+feathered, clawed and hoofed, were learning the ways of life.
+Nature's yearly birthday was half-way gone, and the doors of
+nature's school wide open. And the tiny brown songster at the end
+of his birch twig proclaimed the joy of it again, and challenged
+all the world to beat him in his adulation.
+
+Carrigan found that he could peer between his pack and the rock to
+where the other warbler was singing--and where his enemy lay
+watching for the opportunity to kill. It was taking a chance. If a
+movement betrayed his loophole, his minutes were numbered. But he
+had worked cautiously, an inch at a time, and was confident that
+the beginning of his effort to fight back was, up to the present
+moment, undiscovered. He believed that he knew about where the
+ambushed man was concealed. In the edge of a low-hanging mass of
+balsam was a fallen cedar. From behind the butt of that cedar he
+was sure the shots had come.
+
+And now, even more cautiously than he had made the tiny opening,
+he began to work the muzzle of his rifle through the loophole. As
+he did this he was thinking of Black Roger Audemard. And yet,
+almost as quickly as suspicion leaped into his mind, he told
+himself that the thing was impossible. It could not be Black
+Roger, or one of Black Roger's friends, behind the cedar log. The
+idea was inconceivable, when he considered how carefully the
+secret of his mission had been kept at the Landing. He had not
+even said goodby to his best friends. And because Black Roger had
+won through all the preceding years, Carrigan was stalking his
+prey out of uniform. There had been nothing to betray him.
+Besides, Black Roger Audemard must be at least a thousand miles
+north, unless something had tempted him to come up the rivers with
+the spring brigades. If he used logic at all, there was but one
+conclusion for him to arrive at. The man in ambush was some
+rascally half-breed who coveted his outfit and whatever valuables
+he might have about his person.
+
+A fourth smashing eruption among his comestibles and culinary
+possessions came to drive home the fact that even that analysis of
+the situation was absurd. Whoever was behind the rifle fire had
+small respect for the contents of his pack, and he was surely not
+in grievous need of a good gun or ammunition. A sticky mess of
+condensed cream was running over Carrigan's hand. He doubted if
+there was a whole tin in his kit.
+
+For a few moments he lay quietly on his face after the fourth
+shot. His eyes were turned toward the river, and on the far side,
+a quarter of a mile away, three canoes were moving swiftly up the
+slow current of the stream. The sunlight flashed on their wet
+sides. The gleam of dripping paddles was like the flutter of
+silvery birds' wings, and across the water came an unintelligible
+shout in response to the rifle shot. It occurred to David that he
+might make a trumpet of his hands and shout back, but the distance
+was too great for his voice to carry its message for help.
+Besides, now that he had the added protection of the pack, he felt
+a certain sense of humiliation at the thought of showing the white
+feather. A few minutes more, if all went well, and he would settle
+for the man behind the log.
+
+He continued again the slow operation of worming his rifle barrel
+between the pack and the rock. The near-sighted little sandpiper
+had discovered him and seemed interested in the operation. It had
+come a dozen feet nearer, and was perking its head and seesawing
+on its long legs as it watched with inquisitive inspection the
+unusual manifestation of life behind the rock. Its twittering note
+had changed to an occasional sharp and querulous cry. Carrigan
+wanted to wring its neck. That cry told the other fellow that he
+was still alive and moving.
+
+It seemed an age before his rifle was through, and every moment he
+expected another shot. He flattened himself out, Indian fashion,
+and sighted along the barrel. He was positive that his enemy was
+watching, yet he could make out nothing that looked like a head
+anywhere along the log. At one end was a clump of deeper foliage.
+He was sure he saw a sudden slight movement there, and in the
+thrill of the moment was tempted to send a bullet into the heart
+of it. But he saved his cartridge. He felt the mighty importance
+of certainty. If he fired once--and missed--the advantage of his
+unsuspected loophole would be gone. It would be transformed into a
+deadly menace. Even as it was, if his enemy's next bullet should
+enter that way--
+
+He felt the discomfort of the thought, and in spite of himself a
+tremor of apprehension ran up his spine. He felt an even greater
+desire to wring the neck of the inquisitive little sandpiper. The
+creature had circled round squarely in front of him and stood
+there tilting its tail and bobbing its head as if its one insane
+desire was to look down the length of his rifle barrel. The bird
+was giving him away. If the other fellow was only half as clever
+as his marksmanship was good--
+
+Suddenly every nerve in Carrigan's body tightened. He was positive
+that he had caught the outline of a human head and shoulders in
+the foliage. His finger pressed gently against the trigger of his
+Winchester. Before he breathed again he would have fired. But a
+shot from the foliage beat him out by the fraction of a second. In
+that precious time lost, his enemy's bullet entered the edge of
+his kit--and came through. He felt the shock of it, and in the
+infinitesimal space between the physical impact and the mental
+effect of shock his brain told him the horrible thing had
+happened. It was his head--his face. It was as if he had plunged
+them suddenly into hot water, and what was left of his skull was
+filled with the rushing and roaring of a flood. He staggered up,
+clutching his face with both hands. The world about him was
+twisted and black, a dizzily revolving thing--yet his still
+fighting mental vision pictured clearly for him a monstrous,
+bulging-eyed sandpiper as big as a house. Then he toppled back on
+the white sand, his arms flung out limply, his face turned to the
+ambush wherein his murderer lay.
+
+His body was clear of the rock and the pack, but there came no
+other shot from the thick clump of balsam. Nor, for a time, was
+there movement. The wood warbler was cheeping inquiringly at this
+sudden change in the deportment of his friend behind the shoulder
+of shale. The sandpiper, a bit startled, had gone back to the edge
+of the river and was running a race with himself along the wet
+sand. And the two quarrelsome jays had brought their family
+squabble to the edge of the timber.
+
+It was their wrangling that roused Carrigan to the fact that he
+was not dead. It was a thrilling discovery--that and the fact that
+he made out clearly a patch of sunlight in the sand. He did not
+move, but opened his eyes wider. He could see the timber. On a
+straight line with his vision was the thick clump of balsam. And
+as he looked, the boughs parted and a figure came out. Carrigan
+drew a deep breath. He found that it did not hurt him. He gripped
+the fingers of the hand that was under his body, and they closed
+on the butt of his service automatic. He would win yet, if God
+gave him life a few minutes longer.
+
+His enemy advanced. As he drew nearer, Carrigan closed his eyes
+more and more. They must be shut, and he must appear as if dead,
+when the other came up. Then, when the scoundrel put down his gun,
+as he naturally would--his chance would be at hand. If a quiver of
+his eyes betrayed him--
+
+He closed them tight. Dizziness began to creep over him, and the
+fire in his brain grew hot again. He heard footsteps, and they
+stopped in the sand close beside him. Then he heard a human voice.
+It did not speak in words, but gave utterance to a strange and
+unnatural cry. With a mighty effort Carrigan assembled his last
+strength. It seemed to him that he brought himself up quickly, but
+his movement was slow, painful--the effort of a man who might be
+dying. The automatic hung limply in his hand, its muzzle pointing
+to the sand. He looked up, trying to swing into action that mighty
+weight of his weapon. And then from his own lips, even in his
+utter physical impotence, fell a cry of wonder and amazement.
+
+His enemy stood there in the sunlight, staring down at him with
+big, dark eyes that were filled with horror. They were not the
+eyes of a man. David Carrigan, in this most astounding moment of
+his life, found himself looking up into the face of a woman.
+
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+For a matter of twenty seconds--even longer it seemed to Carrigan
+--the life of these two was expressed in a vivid and unforgettable
+tableau. One half of it David saw--the blue sky, the dazzling sun,
+the girl in between. The pistol dropped from his limp hand, and
+the weight of his body tottered on the crook of his under-elbow.
+Mentally and physically he was on the point of collapse, and yet
+in those few moments every detail of the picture was painted with
+a brush of fire in his brain. The girl was bareheaded. Her face
+was as white as any face he had ever seen, living or dead; her
+eyes were like pools that had caught the reflection of fire; he
+saw the sheen of her hair, the poise of her slender body--its
+shock, stupefaction, horror. He sensed these things even as his
+brain wobbled dizzily, and the larger part of the picture began to
+fade out of his vision. But her face remained to the last. It grew
+clearer, like a cameo framed in an iris--a beautiful, staring,
+horrified face with shimmering tresses of jet-black hair blowing
+about it like a veil. He noticed the hair, that was partly undone
+as if she had been in a struggle of some sort, or had been running
+fast against the breeze that came up the river.
+
+He fought with himself to hold that picture of her, to utter some
+word, make some movement. But the power to see and to live died
+out of him. He sank back with a queer sound in his throat. He did
+not hear the answering cry from the girl as she flung herself,
+with a quick little prayer for help, on her knees in the soft,
+white sand beside him. He felt no movement when she raised his
+head in her arm and with her bare hand brushed back his sand-
+littered hair, revealing where the bullet had struck him. He did
+not know when she ran back to the river.
+
+His first sensation was of a cool and comforting something
+trickling over his burning temples and his face. It was water.
+Subconsciously he knew that, and in the same way he began to
+think. But it was hard to pull his thoughts together. They
+persisted in hopping about, like a lot of sand-fleas in a dance,
+and just as he got hold of one and reached for another, the first
+would slip away from him. He began to get the best of them after a
+time, and he had an uncontrollable desire to say something. But
+his eyes and his lips were sealed tight, and to open them, a
+little army of gnomes came out of the darkness in the back of his
+head, each of them armed with a lever, and began prying with all
+their might. After that came the beginning of light and a flash of
+consciousness.
+
+The girl was working over him. He could feel her and hear her
+movement. Water was trickling over his face. Then he heard a
+voice, close over him, saying something in a sobbing monotone
+which he could not understand.
+
+With a mighty effort he opened his eyes.
+
+"Thank LE BON DIEU, you live, m'sieu," he heard the voice say, as
+if coming from a long distance away. "You live, you live--"
+
+"Tryin' to," he mumbled thickly, feeling suddenly a sense of great
+elation. "Tryin'--"
+
+He wanted to curse the gnomes for deserting him, for as soon as
+they were gone with their levers, his eyes and his lips shut tight
+again, or at least he thought they did. But he began to sense
+things in a curious sort of way. Some one was dragging him. He
+could feel the grind of sand under his body. There were intervals
+when the dragging operation paused. And then, after a long time,
+he seemed to hear more than one voice. There were two--sometimes a
+murmur of them. And odd visions came to him. He seemed to see the
+girl with shining black hair and dark eyes, and then swiftly she
+would change into a girl with hair like blazing gold. This was a
+different girl. She was not like Pretty Eyes, as his twisted mind
+called the other. This second vision that he saw was like a
+radiant bit of the sun, her hair all aflame with the fire of it
+and her face a different sort of face. He was always glad when she
+went away and Pretty Eyes came back.
+
+To David Carrigan this interesting experience in his life might
+have covered an hour, a day, or a month. Or a year for that
+matter, for he seemed to have had an indefinite association with
+Pretty Eyes. He had known her for a long time and very intimately,
+it seemed. Yet he had no memory of the long fight in the hot sun,
+or of the river, or of the singing warblers, or of the inquisitive
+sandpiper that had marked out the line which his enemy's last
+bullet had traveled. He had entered into a new world in which
+everything was vague and unreal except that vision of dark hair,
+dark eyes, and pale, beautiful face. Several times he saw it with
+marvelous clearness, and each time he drifted away into darkness
+again with the sound of a voice growing fainter and fainter in his
+ears.
+
+Then came a time of utter chaos and soundless gloom. He was in a
+pit, where even his subconscious self was almost dead under a
+crushing oppression. At last a star began to glimmer in this pit,
+a star pale and indistinct and a vast distance away. But it crept
+steadily up through the eternity of darkness, and the nearer it
+came, the less there was of the blackness of night. From a star it
+grew into a sun, and with the sun came dawn. In that dawn he heard
+the singing of a bird, and the bird was just over his head. When
+Carrigan opened his eyes, and understanding came to him, he found
+himself under the silver birch that belonged to the wood warbler.
+
+For a space he did not ask himself how he had come there. He was
+looking at the river and the white strip of sand. Out there were
+the rock and his dunnage pack. Also his rifle. Instinctively his
+eyes turned to the balsam ambush farther down. That, too, was in a
+blaze of sunlight now. But where he lay, or sat, or stood--he was
+not sure what he was doing at that moment--it was shady and
+deliciously cool. The green of the cedar and spruce and balsam was
+close about him, inset with the silver and gold of the thickly-
+leaved birch. He discovered that he was bolstered up partly
+against the trunk of this birch and partly against a spruce
+sapling. Between these two, where his head rested, was a pile of
+soft moss freshly torn from the earth. And within reach of him was
+his own kit pail filled with water.
+
+He moved himself cautiously and raised a hand to his head. His
+fingers came in contact with a bandage.
+
+For a minute or two after that he sat without moving while his
+amazed senses seized upon the significance of it all. In the first
+place he was alive. But even this fact of living was less
+remarkable than the other things that had happened. He remembered
+the final moments of the unequal duel. His enemy had got him. And
+that enemy was a woman! Moreover, after she had blown away a part
+of his head and had him helpless in the sand, she had--in place of
+finishing him there--dragged him to this cool nook and tied up his
+wound. It was hard for him to believe, but the pail of water, the
+moss behind his shoulders, the bandage, and certain visions that
+were reforming themselves in his brain convinced him. A woman had
+shot him. She had worked like the very devil to kill him. And
+afterward she had saved him! He grinned. It was final proof that
+his mind hadn't been playing tricks on him. No one but a woman
+would have been quite so unreasonable. A man would have completed
+the job.
+
+He began to look for her up and down the white strip of sand. And
+in looking he saw the gray and silver flash of the hard-working
+sandpiper. He chuckled, for he was exceedingly comfortable, and
+also exhilaratingly happy to know that the thing was over and he
+was not dead. If the sandpiper had been a man, he would have
+called him up to shake hands with him. For if it hadn't been for
+the bird getting squarely in front of him and giving him away,
+there might have been a more horrible end to it all. He shuddered
+as he thought of the mighty effort he had made to fire a shot into
+the heart of the balsam ambush--and perhaps into the heart of a
+woman!
+
+He reached for the pail and drank deeply of the water in it. He
+felt no pain. His dizziness was gone. His mind had grown suddenly
+clear and alert. The warmth of the water told him almost instantly
+that it had been taken from the river some time ago. He observed
+the change in sun and shadows. With the instinct of a man trained
+to note details, he pulled out his watch. It was almost six
+o'clock. More than three hours had passed since the sandpiper had
+got in front of his gun. He did not attempt to rise to his feet,
+but scanned with slower and more careful scrutiny the edge of the
+forest and the river. He had been mystified while cringing for his
+life behind the rock, but he was infinitely more so now. Greater
+desire he had never had than this which thrilled him in these
+present minutes of his readjustment--desire to look upon the woman
+again. And then, all at once, there came back to him a mental
+flash of the other. He remembered, as if something was coming back
+to him out of a dream, how the whimsical twistings of his sick
+brain had made him see two faces instead of one. Yet he knew that
+the first picture of his mysterious assailant, the picture painted
+in his brain when he had tried to raise his pistol, was the right
+one. He had seen her dark eyes aglow; he had seen the sunlit sheen
+of her black hair rippling in the wind; he had seen the white
+pallor in her face, the slimness of her as she stood over him in
+horror--he remembered even the clutch of her white hand at her
+throat. A moment before she had tried to kill him. And then he had
+looked up and had seen her like that! It must have been some
+unaccountable trick in his brain that had flooded her hair with
+golden fire at times.
+
+His eyes followed a furrow in the white sand which led from where
+he sat bolstered against the tree down to his pack and the rock.
+It was the trail made by his body when she had dragged him up to
+the shelter and coolness of the timber. One of his laws of
+physical care was to keep himself trained down to a hundred and
+sixty, but he wondered how she had dragged up even so much as that
+of dead weight. It had taken a great deal of effort. He could see
+distinctly three different places in the sand where she had
+stopped to rest.
+
+Carrigan had earned a reputation as the expert analyst of "N"
+Division. In delicate matters it was seldom that McVane did not
+take him into consultation. He possessed an almost uncanny grip on
+the working processes of a criminal mind, and the first rule he
+had set down for himself was to regard the acts of omission rather
+than the one outstanding act of commission. But when he proved to
+himself that the chief actor in a drama possessed a normal rather
+than a criminal mind, he found himself in the position of
+checkmate. It was a thrilling game. And he was frankly puzzled
+now, until--one after another--he added up the sum total of what
+had been omitted in this instance of his own personal adventure.
+Hidden in her ambush, the woman who had shot him had been in both
+purpose and act an assassin. Her determination had been to kill
+him. She had disregarded the white flag with which he had pleaded
+for mercy. Her marksmanship was of fiendish cleverness. Up to her
+last shot she had been, to all intent and purpose, a murderess.
+
+The change had come when she looked down upon him, bleeding and
+helpless, in the sand. Undoubtedly she had thought he was dying.
+But why, when she saw his eyes open a little later, had she cried
+out her gratitude to God? What had worked the sudden
+transformation in her? Why had she labored to save the life she
+had so atrociously coveted a minute before?
+
+If his assailant had been a man, Carrigan would have found an
+answer. For he was not robbed, and therefore robbery was not a
+motif. "A case of mistaken identity," he would have told himself.
+"An error in visual judgment."
+
+But the fact that in his analysis he was dealing with a woman made
+his answer only partly satisfying. He could not disassociate
+himself from her eyes--their beauty, their horror, the way they
+had looked at him. It was as if a sudden revulsion had come over
+her; as if, looking down upon her bleeding handiwork, the woman's
+soul in her had revolted, and with that revulsion had come
+repentance--repentance and pity.
+
+"That," thought Carrigan, "would be just like a woman--and
+especially a woman with eyes like hers."
+
+This left him but two conclusions to choose from. Either there had
+been a mistake, and the woman had shown both horror and desire to
+amend when she discovered it, or a too tender-hearted agent of
+Black Roger Audemard had waylaid him in the heart of the white
+strip of sand.
+
+The sun was another hour lower in the sky when Carrigan assured
+himself in a series of cautious experiments that he was not in a
+condition to stand upon his feet. In his pack were a number of
+things he wanted--his blankets, for instance, a steel mirror, and
+the thermometer in his medical kit. He was beginning to feel a bit
+anxious about himself. There were sharp pains back of his eyes.
+His face was hot, and he was developing an unhealthy appetite for
+water. It was fever and he knew what fever meant in this sort of
+thing, when one was alone. He had given up hope of the woman's
+return. It was not reasonable to expect her to come back after her
+furious attempt to kill him. She had bandaged him, bolstered him
+up, placed water beside him, and had then left him to work out the
+rest of his salvation alone. But why the deuce hadn't she brought
+up his pack?
+
+On his hands and knees he began to work himself toward it slowly.
+He found that the movement caused him pain, and that with this
+pain, if he persisted in movement, there was a synchronous rise of
+nausea. The two seemed to work in a sort of unity. But his
+medicine case was important now, and his blankets, and his rifle
+if he hoped to signal help that might chance to pass on the river.
+A foot at a time, a yard at a time, he made his way down into the
+sand. His fingers dug into the footprints of the mysterious gun-
+woman. He approved of their size. They were small and narrow,
+scarcely longer than the palm and fingers of his hand--and they
+were made by shoes instead of moccasins.
+
+It seemed an interminable time to him before he reached his pack.
+When he got there, a pendulum seemed swinging back and forth
+inside his head, beating against his skull. He lay down with his
+pack for a pillow, intending to rest for a spell. But the minutes
+added themselves one on top of another. The sun slipped behind
+clouds banking in the west. It grew cooler, while within him he
+was consumed by a burning thirst. He could hear the ripple of
+running water, the laughter of it among pebbles a few yards away.
+And the river itself became even more desirable than his medicine
+case, or his blankets, or his rifle. The song of it, inviting and
+tempting him, blotted thought of the other things out of his mind.
+And he continued his journey, the swing of the pendulum in his
+head becoming harder, but the sound of the river growing nearer.
+At last he came to the wet sand, and fell on his face, and drank.
+
+After this he had no great desire to go back. He rolled himself
+over, so that his face was turned up to the sky. Under him the wet
+sand was soft, and it was comfortingly cool. The fire in his head
+died out. He could hear new sounds in the edge of the forest
+evening sounds. Only weak little twitters came from the wood
+warblers, driven to silence by thickening gloom in the densely
+canopied balsams and cedars, and frightened by the first low hoots
+of the owls. There was a crash not far distant, probably a
+porcupine waddling through brush on his way for a drink; or
+perhaps it was a thirsty deer, or a bear coming out in the hope of
+finding a dead fish. Carrigan loved that sort of sound, even when
+a pendulum was beating back and forth in his head. It was like
+medicine to him, and he lay with wide-open eyes, his ears picking
+up one after another the voices that marked the change from day to
+night. He heard the cry of a loon, its softer, chuckling note of
+honeymoon days. From across the river came a cry that was half
+howl, half bark. Carrigan knew that it was coyote, and not wolf, a
+coyote whose breed had wandered hundreds of miles north of the
+prairie country.
+
+The gloom gathered in, and yet it was not darkness as the darkness
+of night is known a thousand miles south. It was the dusky
+twilight of day where the sun rises at three o'clock in the
+morning and still throws its ruddy light in the western sky at
+nine o'clock at night; where the poplar buds unfold themselves
+into leaf before one's very eyes; where strawberries are green in
+the morning and red in the afternoon; where, a little later, one
+could read newspaper print until midnight by the glow of the sun--
+and between the rising and the setting of that sun there would be
+from eighteen to twenty hours of day. It was evening time in the
+wonderland of the north, a wonderland hard and frozen and ridden
+by pain and death in winter, but a paradise upon earth in this
+month of June.
+
+The beauty of it filled Carrigan's soul, even as he lay on his
+back in the damp sand. Far south of him steam and steel were
+coming, and the world would soon know that it was easy to grow
+wheat at the Arctic Circle, that cucumbers grew to half the size
+of a man's arm, that flowers smothered the land and berries turned
+it scarlet and black. He had dreaded these days--days of what he
+called "the great discovery"--the time when a crowded civilization
+would at last understand how the fruits of the earth leaped up to
+the call of twenty hours of sun each day, even though that earth
+itself was eternally frozen if one went down under its surface
+four feet with a pick and shovel.
+
+Tonight the gloom came earlier because of the clouds in the west.
+It was very still. Even the breeze had ceased to come from up the
+river. And as Carrigan listened, exulting in the thought that the
+coolness of the wet sand was drawing the fever from him, he heard
+another sound. At first he thought it was the splashing of a fish.
+But after that it came again, and still again, and he knew that
+it was the steady and rhythmic dip of paddles.
+
+A thrill shot through him, and he raised himself to his elbow.
+Dusk covered the river, and he could not see. But he heard low
+voices as the paddles dipped. And after a little he knew that one
+of these was the voice of a woman.
+
+His heart gave a big jump. "She is coming back," he whispered to
+himself. "She is coming back!"
+
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Carrigan's first impulse, sudden as the thrill that leaped through
+him, was to cry out to the occupants of the unseen canoe. Words
+were on his lips, but he forced them back. They could not miss
+him, could not get beyond the reach of his voice--and he waited.
+After all, there might be profit in a reasonable degree of
+caution. He crept back toward his rifle, sensing the fact that
+movement no longer gave him very great distress. At the same time
+he lost no sound from the river. The voices were silent, and the
+dip, dip, dip of paddles was approaching softly and with extreme
+caution. At last he could barely hear the trickle of them, yet he
+knew the canoe was coming steadily nearer. There was a suspicious
+secretiveness in its approach. Perhaps the lady with the beautiful
+eyes and the glistening hair had changed her mind again and was
+returning to put an end to him.
+
+The thought sharpened his vision. He saw a thin shadow a little
+darker than the gloom of the river; it grew into shape; something
+grated lightly upon sand and pebbles, and then he heard the
+guarded plash of feet in shallow water and saw some one pulling
+the canoe up higher. A second figure joined the first. They
+advanced a few paces and stopped. In a moment a voice called
+softly,
+
+"M'sieu! M'sieu Carrigan!"
+
+There was an anxious note in the voice, but Carrigan held his
+tongue. And then he heard the woman say,
+
+"It was here, Bateese! I am sure of it!"
+
+There was more than anxiety in her voice now. Her words trembled
+with distress. "Bateese--if he is dead--he is up there close to
+the trees."
+
+"But he isn't dead," said Carrigan, raising himself a little. "He
+is here, behind the rock again!"
+
+In a moment she had run to where he was lying, his hand clutching
+the cold barrel of the pistol which he had found in the sand, his
+white face looking up at her. Again he found himself staring into
+the glow of her eyes, and in that pale light which precedes the
+coming of stars and moon the fancy struck him that she was
+lovelier than in the full radiance of the sun. He heard a
+throbbing note in her throat. And then she was down on her knees
+at his side, leaning close over him, her hands groping at his
+shoulders, her quick breath betraying how swiftly her heart was
+beating.
+
+"You are not hurt--badly?" she cried.
+
+"I don't know," replied David. "You made a perfect shot. I think a
+part of my head is gone. At least you've shot away my balance,
+because I can't stand on my feet!"
+
+Her hand touched his face, remaining there for an instant, and the
+palm of it pressed his forehead. It was like the touch of cool
+velvet, he thought. Then she called to the man named Bateese. He
+made Carrigan think of a huge chimpanzee as he came near, because
+of the shortness of his body and the length of his arms. In the
+half light he might have been a huge animal, a hulking creature of
+some sort walking upright. Carrigan's fingers closed more tightly
+on the butt of his automatic. The woman began to talk swiftly in a
+patois of French and Cree. David caught the gist of it. She was
+telling Bateese to carry him to the canoe, and to be very careful,
+because m'sieu was badly hurt. It was his head, she emphasized.
+Bateese must be careful of his head.
+
+David slipped his pistol into its holster as Bateese bent over
+him. He tried to smile at the woman to thank her for her
+solicitude--after having nearly killed him. There was an
+increasing glow in the night, and he began to see her more
+plainly. Out on the middle of the river was a silvery bar of
+light. The moon was coming up, a little pale as yet, but
+triumphant in the fact that clouds had blotted out the sun an hour
+before his time. Between this bar of light and himself he saw the
+head of Bateese. It was a wild, savage-looking head, bound pirate-
+fashion round the forehead with a huge Hudson's Bay kerchief.
+Bateese might have been old Jack Ketch himself bending over to
+give the final twist to a victim's neck. His long arms slipped
+under David. Gently and without effort he raised him to his feet.
+And then, as easily as he might have lifted a child, he trundled
+him up in his arms and walked off with him over the sand.
+
+Carrigan had not expected this. He was a little shocked and felt
+also the impropriety of the thing. The idea of being lugged off
+like a baby was embarrassing, even in the presence of the one who
+had deliberately put him in his present condition. Bateese did the
+thing with such beastly ease. It was as if he was no more than a
+small boy, a runt with no weight whatever, and Bateese was a man.
+He would have preferred to stagger along on his own feet or creep
+on his hands and knees, and he grunted as much to Bateese on the
+way to the canoe. He felt, at the same time, that the situation
+owed him something more of discussion and explanation. Even now,
+after half killing him, the woman was taking a rather high-handed
+advantage of him. She might at least have assured him that she had
+made a mistake and was sorry. But she did not speak to him again.
+She said nothing more to Bateese, and when the half-breed
+deposited him in the midship part of the canoe, facing the bow,
+she stood back in silence. Then Bateese brought his pack and
+rifle, and wedged the pack in behind him so that he could sit
+upright. After that, without pausing to ask permission, he picked
+up the woman and carried her through the shallow water to the bow,
+saving her the wetting of her feet.
+
+As she turned to find her paddle her face was toward David, and
+for a moment she was looking at him.
+
+"Do you mind telling me who you are, and where we are going?" he
+asked.
+
+"I am Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain," she said. "My brigade is down
+the river, M'sieu Carrigan."
+
+He was amazed at the promptness of her confession, for as one of
+the working factors of the long arm of the police he accepted it
+as that. He had scarcely expected her to divulge her name after
+the cold-blooded way in which she had attempted to kill him. And
+she had spoken quite calmly of "my brigade." He had heard of the
+Boulain Brigade. It was a name associated with Chipewyan, as he
+remembered it--or Fort McMurray. He was not sure just where the
+Boulain scows had traded freight with the upper-river craft. Until
+this year he was positive they had not come as far south as
+Athabasca Landing. Boulain--Boulain--The name repeated itself over
+and over in his mind. Bateese shoved off the canoe, and the
+woman's paddle dipped in and out of the water beginning to shimmer
+in moonlight. But he could not, for a time, get himself beyond the
+pounding of that name in his brain. It was not merely that he had
+heard the name before. There was something significant about it.
+Something that made him grope back in his memory of things.
+Boulain! He whispered it to himself, his eyes on the slender
+figure of the woman ahead of him, swaying gently to the steady
+sweep of the paddle in her hands. Yet he could think of nothing. A
+feeling of irritation swept over him, disgust at his own mental
+impotency. And the dizzying sickness was brewing in his head
+again.
+
+"I have heard that name--somewhere--before," he said. There was a
+space of only five or six feet between them, and he spoke with
+studied distinctness.
+
+"Possibly you have, m'sieu."
+
+Her voice was exquisite, clear as the note of a bird, yet so soft
+and low that she seemed scarcely to have spoken. And it was,
+Carrigan thought, criminally evasive--under the circumstances. He
+wanted her to turn round and say something. He wanted, first of
+all, to ask her why she had tried to kill him. It was his right to
+demand an explanation. And it was his duty to get her back to the
+Landing, where the law would ask an accounting of her. She must
+know that. There was only one way in which she could have learned
+his name, and that was by prying into his identification papers
+while he was unconscious. Therefore she not only knew his name,
+but also that he was Sergeant Carrigan of the Royal Northwest
+Mounted Police. In spite of all this she was apparently not very
+deeply concerned. She was not frightened, and she did not appear
+to be even slightly excited.
+
+He leaned nearer to her, the movement sending a sharp pain between
+his eyes. It almost drew a cry from him, but he forced himself to
+speak without betraying it.
+
+"You tried to murder me--and almost succeeded. Haven't you
+anything to say?"
+
+"Not now, m'sieu--except that it was a mistake. and I am sorry.
+But you must not talk. You must remain quiet. I am afraid your
+skull is fractured."
+
+Afraid his skull was fractured! And she expressed her fear in the
+casual way she might have spoken of a toothache. He leaned back
+against his dunnage sack and closed his eyes. Probably she was
+right. These fits of dizziness and nausea were suspicious. They
+made him top-heavy and filled him with a desire to crumple up
+somewhere. He was clear-mindedly conscious of this and of his
+fight against the weakness. But in those moments when he felt
+better and his head was clear of pain, he had not seriously
+thought of a fractured skull. If she believed it, why did she not
+treat him a bit more considerately? Bateese, with that strength of
+an ox in his arms, had no use for her assistance with the paddle.
+She might at least have sat facing him, even if she refused to
+explain matters more definitely.
+
+A mistake, she called it. And she was sorry for him! She had made
+those statements in a matter-of-fact way, but with a voice that
+was like music. She had spoken perfect English, but in her words
+were the inflection and velvety softness of the French blood which
+must be running red in her veins. And her name was Jeanne Marie-
+Anne Boulain!
+
+With eyes closed, Carrigan called himself an idiot for thinking of
+these things at the present time. Primarily he was a man-hunter
+out on important duty, and here was duty right at hand, a thousand
+miles south of Black Roger Audemard, the wholesale murderer he was
+after. He would have sworn on his life that Black Roger had never
+gone at a killing more deliberately than this same Jeanne Marie-
+Anne Boulain had gone after him behind the rock!
+
+Now that it was all over, and he was alive, she was taking him
+somewhere as coolly and as unexcitedly as though they were
+returning from a picnic. Carrigan shut his eyes tighter and
+wondered if he was thinking straight. He believed he was badly
+hurt, but he was as strongly convinced that his mind was clear.
+And he lay quietly with his head against the pack, his eyes
+closed, waiting for the coolness of the river to drive his nausea
+away again.
+
+He sensed rather than felt the swift movement of the canoe. There
+was no perceptible tremor to its progress. The current and a
+perfect craftsmanship with the paddles were carrying it along at
+six or seven miles an hour. He heard the rippling of water that at
+times was almost like the tinkling of tiny bells, and more and
+more bell-like became that sound as he listened to it. It struck a
+certain note for him. And to that note another added itself, until
+in the purling rhythm of the river he caught the murmuring
+monotone of a name Boulain--Boulain--Boulain. The name became an
+obsession. It meant something. And he knew what it meant--if he
+could only whip his memory back into harness again. But that was
+impossible now. When he tried to concentrate his mental faculties,
+his head ached terrifically.
+
+He dipped his hand into the water and held it over his eyes. For
+half an hour after that he did not raise his head. In that time
+not a word was spoken by Bateese or Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain. For
+the forest people it was not an hour in which to talk. The moon
+had risen swiftly, and the stars were out. Where there had been
+gloom, the world was now a flood of gold and silver light. At
+first Carrigan allowed this to filter between his fingers; then he
+opened his eyes. He felt more evenly balanced again.
+
+Straight in front of him was Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain. The
+curtain of dusk had risen from between them, and she was full in
+the radiance of the moon. She was no longer paddling, but was
+looking straight ahead. To Cardigan her figure was exquisitely
+girlish as he saw it now. She was bareheaded, as he had seen tier
+first, and her hair hung down her back like a shimmering mass of
+velvety sable in the star-and-moon glow. Something told Carrigan
+she was going to turn her face in his direction, and he dropped
+his hand over his eyes again, leaving a space between the fingers.
+He was right in his guess. She fronted the moon, looking at him
+closely--rather anxiously, he thought. She even leaned a little
+toward him that she might see more clearly. Then she turned and
+resumed her paddling.
+
+Carrigan was a bit elated. Probably she had looked at him a number
+of times like that during the past half-hour. And she was
+disturbed. She was worrying about him. The thought of being a
+murderess was beginning to frighten her. In spite of the beauty of
+her eyes and hair and the slim witchery of her body he had no
+sympathy for her. He told himself that he would give a year of his
+life to have her down at Barracks this minute. He would never
+forget that three-quarters of an hour behind the rock, not if he
+lived to be a hundred. And if he did live, she was going to pay,
+even if she was lovelier than Venus and all the Graces combined.
+He felt irritated with himself that he should have observed in
+such a silly way the sable glow of her hair in the moonlight. And
+her eyes. What the deuce did prettiness matter in the present
+situation? The sister of Fanchet, the mail robber, was beautiful,
+but her beauty had failed to save Fanchet. The Law had taken him
+in spite of the tears in Carmin Fanchet's big black eyes, and in
+that particular instance he was the Law. And Carmin Fanchet was
+pretty--deucedly pretty. Even the Old Man's heart had been stirred
+by her loveliness.
+
+"A shame!" he had said to Carrigan. "A shame!" But the rascally
+Fanchet was hung by the neck until he was dead.
+
+Carrigan drew himself up slowly until he was sitting erect. He
+wondered what Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain would say if he told her
+about Carmin. But there was a big gulf between the names Fanchet
+and Boulain. The Fanchets had come from the dance halls of Alaska.
+They were bad, both of them. At least, so they had judged Carmin
+Fanchet--along with her brother. And Boulain--
+
+His hand, in dropping to his side, fell upon the butt of his
+pistol. Neither Bateese nor the girl had thought of disarming him.
+It was careless of them, unless Bateese was keeping a good eye on
+him from behind.
+
+A new sort of thrill crept into Carrigan's blood. He began to see
+where he had made a huge error in not playing his part more
+cleverly. It was this girl Jeanne who had shot him. It was Jeanne
+who had stood over him in that last moment when he had made an
+effort to use his pistol. It was she who had tried to murder him
+and who had turned faint-hearted when it came to finishing the
+job. But his knowledge of these things he should have kept from
+her. Then, when the proper moment came, he would have been in a
+position to act. Even now it might be possible to cover his
+blunder. He leaned toward her again, determined to make the
+effort.
+
+"I want to ask your pardon," he said. "May I?"
+
+His voice startled her. It was as if the stinging tip of a whip-
+lash had touched her bare neck. He was smiling when she turned. In
+her face and eyes was a relief which she made no effort to
+repress.
+
+"You thought I might be dead," he laughed softly. "I'm not, Miss
+Jeanne. I'm very much alive again. It was that accursed fever--and
+I want to ask your pardon! I think--I know--that I accused you of
+shooting me. It's impossible. I couldn't think of it--In my clear
+mind. I am quite sure that I know the rascally half-breed who pot-
+shotted me like that. And it was you who came in time, and
+frightened him away, and saved my life. Will you forgive me--and
+accept my gratitude?"
+
+There came into the glowing eyes of the girl a reflection of his
+own smile. It seemed to him that he saw the corners of her mouth
+tremble a little before she answered him.
+
+"I am glad you are feeling better, m'sieu."
+
+"And you will forgive me for--for saying such beastly things to
+you?"
+
+She was lovely when she smiled, and she was smiling at him now.
+"If you want to be forgiven for lying, yes," she said. "I forgive
+you that, because it is sometimes your business to lie. It was I
+who tried to kill you, m'sieu. And you know it."
+
+"But--"
+
+"You must not talk, m'sieu. It is not good for you: Bateese, will
+you tell m'sieu not to talk?"
+
+Carrigan heard a movement behind him.
+
+"M'sieu, you will stop ze talk or I brak hees head wit' ze paddle
+in my han'!" came the voice of Bateese close to his shoulder. "Do
+I mak' ze word plain so m'sieu compren'?"
+
+"I get you, old man," grunted Carrigan. "I get you--both!"
+
+And he leaned back against his dunnage-sack, staring again at the
+witching slimness of the lovely Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain as she
+calmly resumed her paddling in the bow of the canoe.
+
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+In the few minutes following the efficient and unexpected warning
+of Bateese an entirely new element of interest entered into the
+situation for David Carrigan. He had more than once assured
+himself that he had made a success of his profession of man-
+hunting not because he was brighter than the other fellow, but
+largely because he possessed a sense of humor and no vanities to
+prick. He was in the game because he loved the adventure of it. He
+was loyal to his duty, but he was not a worshipper of the law, nor
+did he covet the small monthly stipend of dollars and cents that
+came of his allegiance to it. As a member of the Scarlet Police,
+and especially of "N" Division, he felt the pulse and thrill of
+life as he loved to live it. And the greatest of all thrills came
+when he was after a man as clever as himself, or cleverer.
+
+This time it was a woman--or a girl! He had not yet made up his
+mind which she was. Her voice, low and musical, her poise, and the
+tranquil and unexcitable loveliness of her face had made him, at
+first, register her as a woman. Yet as he looked at the slim
+girlishness of her figure in the bow of the canoe, accentuated by
+the soft sheen of her partly unbraided hair, he wondered if she
+were eighteen or thirty. It would take the clear light of day to
+tell him. But whether a girl or a woman, she had handled him so
+cleverly that the unpleasantness of his earlier experience began
+to give way slowly to an admiration for her capability.
+
+He wondered what the superintendent of "N" Division would say if
+he could see Black Roger Audemard's latest trailer propped up here
+in the center of the canoe, the prisoner of a velvety-haired but
+dangerously efficient bit of feminine loveliness--and a bull-
+necked, chimpanzee-armed half-breed!
+
+Bateese had confirmed the suspicion that he was a prisoner, even
+though this mysterious pair were bent on saving his life. Why it
+was their desire to keep life in him when only a few hours ago one
+of them had tried to kill him was a. question which only the
+future could answer. He did not bother himself with that problem
+now. The present was altogether too interesting, and there was but
+little doubt that other developments equally important were close
+at hand. The attitude of both Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain and her
+piratical-looking henchman was sufficient evidence of that.
+Bateese had threatened to knock his head off, and he could have
+sworn that the girl--or woman--had smiled her approbation of the
+threat. Yet he held no grudge against Bateese. An odd sort of
+liking for the man began to possess him, just as he found himself
+powerless to resist an ingrowing admiration for Marie-Anne. The
+existence of Black Roger Audemard became with him a sort of
+indefinite reality. Black Roger was a long way off. Marie-Anne and
+Bateese were very near. He began thinking of her as Marie-Anne. He
+liked the name. It was the Boulain part of it that worked in him
+with an irritating insistence.
+
+For the first time since the canoe journey had begun, he looked
+beyond the darkly glowing head and the slender figure in the bow.
+It was a splendid night. Ahead of him the river was like a
+rippling sheet of molten silver. On both sides, a quarter of a
+mile apart, rose the walls of the forest, like low-hung, oriental
+tapestries. The sky seemed near, loaded with stars, and the moon,
+rising with almost perceptible movement toward the zenith, had
+changed from red to a mellow gold. Carrigan's soul always rose to
+this glory of the northern light. Youth and vigor, he told
+himself, must always exist under those unpolluted lights of the
+upper worlds, the unspeaking things which had told him more than
+he had ever learned from the mouths of other men. They stood for
+his religion, his faith, his belief in the existence of things
+greater than the insignificant spark which animated his own body.
+He appreciated them most when there was stillness. And tonight it
+was still. It was so quiet that the trickling of the paddles was
+like subdued music. From the forest there came no sound. Yet he
+knew there was life there, wide-eyed, questing life, life that
+moved on velvety wing and padded foot, just as he and Marie-Anne
+and the half-breed Bateese were moving in the canoe. To have
+called out in this hour would have taken an effort, for a supreme
+and invisible Hand seemed to have commanded stillness upon the
+earth.
+
+And then there came droning upon his ears a break in the
+stillness, and as he listened, the shores closed slowly in,
+narrowing the channel until he saw giant masses of gray rock
+replacing the thick verdure of balsam, spruce, and cedar. The
+moaning grew louder, and the rocks climbed skyward until they hung
+in great cliffs. There could be but one meaning to this sudden
+change. They were close to LE SAINT-ESPRIT RAPIDE--the Holy Ghost
+Rapids. Carrigan was astonished. That day at noon he had believed
+the Holy Ghost to be twenty or thirty miles below him. Now they
+were at its mouth, and he saw that Bateese and Jeanne Marie-Anne
+Boulain were quietly and unexcitedly preparing to run that vicious
+stretch of water. Unconsciously he gripped the gunwales of the
+canoe with both hands as the sound of the rapids grew into low and
+sullen thunder. In the moonlight ahead he could see the rock walls
+closing in until the channel was crushed between two precipitous
+ramparts, and the moon and stars, sending their glow between those
+walls, lighted up a frothing path of water that made Carrigan hold
+his breath. He would have portaged this place even in broad day.
+
+He looked at the girl in the bow. The slender figure Was a little
+more erect, the glowing head held a little higher. In those
+moments he would have liked to see her face, the wonderful
+something that must be in her eyes as she rode fearlessly into the
+teeth of the menace ahead. For he could see that she was not
+afraid, that she was facing this thing with a sort of exultation,
+that there was something about it which thrilled her until every
+drop of blood in her body was racing with the impetus of the
+stream itself. Eddies of wind puffing out from between the chasm
+walls tossed her loose hair about her back in a glistening veil.
+He saw a long strand of it trailing over the edge of the canoe
+into the water. It made him shiver, and he wanted to cry out to
+Bateese that he was a fool for risking her life like this. He
+forgot that he was the one helpless individual in the canoe, and
+that an upset would mean the end for him, while Bateese and his
+companion might still fight on. His thought and his vision were
+focused on the girl--and what lay straight ahead. A mass of froth,
+like a windrow of snow, rose up before them, and the canoe plunged
+into it with the swiftness of a shot. It spattered in his face,
+and blinded him for an instant. Then they were out of it, and he
+fancied he heard a note of laughter from the girl in the bow. In
+the next breath he called himself a fool for imagining that. For
+the run was dead ahead, and the girl became vibrant with life, her
+paddle flashing in and out, while from her lips came sharp, clear
+cries which brought from Eateese frog-like bellows of response.
+The walls shot past; inundations rose and plunged under them;
+black rocks whipped with caps of foam raced up-stream with the
+speed of living things; the roar became a drowning voice, and
+then--as if outreached by the wings of a swifter thing--dropped
+suddenly behind them. Smoother water lay ahead. The channel
+broadened. Moonlight filled it with a clearer radiance, and
+Carrigan saw the girl's hair glistening wet, and her arms
+dripping.
+
+For the first time he turned about and faced Bateese. The half-
+breed was grinning like a Cheshire cat!
+
+"You're a confoundedly queer pair!" grunted Carrigan, and he
+turned about again to find Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain as
+unconcerned as though running the Holy Ghost Rapids in the glow of
+the moon was nothing more than a matter of play.
+
+It was impossible for him to keep his heart from beating a little
+faster as he watched her, even though he was trying to regard her
+in a most professional sort of way. He reminded himself that she
+was an iniquitous little Jezebel who had almost murdered him.
+Carmin Fanchet had been like her, an AME DAMNEE--a fallen angel--
+but his business was not sympathy in such matters as these. At the
+same time he could not resist the lure of both her audacity and
+her courage, and he found himself all at once asking himself the
+amazing question as to what her relationship might be to Bateese.
+It occurred to him rather unpleasantly that there had been
+something distinctly proprietary in the way the half-breed had
+picked her up on the sand, and that Bateese had shown no
+hesitation a little later in threatening to knock his head off
+unless he stopped talking to her. He wondered if Bateese was a
+Boulain.
+
+The two or three minutes of excitement in the boiling waters of
+the Holy Ghost had acted like medicine on Carrigan. It seemed to
+him that something had given way in his head, relieving him of an
+oppression that had been like an iron hoop drawn tightly about his
+skull. He did not want Bateese to suspect this change in him, and
+he slouched lower against the dunnage-pack with his eyes still on
+the girl. He was finding it increasingly difficult to keep from
+looking at her. She had resumed her paddling, and Bateese was
+putting mighty efforts in his strokes now, so that the narrow,
+birchbark canoe shot like an arrow with the down-sweeping current
+of the river. A few hundred yards below was a twist in the
+channel, and as the canoe rounded this, taking the shoreward curve
+with dizzying swiftness, a wide, still straight-water lay ahead.
+And far down this Carrigan saw the glow of fires.
+
+The forest had drawn back from the river, leaving in its place a
+broken tundra of rock and shale and a wide strip of black sand
+along the edge of the stream itself. Carrigan knew what it was--an
+upheaval of the tar-sand country so common still farther north,
+the beginning of that treasure of the earth which would some day
+make the top of the American continent one of the Eldorados of the
+world. The fires drew nearer, and suddenly the still night was
+broken by the wild chanting of men. David heard behind him a
+choking note in the throat of Bateese. A soft word came from the
+lips of the girl, and it seemed to Carrigan that her head was held
+higher in the moon glow. The chant increased in volume, a
+rhythmic, throbbing, savage music that for a hundred and fifty
+years had come from the throats of men along the Three Rivers. It
+thrilled Carrigan as they bore down upon it. It was not song as
+civilization would have counted song. It was like an explosion, an
+exultation of human voice unchained, ebullient with the love of
+life, savage in its good-humor. It was LE GAITE DE COEUR of the
+rivermen, who thought and sang as their forefathers did in the
+days of Radisson and good Prince Rupert; it was their merriment,
+their exhilaration, their freedom and optimism, reaching up to the
+farthest stars. In that song men were straining their vocal
+muscles, shouting to beat out their nearest neighbor, bellowing
+like bulls in a frenzy of sudden fun. And then, as suddenly as it
+had risen in the night, the clamor of voices died away. A single
+shout came up the river. Carrigan thought he heard a low rumble of
+laughter. A tin pan banged against another. A dog howled. The flat
+of an oar played a tattoo for a moment on the bottom of a boat.
+Then one last yell from a single throat--and the night was silent
+again.
+
+And that was the Boulain Brigade--singing at this hour of the
+night, when men should have been sleeping if they expected to be
+up with the sun. Carrigan stared ahead. Shortly his adventure
+would take a new twist. Something was bound to happen when they
+got ashore. The peculiar glow of the fires had puzzled him. Now he
+began to understand. Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain's men were camped
+in the edge of the tar-sands and had lighted a number of natural
+gas-jets that came up out of the earth. Many times he had seen
+fires like these burning up and down the Three Rivers. He had
+lighted fires of his own; he had cooked over them and had
+afterward had the fun and excitement of extinguishing them with
+pails of water. But he had never seen anything quite like this
+that was unfolding itself before his eyes now. There were seven of
+the fires over an area of half an acre--spouts of yellowish flame
+burning like giant torches ten or fifteen feet in the air. And
+between them he very soon made out great bustle and activity. Many
+figures were moving about. They looked like dwarfs at first,
+gnomes at play in a little world made out of witchcraft. But
+Bateese was sending the canoe nearer with powerful strokes, and
+the figures grew taller, and the spouts of flame higher. Then he
+knew what was happening. The Boulain men were taking advantage of
+the cool hours of the night and were tarring up.
+
+He could smell the tar, and he could see the big York boats drawn
+up in the circle of yellowish light. There were half a dozen of
+them, and men stripped to the waist were smearing the bottoms of
+the boats with boiling tar and pitch. In the center was a big,
+black cauldron steaming over a gas-jet, and between this cauldron
+and the boats men were running back and forth with pails. Still
+nearer to the huge kettle other men were filling a row of kegs
+with the precious black GOUDRON that oozed up from the bowels of
+the earth, forming here and there jet-black pools that Carrigan
+could see glistening in the flare of the gas-lamps. He figured
+there were thirty men at work. Six big York boats were turned keel
+up in the black sand. Close inshore, just outside the circle of
+light, was a single scow.
+
+Toward this scow Bateese sent the canoe. And as they drew nearer,
+until the laboring men ashore were scarcely a stone's throw away,
+the weirdness of the scene impressed itself more upon Carrigan.
+Never had he seen such a crew. There were no Indians among them.
+Lithe, quick-moving, bare-headed, their naked arms and shoulders
+gleaming in the ghostly illumination, they were racing against
+time with the boiling tar and pitch in the cauldron. They did not
+see the approach of the canoe, and Bateese did not draw their
+attention to it. Quietly he drove the birchbark under the shadow
+of the big bateau. Hands were waiting to seize and steady it.
+Carrigan caught but a glimpse of the faces. In another instant the
+girl was aboard the scow, and Bateese was bending over him. A
+second time he was picked up like a child in the chimpanzee-like
+arms of the half-breed. The moonlight showed him a scow bigger
+than he had ever seen on the upper river, and two-thirds of it
+seemed to be cabin. Into this cabin Bateese carried him, and in
+darkness laid him upon what Carrigan thought must be a cot built
+against the wall. He made no sound, but let himself fall limply
+upon it. He listened to Bateese as he moved about, and closed his
+eyes when Bateese struck a match. A moment later he heard the door
+of the cabin close behind the half-breed. Not until then did he
+open his eyes and sit up.
+
+He was alone. And what he saw in the next few moments drew an
+exclamation of amazement from him. Never had he seen a cabin like
+this on the Three Rivers. It was thirty feet long if an inch, and
+at least eight feet wide. The walls and ceiling were of polished
+cedar; the floor was of cedar closely matched. It was the
+exquisite finish and craftsmanship of the woodwork that caught his
+eyes first. Then his astonished senses seized upon the other
+things. Under his feet was a soft rug of dark green velvet. Two
+magnificent white bearskins lay between him and the end of the
+room. The walls were hung with pictures, and at the four windows
+were curtains of ivory lace draped with damask. The lamp which
+Bateese had lighted was fastened to the wall close to him. It was
+of polished silver and threw a brilliant light softened by a shade
+of old gold. There were three other lamps like this, unlighted.
+The far end of the room was in deep shadow, but Carrigan made out
+the thing he was staring at--a piano. He rose to his feet,
+disbelieving his eyes, and made his way toward it. He passed
+between chairs. Near the piano was another door, and a wide divan
+of the same soft, green upholstery. Looking back, he saw that what
+he had been lying upon was another divan. And dose to this were
+book-shelves, and a table on which were magazines and papers and a
+woman's workbasket, and in the workbasket--sound asleep--a cat!
+
+And then, over the table and the sleeping cat, his eyes rested
+upon a triangular banner fastened to the wall. In white against a
+background of black was a mighty polar bear holding at bay a horde
+of Arctic wolves. And suddenly the thing he had been fighting to
+recall came to Carrigan--the great bear--the fighting wolves--the
+crest of St. Pierre Boulain!
+
+He took a quick step toward the table--then caught at the back of
+a chair. Confound his head! Or was it the big bateau rocking under
+his feet? The cat seemed to be turning round in its basket. There
+were half a dozen banners instead of one; the lamp was shaking in
+its bracket; the floor was tilting, everything was becoming
+hideously contorted and out of place. A shroud of darkness
+gathered about him, and through that darkness Carrigan staggered
+blindly toward the divan. He reached it just in time to fall upon
+it like a dead man.
+
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+For what seemed to be an interminable time after the final
+breakdown of his physical strength David Carrigan lived in a black
+world where a horde of unseen little devils were shooting red-hot
+arrows into his brain. He did not sense the fact of human
+presence; nor that the divan had been changed into a bed and the
+four lamps lighted, and that wrinkled, brown hands with talon-like
+fingers were performing a miracle of wilderness surgery upon him.
+He did not see the age-old face of Nepapinas--"The Wandering Bolt
+of Lightning"--as the bent and tottering Cree called upon all his
+eighty years of experience to bring him back to life. And he did
+not see Bateese, stolid-faced, silent, nor the dead-white face and
+wide-open, staring eyes of Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain as her slim,
+white fingers worked with the old medicine man's. He was in a gulf
+of blackness that writhed with the spirits of torment. He fought
+them and cried out against them, and his fighting and his cries
+brought the look of death itself into the eyes of the girl who was
+over him. He did not hear her voice nor feel the soothing of her
+hands, nor the powerful grip of Bateese as he held him when the
+critical moments came. And Nepapinas, like a machine that had
+looked upon death a thousand times, gave no rest to his claw-like
+fingers until the work was done--and it was then that something
+came to drive the arrow-shooting devils out of the darkness that
+was smothering Carrigan.
+
+After that Carrigan lived through an eternity of unrest, a life in
+which he seemed powerless and yet was always struggling for
+supremacy over things that were holding him down. There were
+lapses in it, like the hours of oblivion that come with sleep, and
+there were other times when he seemed keenly alive, yet unable to
+move or act. The darkness gave way to flashes of light, and in
+these flashes he began to see things, curiously twisted, fleeting,
+and yet fighting themselves insistently upon his senses. He was
+back in the hot sand again, and this time he heard the voices of
+Jeanne Marie-Anne and Golden-Hair, and Golden-Hair flaunted a
+banner in his face, a triangular pennon of black on which a huge
+bear was fighting white Arctic wolves, and then she would run away
+from him, crying out--"St. Pierre Boulain--St. Pierre Boulain--"
+and the last he could see of her was her hair flaming like fire in
+the sun. But it was always the other--the dark hair and dark eyes
+--that came to him when the little devils returned to assault him
+with their arrows. From somewhere she would come out of darkness
+and frighten them away. He could hear her voice like a whisper in
+his ears, and the touch of her hands comforted him and quieted his
+pain. After a time he grew to be afraid when the darkness
+swallowed her up, and in that darkness he would call for her, and
+always he heard her voice in answer.
+
+Then came a long oblivion. He floated through cool space away from
+the imps of torment; his bed was of downy clouds, and on these
+clouds he drifted with a great shining river under him; and at
+last the cloud he was in began to shape itself into walls and on
+these walls were pictures, and a window through which the sun was
+shining, and a black pennon--and he heard a soft, wonderful music
+that seemed to come to him faintly from another world. Other
+creatures were at work in his brain now. They were building up and
+putting together the loose ends of things. Carrigan became one of
+them, working so hard that frequently a pair of dark eyes came out
+of the dawning of things to stop him, and quieting hands and a
+voice soothed him to rest. The hands and the voice became very
+intimate. He missed them when they were not near, especially the
+hands, and he was always groping for them to make sure they had
+not gone away.
+
+Only once after the floating cloud transformed itself into the
+walls of the bateau cabin did the chaotic darkness of the sands
+fully possess him again. In that darkness he heard a voice. It was
+not the voice of Golden-Hair, or of Bateese, or of Jeanne Marie-
+Anne. It was close to his ears. And in that darkness that
+smothered him there was something terrible about it as it droned
+slowly the words--"HAS-ANY-ONE-SEEN-BLACK-ROGER-AUDEMARD?" He
+tried to answer, to call back to it, and the voice came again,
+repeating the words, emotionless, hollow, as if echoing up out of
+a grave. And still harder he struggled to reply to it, to say that
+he was David Carrigan, and that he was out on the trail of Black
+Roger Audemard, and that Black Roger was far north. And suddenly
+it seemed to him that the voice changed into the flesh and blood
+of Black Roger himself, though he could not see in the darkness--
+and he reached out, gripping fiercely at the warm substance of
+flesh, until he heard another voice, the voice of Jeanne Marie-
+Anne Boulain, entreating him to let his victim go. It was this
+time that his eyes shot open, wide and seeing, and straight over
+him was the face of Jeanne Marie-Anne, nearer him than it had been
+even in the visionings of his feverish mind. His fingers were
+clutching her shoulders, gripping like steel hooks.
+
+"M'sieu--M'sieu David!" she was crying.
+
+For a moment he stared; then his hands and fingers relaxed, and
+his arms dropped limply. "Pardon--I--I was dreaming," he struggled
+weakly. "I thought--"
+
+He had seen the pain in her face. Now, changing swiftly, it
+lighted up with relief and gladness. His vision, cleared by long
+darkness, saw the change come in an instant like a flash of
+sunshine. And then--so near that he could have touched her--she
+was smiling down into his eyes. He smiled back. It took an effort,
+for his face felt stiff and unnatural.
+
+"I was dreaming--of a man--named Roger Audemard," he continued to
+apologize. "Did I--hurt you?"
+
+The smile on her lips was gone as swiftly as it had come. "A
+little, m'sieu. I am glad you are better. You have been very
+sick."
+
+He raised a hand to his face. The bandage was there, and also a
+stubble of beard on his cheeks. He was puzzled. This morning he
+had fastened his steel mirror to the side of a tree and shaved.
+
+"It was three days ago you were hurt," she said quietly. "This is
+the afternoon of the third day. You have been in a great fever.
+Nepapinas, my Indian doctor, saved your life. You must lie quietly
+now. You have been talking a great deal."
+
+"About--Black Roger?" he said.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"And--Golden--Hair?"
+
+"Yes, of Golden--Hair."
+
+"And--some one else--with dark hair--and dark eyes--"
+
+"It may be, m'sieu."
+
+"And of little devils with bows and arrows, and of polar bears,
+and white wolves, and of a great lord of the north who calls
+himself St. Pierre Boulain?"
+
+"Yes, of all those."
+
+"Then I haven't anything more to tell you," grunted David. "I
+guess I've told you all I know. You shot me, back there. And here
+I am. What are you going to do next?"
+
+"Call Bateese," she answered promptly, and she rose swiftly from
+beside him and moved toward the door.
+
+He made no effort to call her back. His wits were working slowly,
+readjusting themselves after a carnival in chaos, and he scarcely
+sensed that she was gone until the cabin door closed behind her.
+Then again he raised a hand to his face and felt his beard. Three
+days! He turned his head so that he could take in the length of
+the cabin. It was filled with subdued sunlight now, a western sun
+that glowed softly, giving depth and richness to the colors on the
+floor and walls, lighting up the piano keys, suffusing the
+pictures with a warmth of life. David's eyes traveled slowly to
+his own feet. The divan had been opened and transformed into a
+bed. He was undressed. He had on somebody's white nightgown. And
+there was a big bunch of wild roses on the table where three days
+ago the cat had been sleeping in the work-basket. His head cleared
+swiftly, and he raised himself a little on one elbow, with extreme
+caution, and listened. The big bateau was not moving. It was still
+tied up, but he could hear no voices out where the tar-sands were.
+
+He dropped back on his pillow, and his eyes rested on the black
+pennon. His blood stirred again as he looked at the white bear and
+the fighting wolves. Wherever men rode the waters of the Three
+Rivers that pennon was known. Yet it was not common. Seldom was it
+seen, and never had it come south of Chipewyan. Many things came
+to Carrigan now, things that he had heard at the Landing and up
+and down the rivers. Once he had read the tail-end of a report the
+Superintendent of "N" Division had sent in to headquarters.
+
+"We do not know this St. Pierre. Few men have seen him out of his
+own country, the far headwaters of the Yellowknife, where he rules
+like a great overlord. Both the Yellowknives and the Dog Ribs call
+him KICHEOO KIMOW, or King, and the same rumors say there is never
+starvation or plague in his regions; and it is fact that neither
+the Hudson's Bay nor Revillon Brothers in their cleverest
+generalship and trade have been able to uproot his almost dynastic
+jurisdiction. The Police have had no reason to investigate or
+interfere."
+
+At least that was the gist of what Carrigan had read in McVane's
+report. But he had never associated it with the name of Boulain.
+It was of St. Pierre that he had heard stories, St. Pierre and his
+black pennon with its white bear and fighting wolves. And so--it
+was St. Pierre BOULAIN!
+
+He closed his eyes and thought of the long winter weeks he had
+passed at Hay River Post, watching for Fanchet, the mail robber.
+It was there he had heard most about this St. Pierre, and yet no
+one he had talked with had ever seen him; no one knew whether he
+was old or young, a pigmy or a giant. Some stories said that he
+was strong, that he could twist a gun-barrel double in his hands;
+others said that he was old, very old, so that he never set forth
+with his brigades that brought down each year a treasure of furs
+to be exchanged for freight. And never did a Dog Rib or a
+Yellowknife open his mouth about KICHEOO KIMOW St. Pierre, the
+master of their unmapped domains. In that great country north and
+west of the Great Slave he remained an enigma and a sphinx. If he
+ever came out with his brigades, he did not disclose his identity,
+so that if one saw a fleet of boats or canoes with the St. Pierre
+pennon, one had to make his own guess whether St. Pierre himself
+was there or not. But these things were known--that the keenest,
+quickest, and strongest men in the northland ran the St. Pierre
+brigades, that they brought out the richest cargoes of furs, and
+that they carried back with them into the secret fastnesses of
+their wilderness the greatest cargoes of freight that treasure
+could buy. So much the name St. Pierre dragged out of Carrigan's
+memory. It came to him now why the name "Boulain" had pounded so
+insistently in his brain. He had seen this pennon with its white
+bear and fighting wolves only once before, and that had been over
+a Boulain scow at Chipewyan. But his memory had lost its grip on
+that incident while retaining vividly its hold on the stories and
+rumors of the mystery-man, St. Pierre.
+
+Carrigan pulled himself a little higher on his pillow and with a
+new interest scanned the cabin. He had never heard of Boulain
+women. Yet here was the proof of their existence and of the
+greatness that ran in the red blood of their veins. The history of
+the great northland, hidden in the dust-dry tomes and guarded
+documents of the great company, had always been of absorbing
+interest to him. He wondered why it was that the outside world
+knew so little about it and believed so little of what it heard. A
+long time ago he had penned an article telling briefly the story
+of this half of a great continent in which for two hundred years
+romance and tragedy and strife for mastery had gone on in a way to
+thrill the hearts of men. He had told of huge forts with thirty-
+foot stone bastions, of fierce wars, of great warships that had
+fired their broadsides in battle in the ice-filled waters of
+Hudson's Bay. He had described the coming into this northern world
+of thousands and tens of thousands of the bravest and best-blooded
+men of England and France, and how these thousands had continued
+to come, bringing with them the names of kings, of princes, and of
+great lords, until out of the savagery of the north rose an
+aristocracy of race built up of the strongest men of the earth.
+And these men of later days he had called Lords of the North--men
+who had held power of life and death in the hollow of their hands
+until the great company yielded up its suzerainty to the
+Government of the Dominion in 1870; men who were kings in their
+domains, whose word was law, who were more powerful in their
+wilderness castles than their mistress over the sea, the Queen of
+Britain.
+
+And Carrigan, after writing of these things, had stuffed his
+manuscript away in the bottom of his chest at barracks, for he
+believed that it was not in his power to do justice to the people
+of this wilderness world that he loved. The powerful old lords
+were gone. Like dethroned monarchs, stripped to the level of other
+men, they lived in the memories of what had been. Their might now
+lay in trade. No more could they set out to wage war upon their
+rivals with powder and ball. Keen wit, swift dogs, and the
+politics of barter had taken the place of deadlier things. LE
+FACTEUR could no longer slay or command that others be slain. A
+mightier hand than his now ruled the destinies of the northern
+people--the hand of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police.
+
+It was this thought, the thought that Law and one of the powerful
+forces of the wilderness had met in this cabin of the big bateau,
+that came to Carrigan as he drew himself still higher against his
+pillow. A greater thrill possessed him than the thrill of his hunt
+for Black Roger Audemard. Black Roger was a murderer, a wholesale
+murderer and a fiend, a Moloch for whom there could be no pity. Of
+all men the Law wanted Black Roger most, and he, David Carrigan,
+was the chosen one to consummate its desire. Yet in spite of that
+he felt upon him the strange unrest of a greater adventure than
+the quest for Black Roger. It was like an impending thing that
+could not be seen, urging him, rousing his faculties from the
+slough into which they had fallen because of his wound and
+sickness. It was, after all, the most vital of all things, a
+matter of his own life. Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain had tried to
+kill him deliberately, with malice and intent. That she had saved
+him afterward only added to the necessity of an explanation, and
+he was determined that he would have that explanation and settle
+the present matter before he allowed another thought of Black
+Roger to enter his head.
+
+This resolution reiterated itself in his mind as the machine-like
+voice of duty. He was not thinking of the Law, and yet the
+consciousness of his accountability to that Law kept repeating
+itself. In the very face of it Carrigan knew that something
+besides the moral obligation of the thing was urging him,
+something that was becoming deeply and dangerously personal. At
+least--he tried to think of it as dangerous. And that danger was
+his unbecoming interest in the girl herself. It was an interest
+distinctly removed from any ethical code that might have governed
+him in his experience with Carmin Fanchet, for instance.
+Comparatively, if they had stood together, Carmin would have been
+the lovelier. But he would have looked longer at Jeanne Marie-Anne
+Boulain.
+
+He conceded the point, smiling a bit grimly as he continued to
+study that part of the cabin which he could see from his pillow.
+He had lost interest--temporarily at least--in Black Roger
+Audemard. Not long ago the one question to which, above all
+others, he had desired an answer was, why had Jeanne Marie-Anne
+Boulain worked so desperately to kill him and so hard to save him
+afterward? Now, as he looked about him, the question which
+repeated itself insistently was, what relationship did she bear to
+this mysterious lord of the north, St. Pierre?
+
+Undoubtedly she was his daughter, for whom St. Pierre had built
+this luxurious barge of state. A fierce-blooded offspring, he
+thought, one like Cleopatra herself, not afraid to kill--and
+equally quick to make amends when there was a mistake.
+
+There came the quiet opening of the cabin door to break in upon
+his thought. He hoped it was Jeanne Marie-Anne returning to him.
+It was Nepapinas. The old Indian stood over him for a moment and
+put a cold, claw-like hand to his forehead. He grunted and nodded
+his head, his little sunken eyes gleaming with satisfaction. Then
+he put his hands under David's arms and lifted him until he was
+sitting upright, with three or four pillows at his back.
+
+"Thanks," said Carrigan. "That makes me feel better. And--if you
+don't mind--my last lunch was three days ago, boiled prunes and a
+piece of bannock--"
+
+"I have brought you something to eat, M'sieu David," broke in a
+soft voice behind him.
+
+Nepapinas slipped away, and Jeanne Marie-Anne stood in his place.
+David stared up at her, speechless. He heard the door close behind
+the old Indian. Then Jeanne Marie-Anne drew up a chair, so that
+for the first time he could see her clear eyes with the light of
+day full upon her.
+
+He forgot that a few days ago she had been his deadliest enemy. He
+forgot the existence of a man named Black Roger Audemard. Her
+slimness was as it had pictured itself to him in the hot sands.
+Her hair was as he had seen it there. It was coiled upon her head
+like ropes of spun silk, jet-black, glowing softly. But it was her
+eyes he stared at, and so fixed was his look that the red lips
+trembled a bit on the verge of a smile. She was not embarrassed.
+There was no color in the clear whiteness of her skin, except that
+redness of her lips.
+
+"I thought you had black eyes," he said bluntly. "I'm glad you
+haven't. I don't like them. Yours are as brown as--as--"
+
+"Please, m'sieu," she interrupted him, sitting down close beside
+him. "Will you eat--now?"
+
+A spoon was at his mouth, and he was forced to take it in or have
+its contents spilled over him. The spoon continued to move quickly
+between the bowl and his mouth. He was robbed of speech. And the
+girl's eyes, as surely as he was alive, were beginning to laugh at
+him. They were a wonderful brown, with little, golden specks in
+them, like the freckles he had seen in wood-violets. Her lips
+parted. Between their bewitching redness he saw the gleam of her
+white teeth. In a crowd, with her glorious hair covered and her
+eyes looking straight ahead, one would not have picked her out.
+But close, like this, with her eyes smiling at him, she was
+adorable.
+
+Something of Carrigan's thoughts must have shown in his face, for
+suddenly the girl's lips tightened a little, and the warmth went
+out of her eyes, leaving them cold and distant. He finished the
+soup, and she rose again to her feet.
+
+"Please don't go," he said. "If you do, I think I shall get up and
+follow. I am quite sure I am entitled to a little something more
+than soup."
+
+"Nepapinas says that you may have a bit of boiled fish for
+supper," she assured him.
+
+"You know I don't mean that. I want to know why you shot me, and
+what you think you are going to do with me."
+
+"I shot you by mistake--and--I don't know just what to do with
+you," she said, looking at him tranquilly, but with what he
+thought was a growing shadow of perplexity in her eyes. "Bateese
+says to fasten a big stone to your neck and throw you in the
+river. But Bateese doesn't always mean what he says. I don't think
+he is quite as bloodthirsty--"
+
+"--As the young lady who tried to murder me behind the rock,"
+Carrigan interjected.
+
+"Exactly, m'sieu. I don't think he would throw you into the river
+--unless I told him to. And I don't believe I am going to ask him
+to do that," she added, the soft glow flashing back into her eyes
+for an instant. "Not after the splendid work Nepapinas has done on
+your head. St. Pierre must see that. And then, if St. Pierre
+wishes to finish you, why--" She shrugged her slim shoulders and
+made a little gesture with her hands.
+
+In that same moment there came over her a change as sudden as the
+passing of light itself. It was as if a thing she was hiding had
+broken beyond her control for an instant and had betrayed her. The
+gesture died. The glow went out of her eyes, and in its place came
+a light that was almost fear--or pain. She came nearer to Carrigan
+again, and somehow, looking up at her, he thought of the little
+brush warbler singing at the end of its birch twig to give him
+courage. It must have been because of her throat, white and soft,
+which he saw pulsing like a beating heart before she spoke to him.
+
+"I have made a terrible mistake, m'sieu David," she said, her
+voice barely rising above a whisper. "I'm sorry I hurt you. I
+thought it was some one else behind the rock. But I can not tell
+you more than that--ever. And I know it is impossible for us to be
+friends." She paused, one of her hands creeping to her bare
+throat, as if to cover the throbbing he had seen there.
+
+"Why is it impossible?" he demanded, leaning away from his pillows
+so that he might bring himself nearer to her.
+
+"Because--you are of the police, m'sieu."
+
+"The police, yes," he said, his heart thrumming inside his breast.
+"I am Sergeant Carrigan. I am out after Roger Audemard, a
+murderer. But my commission has nothing to do with the daughter of
+St. Pierre Boulain. Please--let's be friends--"
+
+He held out his hand; and in that moment David Carrigan placed
+another thing higher than duty--and in his eyes was the confession
+of it, like the glow of a subdued fire. The girl's fingers drew
+more closely at her throat, and she made no movement to accept his
+hand.
+
+"Friends," he repeated. "Friends--in spite of the police."
+
+Slowly the girl's eyes had widened, as if she saw that new-born
+thing riding over all other things in his swiftly beating heart.
+And afraid of it, she drew a step away from him.
+
+"I am not St. Pierre Boulain's daughter," she said, forcing the
+words out one by one. "I am--his wife."
+
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+Afterward Carrigan wondered to what depths he had fallen in the
+first moments of his disillusionment. Something like shock,
+perhaps even more than that, must have betrayed itself in his
+face. He did not speak. Slowly his outstretched arm dropped to the
+white counterpane. Later he called himself a fool for allowing it
+to happen, for it was as if he had measured his proffered
+friendship by what its future might hold for him. In a low, quiet
+voice Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain was saying again that she was St.
+Pierre's wife. She was not excited, yet he understood now why it
+was he had thought her eyes were very dark. They had changed
+swiftly. The violet freckles in them were like little flecks of
+gold. They were almost liquid in their glow, neither brown nor
+black now, and with that threat of gathering lightning in them.
+For the first time he saw the slightest flush of color in her
+cheeks. It deepened even as he held out his hand again. He knew
+that it was not embarrassment. It was the heat of the fire back of
+her eyes. "It's--funny," he said, making an effort to redeem
+himself with a lie and smiling. "You rather amaze me. You see, I
+have been told this St. Pierre is an old, old man--so old that he
+can't stand on his feet or go with his brigades, and if that is
+the truth, it is hard for me to picture you as his wife. But that
+isn't a reason why we should not be friends. Is it?"
+
+He felt that he was himself again, except for the three days'
+growth of beard on his face. He tried to laugh, but it was rather
+a poor attempt. And St. Pierre's wife did not seem to hear him.
+She was looking at him, looking into and through him with those
+wide-open glowing eyes. Then she sat down, out of reach of the
+hand which he had held toward her.
+
+"You are a sergeant of the police," she said, the softness gone
+suddenly out of her voice. "You are an honorable man, m'sieu. Your
+hand is against all wrong. Is it not so?" It was the voice of an
+inquisitor. She was demanding an answer of him.
+
+He nodded. "Yes, it is so."
+
+The fire in her eyes deepened. "And yet you say you want to be the
+friend of a stranger who has tried to kill you. WHY, m'sieu?"
+
+He was cornered. He sensed the humiliation of it, the
+impossibility of confessing to her the wild impulse that had moved
+him before he knew she was St. Pierre's wife. And she did not wait
+for him to answer.
+
+"This--this Roger Audemard--if you catch him--what will you do
+with him?" she asked.
+
+"He will be hanged," said David. "He is a murderer."
+
+"And one who tries to kill--who almost succeeds--what is the
+penalty for that?" She leaned toward him, waiting. Her hands were
+clasped tightly in her lap, the spots were brighter in her cheeks.
+
+"From ten to twenty years," he acknowledged. "But, of course,
+there may be circumstances--"
+
+"If so, you do not know them," she interrupted him. "You say Roger
+Audemard is a murderer. You know I tried to kill you. Then why is
+it you would be my friend and Roger Audemard's enemy? Why,
+m'sieu?"
+
+Carrigan shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. "I shouldn't," he
+confessed. "I guess you are proving I was wrong in what I said. I
+ought to arrest you and take you back to the Landing as soon as I
+can. But, you see, it strikes me there is a big personal element
+in this. I was the man almost killed. There was a mistake,--must
+have been, for as soon as you put me out of business you began
+nursing me back to life again. And--"
+
+"But that doesn't change it," insisted St. Pierre's wife. "If
+there had been no mistake, there would have been a murder. Do you
+understand, m'sieu? If it had been some one else behind that rock,
+I am quite certain he would have died. The Law, at least, would
+have called it murder. If Roger Audemard is a criminal, then I
+also am a criminal. And an honorable man would not make a
+distinction because one of them is a woman!"
+
+"But--Black Roger was a fiend. He deserves no mercy. He--"
+
+"Perhaps, m'sieu!"
+
+She was on her feet, her eyes flaming down upon him. In that
+moment her beauty was like the beauty of Carmin Fanchet. The poise
+of her slender body, her glowing cheeks, her lustrous hair, her
+gold-flecked eyes with the light of diamonds in them, held him
+speechless.
+
+"I was sorry and went back for you," she said. "I wanted you to
+live, after I saw you like that on the sand. Bateese says I was
+indiscreet, that I should have left you there to die. Perhaps he
+is right. And yet--even Roger Audemard might have had that pity
+for you."
+
+She turned quickly, and he heard her moving away from him. Then,
+from the door, she said,
+
+"Bateese will make you comfortable, m'sieu."
+
+The door opened and closed. She was gone. And he was alone in the
+cabin again.
+
+The swiftness of the change in her amazed him. It was as if he had
+suddenly touched fire to an explosive. There had been the flare,
+but no violence. She had not raised her voice, yet he heard in it
+the tremble of an emotion that was consuming her. He had seen the
+flame of it in her face and eyes. Something he had said, or had
+done, had tremendously upset her, changing in an instant her
+attitude toward him. The thought that came to him made his face
+burn under its scrub of beard. Did she think he was a scoundrel?
+The dropping of his hand, the shock that must have betrayed itself
+in his face when she said she was St. Pierre's wife--had those
+things warned her against him? The heat went slowly out of his
+face. It was impossible. She could not think that of him. It must
+have been a sudden giving way under terrific strain. She had
+compared herself to Roger Audemard, and she was beginning to
+realize her peril--that Bateese was right--that she should have
+left him to die in the sand!
+
+The thought pressed itself heavily upon Carrigan. It brought him
+suddenly back to a realization of how small a part he had played
+in this last half hour in the cabin. He had offered to Pierre's
+wife a friendship which he had no right to offer and which she
+knew he had no right to offer. He was the Law. And she, like Roger
+Audemard, was a criminal. Her quick woman's instinct had told her
+there could be no distinction between them, unless there was a
+reason. And now Carrigan confessed to himself that there had been
+a reason. That reason had come to him with the first glimpse of
+her as he lay in the hot sand. He had fought against it in the
+canoe; it had mastered him in those thrilling moments when he had
+beheld this slim, beautiful creature riding fearlessly into the
+boiling waters of the Holy Ghost. Her eyes, her hair, the sweet,
+low voice that had been with him in his fever, had become a
+definite and unalterable part of him. And this must have shown in
+his eyes and face when he dropped his hand--when she told him she
+was St. Pierre's wife.
+
+And now she was afraid of him! She was regretting that she had not
+left him to die. She had misunderstood what she had seen betraying
+itself during those few seconds of his proffered friendship. She
+saw only a man whom she had nearly killed, a man who represented
+the Law, a man whose power held her in the hollow of his hand. And
+she had stepped back from him, startled, and had told him that she
+was not St. Pierre's daughter, but his wife!
+
+In the science of criminal analysis Carrigan always placed himself
+in the position of the other man. And he was beginning to see the
+present situation from the view-point of Jeanne Marie-Anne
+Boulain. He was satisfied that she had made a desperate mistake
+and that until the last moment she had believed it was another man
+behind the rock. Yet she had shown no inclination to explain away
+her error. She had definitely refused to make an explanation. And
+it was simply a matter of common sense to concede that there must
+be a powerful motive for her refusal. There was but one conclusion
+for him to arrive at--the error which St. Pierre's wife had made
+in shooting the wrong man was less important to her than keeping
+the secret of why she had wanted to kill some other man.
+
+David was not unconscious of the breach in his own armor. He had
+weakened, just as the Superintendent of "N" Division had weakened
+that day four years ago when they had almost quarreled over Carmin
+Fanchet.
+
+"I'll swear to Heaven she isn't bad, no matter what her brother
+has been," McVane had said. "I'll gamble my life on that,
+Carrigan!"
+
+And because the Chief of Division with sixty years of experience
+behind him, had believed that, Carmin Fanchet had not been held as
+an accomplice in her brother's evildoing, but had gone back into
+her wilderness uncrucified by the law that had demanded the life
+of her brother. He would never forget the last time he had seen
+Carmin Fanchet's eyes--great, black, glorious pools of gratitude
+as they looked at grizzled old McVane; blazing fires of venomous
+hatred when they turned on him. And he had said to McVane,
+
+"The man pays, the woman goes--justice indeed is blind!"
+
+McVane, not being a stickler on regulations when it came to
+Carrigan, had made no answer.
+
+The incident came back vividly to David as he waited for the
+promised coming of Bateese. He began to appreciate McVane's point
+of view, and it was comforting, because he realized that his own
+logic was assailable. If McVane had been comparing the two women
+now, he knew what his argument would be. There had been no
+absolute proof of crime against Carmin Fanchet, unless to fight
+desperately for the life of her brother was a crime. In the case
+of Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain there was proof. She had tried to
+kill. Therefore, of the two, Carmin Fanchet would have been the
+better woman in the eyes of McVane.
+
+In spite of the legal force of the argument which he was bringing
+against himself, David felt unconvinced. Carmin Fanchet, had she
+been in the place of St. Pierre's wife, would have finished him
+there in the sand. She would have realized the menace of letting
+him live and would probably have commanded Bateese to dump him in
+the river. St. Pierre's wife had gone to the other extreme. She
+was not only repentant, but was making restitution, for her
+mistake, and in making that restitution had crossed far beyond the
+dead-line of caution. She had frankly told him who she was; she
+had brought him into the privacy of what was undeniably her own
+home; in her desire to undo what she had done she had hopelessly
+enmeshed herself in the net of the Law--if that Law saw fit to
+act. She had done these things with courage and conviction. And of
+such a woman, Carrigan thought, St. Pierre must be very proud.
+
+He looked slowly about the cabin again and each thing that he saw
+was a living voice breaking up a dream for him. These voices told
+him that he was in a temple built because of a man's worship for a
+woman--and that man was St. Pierre. Through the two western
+windows came the last glow of the western sun, like a golden
+benediction finding its way into a sacred place. Here there was--
+or had been--a great happiness, for only a great pride and a great
+happiness could have made it as it was. Nothing that wealth and
+toil could drag up out of a civilization a thousand miles away had
+been too good for St. Pierre's wife. And about him, looking more
+closely, David saw the undisturbed evidences of a woman's
+contentment. On the table were embroidery materials with which she
+had been working, and a lamp-shade half finished. A woman's
+magazine printed in a city four thousand miles away lay open at
+the fashion plates. There were other magazines, and many books,
+and open music above the white keyboard of the piano, and vases
+glowing red and yellow with wild-flowers and silver birch leaves.
+He could smell the faint perfume of the fireglow blossoms, red as
+blood. In a pool of sunlight on one of the big white bear rugs lay
+the sleeping cat. And then, at the far end of the cabin, an ivory-
+white Cross of Christ glowed for a few moments in a last homage of
+the sinking sun.
+
+Uneasiness stole upon him. This was the woman's holy ground, her
+sanctuary and her home, and for three days his presence had driven
+her from it. There was no other room. In making restitution she
+had given up to him her most sacred of all things. And again there
+rose up in him that new-born thing which had set strange fires
+stirring in his heart, and which from this hour on he knew he must
+fight until it was dead.
+
+For an hour after the last of the sun was obirterated by the
+western mountains he lay in the gloom of coming darkness. Only the
+lapping of water under the bateau broke the strange stillness of
+the evening. He heard no sound of life, no voice, no tread of
+feet, and he wondered where the woman and her men had gone and if
+the scow was still tied up at the edge of the tar-sands. And for
+the first time he asked himself another question, Where was the
+man, St. Pierref
+
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+It was utterly dark in the cabin, when the stillness was broken by
+low voices outside. The door opened, and some one came in. A
+moment later a match flared up, and in the shifting glow of it
+Carrigan saw the dark face of Bateese, the half-breed. One after
+another he lighted the four lamps. Not until he had finished did
+he turn toward the bed. It was then that David had his first good
+impression of the man. He was not tall, but built with the
+strength of a giant. His arms were long. His shoulders were
+stooped. His head was like the head of a stone gargoyle come to
+life. Wide-eyed, heavy-lipped, with the high cheek-bones of an
+Indian and uncut black hair bound with the knotted red MOUCHOIR,
+he looked more than ever like a pirate and a cutthroat to David.
+Such a man, he thought, might make play out of the business of
+murder. And yet, in spite of his ugliness, David felt again the
+mysterious inclination to like the man.
+
+Bateese grinned. It was a huge grin, for his mouth was big. "You
+ver' lucky fellow," he announced. "You sleep lak that in nice sof
+bed an' not back on san'-bar, dead lak ze feesh I bring you,
+m'sieu. That ees wan beeg mistake. Bateese say, 'Tie ze stone
+roun' hees neck an' mak' heem wan ANGE DE MER. Chuck heem in ze
+river, MA BELLE Jeanne!' An' she say no, mak heem well, an' feed
+heem feesh. So I bring ze feesh which she promise, an' when you
+have eat, I tell you somet'ing!"
+
+He returned to the door and brought back with him a wicker basket.
+Then he drew up the table beside Carrigan and proceeded to lay out
+before him the boiled fish which St. Pierre's wife had promised
+him. With it was bread and an earthen pot of hot tea.
+
+"She say that ees all you have because of ze fever. Bateese say,
+'Stuff heem wit' much so that he die queek!'"
+
+"You want to see me dead. Is that it, Bateese?"
+
+"OUI. You mak' wan ver' good dead man, m'sieu!" Bateese was no
+longer grinning. He stood back and pointed at the food. "You eat--
+queek. An' when you have finish' I tell you somet'ing!"
+
+Now that he saw the luscious bit of whitefish before him, Carrigan
+was possessed of the hungering emptiness of three days and nights.
+As he ate, he observed that Bateese was performing curious duties.
+He straightened a couple of rugs, ran fresh water into the flower
+vases, picked up half a dozen scattered magazines, and then, to
+David's increasing interest, produced a dust-cloth from somewhere
+and began to dust. David finished his fish, the one slice of
+bread, and his cup of tea. He felt tremendously good. The hot tea
+was like a trickle of new life through every vein in his body, and
+he had the desire to get up and try out his legs. Suddenly Bateese
+discovered that his patient was laughing at him.
+
+"QUE DIABLE!" he demanded, coming up ferociously with the cloth in
+his great hand. "You see somet'ing ver' fonny, m'sieu?"
+
+"No, nothing funny, Bateese," grinned Carrigan. "I was just
+thinking what a handsome chambermaid you make. You are so gentle,
+so nice to look at, so--"
+
+"DIABLE!" exploded Bateese, dropping his dust cloth and bringing
+his huge hands down upon the table with a smash that almost
+wrecked the dishes. "You have eat, an' now you lissen. You have
+never hear' before of Concombre Bateese. An' zat ees me. See! Wit'
+these two hands I have choke' ze polar bear to deat'. I am
+strongest man w'at ees in all nort' countree. I pack four hundre'
+pound ovair portage. I crack ze caribou bones wit' my teeth, lak a
+dog. I run sixt' or hundre' miles wit'out stop for rest. I pull
+down trees w'at oder man cut wit' axe. I am not 'fraid of not'ing.
+You lissen? You hear w'at I say?"
+
+"I hear you."
+
+"BIEN! Then I tell you w'at Concombre Bateese ees goin' do wit'
+you, M'sieu Sergent de Police! MA BELLE Jeanne she mak' wan gran'
+meestake. She too much leetle bird heart, too much pity for want
+you to die. Bateese say, 'Keel him, so no wan know w'at happen
+t'ree day ago behin' ze rock.' But MA BELLE Jeanne, she say, 'No,
+Bateese, he ees meestake for oder man, an' we mus' let heem live.'
+An' then she tell me to come an' bring you feesh, an' tell you
+w'at is goin' happen if you try go away from thees bateau. You
+COMPREN'? If you try run away, Bateese ees goin' keel you! See--
+wit' thees han's I br'ak your neck an' t'row you in river. MA
+BELLE Jeanne say do zat, an' she tell oder mans-twent', thirt',
+almos' hundre' GARCONS--to keel you if you try run away. She tell
+me bring zat word to you wit' ze feesh. You listen hard w'at I
+say?"
+
+If ever a worker of iniquity lived on earth, Carrigan might have
+judged Bateese as that man in these moments. The half-breed had
+worked himself up to a ferocious pitch. His eyes rolled. His wide
+mouth snarled in the virulence of its speech. His thick neck grew
+corded, and his huge hands clenched menacingly upon the table. Yet
+David had no fear. He wanted to laugh, but he knew laughter would
+be the deadliest of insults to Bateese just now. He remembered
+that the half-breed, fierce as a pirate, had a touch as gentle as
+a woman's. This man, who could choke an ox with his monstrous
+hands, had a moment before petted a cat, straightened out rugs,
+watered the woman's flowers, and had dusted. He was harmless--now.
+And yet in the same breath David sensed the fact that a single
+word from St. Pierre's wife would be sufficient to fire his brute
+strength into a blazing volcano of action. Such a henchman was
+priceless--under certain conditions! And he had brought a warning
+straight from the woman.
+
+"I think I understand what you mean, Bateese," he said. "She says
+that I am to make no effort to leave this bateau--that I am to be
+killed if I try to escape? Are you sure she said that?"
+
+"PAR LES MILLE CORNES DU DIABLE, you t'ink Bateese lie, m'sieu?
+Concombre Bateese, who choke ze w'ite bear wit' hees two ban', who
+pull down ze tree--"
+
+"No, no, I don't think you lie. But I am wondering why she didn't
+tell me that when she was here."
+
+"Becaus' she have too much leetle bird heart, zat ees w'y. She
+say: 'Bateese, you tell heem he mus' wait for St. Pierre. An' you
+tell heem good an' hard, lak you choke ze w'ite bear an' lak you
+pull down ze tree, so he mak' no meestake an' try get away.' An'
+she tell zat before all ze BATELIERS--all ze St. Pierre mans
+gathered 'bout a beeg fire--an' they shout up lak wan gargon that
+they watch an' keel you if you try get away."
+
+Carrigan reached out a hand. "Let's shake, Bateese. I'll give you
+my word that I won't try to escape--not until you and I have a
+good stand-up fight with the earth under our feet, and I've
+whipped you. Is it a go?"
+
+Bateese stared for a moment, and then his face broke into a wide
+grin. "You lak ze fight, m'sieu?"
+
+"Yes. I love a scrap with a good man like you."
+
+One of Bateese's huge hands crawled slowly over the table and
+engulfed David's. Joy shone on his face.
+
+"An' you promise give me zat fight, w'en you are strong?"
+
+"If I don't, I'll let you tie a stone around my neck and drop me
+into the river."
+
+"You are brave GARCON," cried the delighted Bateese. "Up an' down
+ze rivers ees no man w'at can whip Concombre Bateese!" Suddenly
+his face grew clouded. "But ze head, m'sieu?" he added anxiously.
+
+"It will get well quickly if you will help me, Bateese. Right now
+I want to get up. I want to stretch my legs. Was my head bad?"
+
+"NON. Ze bullet scrape ze ha'r off--so--so--an' turn ze brain
+seek. I t'ink you be good fighting man in week!"
+
+"And you will help me up?"
+
+Bateese was a changed man. Again David felt that mighty but gentle
+strength of his arms as he helped him to his feet. He was a trifle
+unsteady for a moment. Then, with the half-breed close at his
+side, ready to catch him if his legs gave way, he walked to one of
+the windows and looked out. Across the river, fully half a mile
+away, he saw the glow of fires.
+
+"Her camp?" he asked.
+
+"OUI, m'sieu."
+
+"We have moved from the tar-sands?"
+
+"Yes, two days down ze river."
+
+"Why are they not camping over here with us?"
+
+Bateese gave a disgusted grunt. "Becaus' MA BELLE Jeanne have such
+leetle bird heart, m'sieu. She say you mus' not have noise near,
+lak ze talk an' laugh an' ZE CHANSONS. She say it disturb, an' zat
+it rnak you worse wit' ze fever. She ees mak you lak de baby,
+Bateese say to her. But she on'y laugh at zat an' snap her leetle
+w'ite finger. Wait St. Pierre come! He brak yo'r head wit' hees
+two fists. I hope we have ze fight before then, m'sieu!"
+
+"We'll have it anyway, Bateese. Where is St. Pierre, and when
+shall we see him?"
+
+Bateese shrugged his shoulders. "Mebby week, mebby more. He long
+way off."
+
+"Is he an old man?"
+
+Slowly Bateese turned David about until he was facing him. "You
+ask not'ing more about St. Pierre," he warned. "No mans talk 'bout
+St. Pierre. Only wan--MA BELLE Jeanne. You ask her, an' she tell
+you shut up. W'en you don't shut up she call Bateese to brak your
+head."
+
+"You're a--a sort of all-round head-breaker, as I understand it,"
+grunted David, walking slowly back to his bed. "Will you bring me
+my pack and clothes in the morning? I want to shave and dress."
+
+Bateese was ahead of him, smoothing the pillows and straightening
+out the rumpled bed-clothes. His huge hands were quick and capable
+as a woman's, and David could not keep himself from chuckling at
+this feminine ingeniousness of the powerful half-breed. Once in
+the crush of those gorilla-like arms that were working over his
+bed now, he thought, and it would be all over with the strongest
+man in "N" Division. Bateese heard the chuckle and looked up.
+
+"Somet'ing ver' funny once more, is eet--w'at?" he demanded.
+
+"I was thinking, Bateese--what will happen to me if you get me in
+those arms when we fight? But it isn't going to happen. I fight
+with my fists, and I'm going to batter you up so badly that nobody
+will recognize you for a long time."
+
+"You wait!" exploded Bateese, making a horrible grimace. "I choke
+you lak w'ite bear, I t'row you ovair my should'r, I mash you lak
+leetle strawberr', I--" He paused in his task to advance with a
+formidable gesture.
+
+"Not now," warned Carrigan. "I'm still a bit groggy, Bateese." He
+pointed down at the bed. "I'm driving HER from that," he said. "I
+don't like it. Is she sleepin' over there--in the camp?"
+
+"Mebby--an' mebby not, m'sieu," growled Bateese. "You mak' guess,
+eh?"
+
+He began extinguishing the lights, until only the one nearest the
+door was left burning. He did not turn toward Carrigan or speak to
+him again. When he Went out, David heard the click of a lock in
+the door. Bateese had not exaggerated. It was the intention of St.
+Pierre's wife that he should consider himself a prisoner--at least
+for tonight.
+
+He had no desire to lie down again. There was an unsteadiness in
+his legs, but outside of that the evil of his sickness no longer
+oppressed him. The staff doctor at the Landing would probably have
+called him a fool for not convalescing in the usual prescribed
+way, but Carrigan was already beginning to feel the demand for
+action. In spite of what physical effort he had made, his head did
+not hurt him, and his mind was keenly alive. He returned to the
+window through which he could see the fires on the western shore,
+and found no difficulty in opening it. A strong screen netting
+kept him from thrusting out his head and shoulders. Through it
+came the cool night breeze of the river. It seemed good to fill
+his lungs with it again and smell the fresh aroma of the forest.
+It was very dark, and the fires across the river were brighter
+because of the deep gloom. There was no promise of the moon in the
+sky. He could not see a star. From far in the west he caught the
+low intonation of thunder.
+
+Carrigan turned from the window to the end of the cabin in which
+the piano stood. Here, too, was the second divan, and he saw the
+meaning now of two close-tied curtains, one at each side of the
+cabin. Drawn together on a taut wire stretched two inches under
+the ceiling, they shut off this end of the bateau and turned at
+least a third of the cabin into the privacy of the woman's
+bedroom. With growing uneasiness David saw the evidences that this
+had been her sleeping apartment. At each side of the piano was a
+small door, and he opened one of these just enough to discover
+that it was a wardrobe closet. A third door opened on the shore
+side of the bateau, but this was locked. Shut out from the view of
+the lower end of the cabin by a Japanese screen were a small
+dresser and a mirror. In the dim illumination that came from the
+distant lamp David bent over the open sheet of music on the piano.
+It was Mascagni's AVE MARIA.
+
+His blood tingled. His brain was stirred by a new emotion, a
+growing thing that made him uneasy and filled him with a strange
+restlessness. He felt as though he had come suddenly to the edge
+of a great danger; somewhere within him an intelligence seized
+upon it and understood. Yet it was not physical enough for him to
+fight. It was a danger which crept up and about him, something
+which he could not see or touch and yet which made his heart beat
+faster and the blood come into his face. It drew him, triumphed
+over him, dragged his hand forth until his fingers closed upon a
+lacy, crumpled bit of a handkerchief that lay on the edge of the
+piano keys. It was the woman's handkerchief, and like a thief he
+raised it slowly. It smelled faintly of crushed violets; it was as
+if she were bending over him in his sickness again, and it was her
+breath that came to him. He was not thinking of her as St.
+Pierre's wife. And then sharply he caught himself and placed the
+handkerchief back on the piano keys. He tried to laugh at himself,
+but there was an emptiness where a moment before there had been
+that thrill of which he was now ashamed.
+
+He turned back to the window. The thunder had come nearer. It was
+coming up fast out of the west, and with it a darkness that was
+like the blackness of a pit. A dead stillness was preceding it
+now, and in that stillness it seemed to Carrigan that he could
+hear the soapy, slitting sound of the streaming flashes of
+electrical fire that blazoned the advance of the storm. The camp-
+fires across the river were dying down. One of them went out as he
+looked at it, and he stared into the darkness as if trying to
+pierce distance and gloom to see what sort of a shelter it was
+that St. Pierre's wife had over there. And there came over him in
+these moments a desire that was almost cowardly. It was the desire
+to escape, to leave behind him the memory of the rock and of St.
+Pierre's wife, and to pursue once more his own great adventure,
+the quest of Black Roger Audemard.
+
+He heard the rain coming. At first the sound of it was like the
+pattering of ten million tiny feet in dry leaves; then, suddenly,
+it was like the roar of an avalanche. It was an inundation, and
+with it came crash after crash of thunder, and the black skies
+were illumined by an almost uninterrupted glare of lightning. It
+had been a long time since Carrigan had felt the shock of such a
+storm. He closed the window to keep the rain out, and after that
+stood with his face flattened against the glass, staring over the
+river. The camp-fires were all gone now, blotted out like so many
+candles snuffed between thumb and forefinger, and he shuddered. No
+canvas ever made would keep that deluge out. And now there was
+growing up a wind with it. The tents on the other side would be
+beaten down like pegged sheets of paper, ripped up and torn to
+pieces. He imagined St. Pierre's wife in that tumult and distress
+--the breath blown out of her, half drowned, blinded by deluge and
+lightning, broken and beaten because of him. Thought of her
+companions did not ease his mind. Human hands were entirely
+inadequate to cope with a storm like this that was rocking the
+earth about him.
+
+Suddenly he went to the door, determined that if Bateese was
+outside he would get some satisfaction out of him or challenge him
+to a fight right there. He beat against it, first with one fist
+and then with both. He shouted. There was no response. Then he
+exerted his strength and his weight against the door. It was
+solid.
+
+He was half turned when his eyes discovered, in a corner where the
+lamplight struck dimly, his pack and clothes. In thirty seconds he
+had his pipe and tobacco. After that for half an hour he paced up
+and down the cabin, while the storm crashed and thundered &s if
+bent upon destroying all life off the face of the earth.
+
+Comforted by the company of his pipe, Carrigan did not beat at the
+door again. He waited, and at the end of another half-hour the
+storm had softened down into a steady patter of rain. The thunder
+had traveled east, and the lightning had gone with it. David
+opened the window again. The air that came in was rain-sweet,
+soft, and warm. He puffed out a cloud of smoke and smiled. His
+pipe always brought his good humor to the surface, even in the
+worst places. St. Pierre's wife had certainly had a good soaking.
+And in a way the whole thing was a bit funny. He was thinking now
+of a poor little golden-plumaged partridge, soaked to the skin,
+with its tail-feathers dragging pathetically. Grinning, he told
+himself that it was an insult to think of her and a half-drowned
+partridge in the same breath. But the simile still remained, and
+he chuckled. Probably she was wringing out her clothes now, and
+the men were cursing under their breath while trying to light a
+fire. He watched for the fire. It failed to appear. Probably she
+was hating him for bringing all this discomfort and humiliation
+upon her. It was not impossible that tomorrow she would give
+Bateese permission to brain him. And St. Pierre? What would this
+man, her husband, think and do if he knew that his wife had given
+up her bedroom to this stranger? What complications might arise IF
+HE KNEW!
+
+It was late--past midnight--when Carrigan went to bed. Even then
+he did not sleep for a long time. The patter of the rain grew less
+and less on the roof of the bateau, and as the sound of it droned
+itself off into nothingness, slumber came. David was conscious of
+the moment when the rain ceased entirely. Then he slept. At least
+he must have been very close to sleep, or had been asleep and was
+returning for a moment close to consciousness, when he heard a
+voice. It came several times before he was roused enough to
+realize that it was a voice. And then, suddenly, piercing his
+slowly wakening brain almost with the shock of one of the thunder
+crashes, it came to him so distinctly that he found himself
+sitting up straight, his hands clenched, eyes staring in the
+darkness, waiting for it to come again.
+
+Somewhere very near him, in his room, within the reach of his
+hands, a strange and indescribable voice had cried out in the
+darkness the words which twice before had beat themselves
+mysteriously into David Carrigan's brain--"HAS ANY ONE SEEN BLACK
+ROGER AUDEMARD? HAS ANY ONE SEEN BLACK ROGER AUDEMARD?"
+
+And David, holding his breath, listened for the sound of another
+breath which he knew was in that room.
+
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+For perhaps a minute Carrigan made no sound that could have been
+heard three feet away from him. It was not fear that held him
+quiet. It was something which he could not explain afterward, the
+sensation, perhaps, of one who feels himself confronted for a
+moment by a presence more potent than that of flesh and blood.
+BLACK ROGER AUDEMARD! Three times, twice in his sickness, some one
+had cried out that name in his ears since the hour when St.
+Pierre's wife had ambushed him on the white carpet of sand. And
+the voice was now in his room!
+
+Was it Bateese, inspired by some sort of malformed humor? Carrigan
+listened. Another minute passed. He reached out a hand and groped
+about him, very careful not to make a sound, urged by the feeling
+that some one was almost within reach of him. He flung back his
+blanket and stood out in the middle of the floor.
+
+Still he heard no movement, no soft footfalls of retreat or
+advance. He lighted a match and held it high above his head. In
+its yellow illumination he could see nothing alive. He lighted a
+lamp. The cabin was empty. He drew a deep breath and went to the
+window. It was still open. The voice had undoubtedly come to him
+through that window, and he fancied he could see where the screen
+netting was crushed a bit inward, as though a face had pressed
+heavily against it. Outside the night was beautifully calm. The
+sky, washed by storm, was bright with stars. But there was not a
+ripple of movement that he could hear.
+
+After that he looked at his watch. He must have been sleeping for
+some time when the voice roused him, for it was nearly three
+o'clock. In spite of the stars, dawn was close at hand. When he
+looked out of the window again they were paler and more distant.
+He had no intention of going back to bed. He was restless and felt
+himself surrendering more and more to the grip of presentiment.
+
+It was still early, not later than six o'clock, when Bateese came
+in with his breakfast. He was surprised, as he had heard no
+movement or sound of voices to give evidence of life anywhere near
+the bateau. Instantly he made up his mind that it was not Bateese
+who had uttered the mysterious words of a few hours ago, for the
+half-breed had evidently experienced a most uncomfortable night.
+He was like a rat recently pulled out of water. His clothes hung
+upon him sodden and heavy, his head kerchief dripped, and his lank
+hair was wet. He slammed the breakfast things down on the table
+and went out again without so much as nodding at his prisoner.
+
+Again a sense of discomfort and shame swept over David, as he sat
+down to breakfast. Here he was comfortably, even luxuriously,
+housed, while out there somewhere St. Pierre's lovely wife was
+drenched and even more miserable than Bateese. And the breakfast
+amazed him. It was not so much the caribou tenderloin, rich in its
+own red juice, or the potato, or the pot of coffee that was
+filling the cabin with its aroma, that roused his wonder, but the
+hot, brown muffins that accompanied the other things. Muffins! And
+after a deluge that had drowned every square inch of the earth!
+How had Bateese turned the trick?
+
+Bateese did not return immediately for the dishes, and for half an
+hour after he had finished breakfast Carrigan smoked his pipe and
+watched the blue haze of fires on the far side of the river. The
+world was a blaze of sunlit glory. His imagination carried him
+across the river. Somewhere over there, in an open spot where the
+sun was blazing, Jeanne Marie-Anne was probably drying herself
+after the night of storm. There was but little doubt in his mind
+that she was already heaping the ignominy of blame upon him. That
+was the woman of it.
+
+A knock at his door drew him about. It was a light, quick TAP,
+TAP, TAP--not like the fist of either Bateese or Nepapinas. In
+another moment the door swung open, and in the flood of sunlight
+that poured into the cabin stood St. Pierre's wife!
+
+It was not her presence, but the beauty of her, that held him
+spellbound. It was a sort of shock after the vivid imaginings of
+his mind in which he had seen her beaten and tortured by storm.
+Her hair, glowing in the sun and piled up in shining coils on the
+crown of her head, was not wet. She was not the rain-beaten little
+partridge that had passed in tragic bedragglement through his
+mind. Storm had not touched her. Her cheeks were soft with the
+warm flush of long hours of sleep. When she came in, her lips
+greeting him with a little smile, all that he had built up for
+himself in the hours of the night crumbled away in dust. Again he
+forgot for a moment that she was St. Pierre's wife. She was woman,
+and as he looked upon her now, the most adorable woman in all the
+world.
+
+"You are better this morning," she said. Real pleasure shone in
+her eyes. She had left the door open, so that the sun filled the
+room. "I think the storm helped you. Wasn't it splendid?"
+
+David swallowed hard. "Quite splendid," he managed to say. "Have
+you seen Bateese this morning?"
+
+A little note of laughter came into her throat. "Yes. I don't
+think he liked it. He doesn't understand why I love storms. Did
+you sleep well, M'sieu Carrigan?"
+
+"An hour or two, I think. I was worrying about you. I didn't like
+the thought that I had turned you out into the storm. But it
+doesn't seem to have touched you."
+
+"No. I was there--quite comfortable." She nodded to the forward
+bulkhead of the cabin, beyond the wardrobe closets and the piano.
+"There is a little dining-room and kitchenette ahead," she
+explained. "Didn't Bateese tell you that?"
+
+"No, he didn't. I asked him where you were, and I think he told me
+to shut up."
+
+"Bateese is very odd," said St. Pierre's wife. "He is exceedingly
+jealous of me, M'sieu David. Even when I was a baby and he carried
+me about in his arms, he was just that way. Bateese, you know, is
+older than he appears. He is fifty-one."
+
+She was moving about, quite as if his presence was in no way going
+to disturb her usual duties of the day. She rearranged the damask
+curtains which he had crumpled with his hands, placed two or three
+chairs in their usual places, and moved from this to that with the
+air of a housewife who is in the habit of brushing up a bit in the
+morning.
+
+She seemed not at all embarrassed because he was her prisoner, nor
+uncomfortably restrained because of the message she had sent to
+him by Bateese. She was warmly and gloriously human. In her
+apparent unconcern at his presence he found himself sweating
+inwardly. A bit nervously he struck a match to light his pipe,
+then extinguished it.
+
+She noticed what he had done. "You may smoke," she said, with that
+little note in her throat which he loved to hear, like the
+faintest melody of laughter that did not quite reach her lips.
+"St. Pierre smokes a great deal, and I like it."
+
+She opened a drawer in the dressing-table and came to him with a
+box half filled with cigars.
+
+"St. Pierre prefers these--on occasions," she said, "Do you?"
+
+His fingers seemed all thumbs as he took a cigar from the
+proffered box. He cursed himself because his tongue felt thick.
+Perhaps it was his silence, betraying something of his mental
+clumsiness, that brought a faint flush of color into her cheeks.
+He noted that; and also that the top of her shining head came just
+about to his chin, and that her mouth and throat, looking down on
+them, were bewitchingly soft and sweet.
+
+And what she said, when her eyes opened wide and beautiful on him
+again, was like a knife cutting suddenly into the heart of his
+thoughts.
+
+"In the evening I love to sit at St. Pierre's feet and watch him
+smoke," she said. "I am glad it doesn't annoy you, because--I like
+to smoke," he replied lamely.
+
+She placed the box on the little reading table and looked at his
+breakfast things. "You like muffins, too. I was up early this
+morning, making them for you!"
+
+"You made them?" he demanded, as if her words were a most amazing
+revelation to him.
+
+"Surely, M'sieu David. I make them every morning for St. Pierre.
+He is very fond of them. He says the third nicest thing about me
+is my muffins!"
+
+"And the other two?" asked David.
+
+"Are St. Pierre's little secrets, m'sieu," she laughed softly, the
+color deepening in her cheeks. "It wouldn't be fair to tell you,
+would it?"
+
+"Perhaps it wouldn't," he said slowly. "But there are one or two
+other things, Mrs.--Mrs. Boulain--"
+
+"You may call me Jeanne, or Marie-Anne, if you care to," she
+interrupted him. "It will be quite all right."
+
+She was picking up the breakfast dishes, not at all perturbed by
+the fact that she was offering him a privilege which had the
+effect of quickening his pulse for a moment or two.
+
+"Thank you," he said. "I don't mind telling you it is going to be
+difficult for me to do that--because--well, this is a most unusual
+situation, isn't it? In spite of all your kindness, including what
+was probably your good-intentioned endeavor to put an end to my
+earthly miseries behind the rock, I believe it is necessary for
+you to give me some kind of explanation. Don't you?"
+
+"Didn't Bateese explain to you last night?" she asked, facing him.
+
+"He brought a message from you to the effect that I was a
+prisoner, that I must make no attempt to escape, and that if I did
+try to escape, you had given your men instructions to kill me."
+
+She nodded, quite seriously. "That is right, M'sieu David."
+
+His face flamed. "Then I am a prisoner? You threaten me with
+death?"
+
+"I shall treat you very nicely if you make no attempt to escape,
+M'sieu David. Isn't that fair?"
+
+"Fair!" he cried, choking back an explosion that would have vented
+itself on a man. "Don't you realize what has happened? Don't you
+know that according to every law of God and man I should arrest
+you and give you over to the Law? Is it possible that you don't
+comprehend my own duty? What I must do?"
+
+If he had noticed, he would have seen that there was no longer the
+flush of color in her cheeks. But her eyes, looking straight at
+him, were tranquil and unexcited. She nodded.
+
+"That is why you must remain a prisoner, M'sieu David, It is
+because I do realize, I shall not tell you why that happened
+behind the rock, and if you ask me, I shall refuse to talk to you.
+If I let you go now, you would probably have me arrested and put
+in jail. So I must keep you until St. Pierre comes. I don't know
+what to do--except to keep you, and not let you escape until then.
+What would you do?"
+
+The question was so honest, so like a question that might have
+been asked by a puzzled child, that his argument for the Law was
+struck dead. He stared into the pale face, the beautiful, waiting
+eyes, saw the pathetic intertwining of her slim fingers, and
+suddenly he was grinning in that big, honest way which made people
+love Dave Carrigan.
+
+"You're--doing--absolutely--right," he said.
+
+A swift change came in her face. Her cheeks flushed. Her eyes
+filled with a sudden glow that made the little violet-freckles in
+them dance like tiny flecks of gold.
+
+"From your point of view you are right," he repeated, "and I shall
+make no attempt to escape until I have talked with St. Pierre. But
+I can't quite see--just now--how he is going to help the
+situation."
+
+"He will," she assured him confidently.
+
+"You seem to have an unlimited faith in St. Pierre," he replied a
+little grimly.
+
+"Yes, M'sieu David. He is the most wonderful man in the world. And
+he will know what to do."
+
+David shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps, in some nice, quiet place,
+he will follow the advice Bateese gave you--tie a stone round my
+neck and sink me to the bottom of the river."
+
+"Perhaps. But I don't think he will do that I should object to
+it."
+
+"Oh, you would!"
+
+"Yes. St. Pierre is big and strong, afraid of nothing in the
+world, but he will do anything for me. I don't think he would kill
+you if I asked him not to." She turned to resume her task of
+cleaning up the breakfast things.
+
+With a sudden movement David swung one of the' big chairs close to
+her. "Please sit down," he commanded. "I can talk to you better
+that way. As an officer of the law it is my duty to ask you a few
+questions. It rests in your power to answer all of them or none of
+them. I have given you my word not to act until I have seen St.
+Pierre, and I shall keep that promise. But when we do meet I shall
+act largely on the strength of what you tell me during the next
+tea minutes. Please sit down!"
+
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+In that big, deep chair which must have been St. Pierre's own,
+Marie-Anne sat facing Carrigan. Between its great arms her slim
+little figure seemed diminutive and out of place. Her brown eyes
+were level and clear, waiting. They were not warm or nervous, but
+so coolly and calmly beautiful that they disturbed Carrigan. She
+raised her hands, her slim fingers crumpling for a moment in the
+soft, thick coils of her hair. That little movement, the
+unconscious feminism of it, the way she folded her hands in her
+lap afterward, disturbed Carrigan even more. What a glory on earth
+it must be to possess a woman like that! The thought made him
+uneasy. And she sat waiting, a vivid, softly-breathing question-
+mark against the warm coloring of the upholstered chair.
+
+"When you shot me," he began, "I saw you, first, standing over me.
+I thought you had come to finish me. It was then that I saw
+something in your face--horror, amazement, as though you had done
+something you did not know you were doing. You see, I want to be
+charitable. I want to understand. I want to excuse you if I can.
+Won't you tell me why you shot me, and why that change came over
+you when you saw me lying there?"
+
+"No, M'sieu David, I shall not tell." She was not antagonistic or
+defiant. Her voice was not raised, nor did it betray an unusual
+emotion. It was simply decisive, and the unflinching steadiness of
+her eyes and the way in which she sat with her hands folded gave
+to it an unqualified definiteness.
+
+"You mean that I must make my own guess?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Or get it out of St. Pierre?"
+
+"If St. Pierre wishes to tell you, yes."
+
+"Well--" He leaned a little toward her. "After that you dragged me
+up into the shade, dressed my wound and made me comfortable. In a
+hazy sort of way I knew what was going on. And a curious thing
+happened. At times--" he leaned still a little nearer to her--"at
+times--there seemed to be two of you!"
+
+He was not looking at her hands, or he would have seen her fingers
+slowly tighten in her lap.
+
+"You were badly hurt," she said. "It is not strange that you
+should have imagined things, M'sieu David."
+
+"And I seemed to hear two voices," he went on.
+
+She made no answer, but continued to look at him steadily.
+
+"And the other had hair that was like copper and gold fire in the
+sun. I would see your face and then hers, again and again--and--
+since then--I have thought I was a heavy load for your hands to
+drag up through that sand to the shade alone."
+
+She held up her two hands, looking at them. "They are strong," she
+said.
+
+"They are small," he insisted, "and I doubt if they could drag me
+across this floor."
+
+For the first time the quiet of her eyes gave way to a warm fire.
+"It was hard work," she said, and the note in her voice gave him
+warning that he was approaching the dead-line again. "Bateese says
+I was a fool for doing it. And if you saw two of me, or three or
+four, it doesn't matter. Are you through questioning me, M'sieu
+David? If so, I have a number of things to do."
+
+He made a gesture of despair. "No, I am not through. But why ask
+you questions if you won't answer them?"
+
+"I simply can not. You must wait."
+
+"For your husband?"
+
+"Yes, for St. Pierre."
+
+He was silent for a moment, then said, "I raved about a number of
+things when I was sick, didn't I?"
+
+"You did, and especially about what you thought happened in the
+sand. You called this--this other person--the Fire Goddess. You
+were so near dying that of course it wasn't amusing. Otherwise it
+would have been. You see MY hair is black, almost!" Again, in a
+quick movement, her fingers were crumpling the lustrous coils on
+the crown of her head.
+
+"Why do you say 'almost'?" he asked.
+
+"Because St. Pierre has often told me that when I am in the sun
+there are red fires in it. And the sun was very bright that
+afternoon in the sand, M'sieu David."
+
+"I think I understand," he nodded. "And I'm rather glad, too. I
+like to know that it was you who dragged me up into the shade
+after trying to kill me. It proves you aren't quite so savage as--"
+
+"Carmin Fanchet," she interrupted him softly. "You talked about
+her in your sickness, M'sieu David. It made me terribly afraid of
+you--so much so that at times I almost wondered if Bateese wasn't
+right. It made me understand what would happen to me if I should
+let you go. What terrible thing did she do to you? What could she
+have done more terrible than I have done?"
+
+"Is that why you have given your men orders to kill me if I try to
+escape?" he asked. "Because I talked about this woman, Carmin
+Fanchet?"
+
+"Yes, it is because of Carmin Fanchet that I am keeping you for
+St. Pierre," she acknowledged. "If you had no mercy for her, you
+could have none for me. What terrible thing did she do to you,
+M'sieu?"
+
+"Nothing--to me," he said, feeling that she was putting him where
+the earth was unsteady under his feet again. "But her brother was
+a criminal of the worst sort. And I was convinced then, and am
+convinced now, that his sister was a partner in his crimes. She
+was very beautiful. And that, I think, was what saved her."
+
+He was fingering his unlighted cigar as he spoke. When he looked
+up, he was surprised at the swift change that had come into the
+face of St. Pierre's wife. Her cheeks were flaming, and there were
+burning fires screened behind the long lashes of her eyes. But her
+voice was unchanged. It was without a quiver that betrayed the
+emotion which had sent the hot flush into her face.
+
+"Then--you judged her without absolute knowledge of fact? You
+judged her--as you hinted in your fever--because she fought so
+desperately to save a brother who had gone wrong?"
+
+"I believe she was bad."
+
+The long lashes fell lower, like fringes of velvet closing over
+the fires in her eyes. "But you didn't know!"
+
+"Not absolutely," he conceded. "But investigations--"
+
+"Might have shown her to be one of the most wonderful women that
+ever lived, M'sieu David. It is not hard to fight for a good
+brother--but if he is bad, it may take an angel to do it!"
+
+He stared, thoughts tangling themselves in his head. A slow shame
+crept over him. She had cornered him. She had convicted him of
+unfairness to the one creature on earth his strength and his
+manhood were bound to protect--a woman. She had convicted him of
+judging without fact. And in his head a voice seemed to cry out to
+him, "What did Carmin Fanchet ever do to you?"
+
+He rose suddenly to his feet and stood at the back of his chair,
+his hands gripping the top of it. "Maybe you are right," he said.
+"Maybe I was wrong. I remember now that when I got Fanchet I
+manacled him, and she sat beside him all through that first night.
+I didn't intend to sleep, but I was tired--and did. I must have
+slept for an hour, and SHE roused me--trying to get the key to the
+handcuffs. She had the opportunity then--to kill me."
+
+Triumph swept over the face that was looking up at him. "Yes, she
+could have killed you--while you slept. But she didn't. WHY?"
+
+"I don't know. Perhaps she had the idea of getting the key and
+letting her brother do the job. Two or three days later I am
+convinced she would not have hesitated. I caught her twice trying
+to steal my gun. And a third time, late at night, when we were
+within a day or two of Athabasca Landing, she almost got me with a
+club. So I concede that she never did anything very terrible to
+me. But I am sure that she tried, especially toward the last."
+
+"And because she failed, she hated you; and because she hated you,
+something was warped inside you, and you made up your mind she
+should be punished along with her brother. You didn't look at it
+from a woman's viewpoint. A woman will fight, and kill, to save
+one she loves. She tried, perhaps, and failed. The result was that
+her brother was killed by the Law. Was not that enough? Was it
+fair or honest to destroy her simply because you thought she might
+be a partner in her brother's crimes?"
+
+"It is rather strange," he replied, a moment of indecision in his
+voice. "McVane, the superintendent, asked me that same question. I
+thought he was touched by her beauty. And I'm sorry--very sorry--
+that I talked about her when I was sick. I don't want you to think
+I am a bad sort--that way. I'm going to think about it. I'm going
+over the whole thing again, from the time I manacled Fanchet, and
+if I find that I was wrong--and I ever meet Carmin Fanchet again--
+I shall not be ashamed to get down on my knees and ask her pardon,
+Marie-Anne!"
+
+For the first time he spoke the name which she had given him
+permission to use. And she noticed it. He could not help seeing
+that--a flashing instant in which the indefinable confession of it
+was in her face, as though his use of it had surprised her, or
+pleased her, or both. Then it was gone.
+
+She did not answer, but rose from the big chair, and went to the
+window, and stood with her back toward him, looking out over the
+river. And then, suddenly, they heard a voice. It was the voice he
+had heard twice in his sickness, the voice that had roused him
+from his sleep last night, crying out in his room for Black Roger
+Audemard. It came to him distinctly through the open door in a low
+and moaning monotone. He had not taken his eyes from the slim
+figure of St. Pierre's wife, and he saw a little tremor pass
+through her now.
+
+"I heard that voice--again--last night," said David. "It was in
+this cabin, asking for Black Roger Audemard."
+
+She did not seem to hear him, and he also turned so that he was
+looking at the open door of the cabin.
+
+The sun, pouring through in a golden flood, was all at once
+darkened, and in the doorway--framed vividly against the day--was
+the figure of a man. A tense breath came to Carrigan's lips. At
+first he felt a shock, then an overwhelming sense of curiosity and
+of pity. The man was terribly deformed. His back and massive
+shoulders were so twisted and bent that he stood no higher than a
+twelve-year-old boy; yet standing straight, he would have been six
+feet tall if an inch, and splendidly proportioned. And in that
+same breath with which shock and pity came to him, David knew that
+it was accident and not birth that had malformed the great body
+that stood like a crouching animal in the open door. At first he
+saw only the grotesqueness of it--the long arms that almost
+touched the floor, the broken back, the twisted shoulders--and
+then, with a deeper thrill, he saw nothing of these things but
+only the face and the head of the man. There was something god-
+like about them, fastened there between the crippled shoulders. It
+was not beauty, but strength--the strength of rock, of carven
+granite, as if each feature had been chiseled out of something
+imperishable and everlasting, yet lacking strangely and
+mysteriously the warm illumination that comes from a living soul.
+The man was not old, nor was he young. And he did not seem to see
+Carrigan, who stood nearest to him. He was looking at St. Pierre's
+wife.
+
+The look which David saw in her face was infinitely tender. She
+was smiling at the misshapen hulk in the door as she might have
+smiled at a little child. And David, looking back at the wide,
+deep-set eyes of the man, saw the slumbering fire of a dog-like
+worship in them. They shifted slowly, taking in the cabin,
+questing, seeking, searching for something which they could not
+find. The lips moved, and again he heard that weird and mysterious
+monotone, as if the plaintive voice of a child were coming out of
+the huge frame of the man, crying out as it had cried last night,
+"HAS-ANY-ONE-SEEN-BLACK-ROGER-AUDEMARD?"
+
+In another moment St. Pierre's wife was at the deformed giant's
+side. She seemed tall beside him. She put her hands to his head
+and brushed back the grizzled black hair, laughing softly into his
+upturned face, her eyes shining and a strange glow in her cheeks.
+Carrigan, looking at them, felt his heart stand still. WAS THIS
+MAN ST. PIERRE? The thought came like a lightning flash--and went
+as quickly; it was impossible and inconceivable. And yet there was
+something more than pity in the voice of the woman who was
+speaking now.
+
+"No, no, we have not seen him, Andre--we have not seen Black Roger
+Audemard. If he comes, I will call you. I promise, Michiwan. I
+will call you!"
+
+She was stroking his bearded cheek, and then she put an arm about
+his twisted shoulders, and slowly she turned so that in a moment
+or two they were facing the sun--and it seemed to Carrigan that
+she was talking and sobbing and laughing in the same breath, as
+that great, broken hulk of a man moved out slowly from under the
+caress of her arm and went on his way. For a space she looked
+after him. Then in a swift movement she closed the door and faced
+Carrigan. She did not speak, but waited. Her head was high. She
+was breathing quickly. The tenderness that a moment before had
+filled her face was gone, and in her eyes was the blaze of
+fighting fires as she waited for him to speak--to give voice to
+what she knew was passing in his mind.
+
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+For a space there was silence between Carrigan and St. Pierre's
+wife. He knew what she was thinking as she stood with her back to
+the door, waiting half defiantly, her cheeks still flushed, her
+eyes bright with the anticipation of battle. She was ready to
+fight for the broken creature on the other side of the door. She
+expected him to give no quarter in his questioning of her, to
+corner her if he could, to demand of her why the deformed giant
+had spoken the name of the man he was after, Black Roger Audemard.
+The truth hammered in David's brain. It had not been a delusion of
+his fevered mind after all; it was not a possible deception of the
+half-breed's, as he had thought last night. Chance had brought him
+face to face with the mystery of Black Roger. St. Pierre's wife,
+waiting for him to speak, was in some way associated with that
+mystery, and the cripple was asking for the man McVane had told
+him to bring in dead or alive! Yet he did not question her. He
+turned to the window and looked out from where Marie-Anne had
+stood a few moments before.
+
+The day was glorious. On the far shore he saw life where last
+night's camp had been. Men were moving about close to the water,
+and a York boat was putting out slowly into the stream. Close
+under the window moved a canoe with a single occupant. It was
+Andre, the Broken Man. With powerful strokes he was paddling
+across the river. His deformity was scarcely noticeable in the
+canoe. His bare head and black beard shone in the sun, and between
+his great shoulders his head looked more than ever to Carrigan
+like the head of a carven god. And this man, like a mighty tree
+stricken by lightning, his mind gone, was yet a thing that was
+more than mere flesh and blood to Marie-Anne Boulain!
+
+David turned toward her. Her attitude was changed. It was no
+longer one of proud defiance. She had expected to defend herself
+from something, and he had given her no occasion for defense. She
+did not try to hide the fact from him, and he nodded toward the
+window.
+
+"He is going away in a canoe. I am afraid you didn't want me to
+see him, and I am sorry I happened to be here when he came."
+
+"I made no effort to keep him away, M'sieu David. Perhaps I wanted
+you to see him. And I thought, when you did--" She hesitated.
+
+"You expected me to crucify you, if necessary, to learn the truth
+of what he knows about Roger Audemard," he said. "And you were
+ready to fight back. But I am not going to question you unless you
+give me permission."
+
+"I am glad," she said in a low voice. "I am beginning to have
+faith in you, M'sieu David. You have promised not to try to
+escape, and I believe you. Will you also promise not to ask me
+questions, which I can not answer--until St. Pierre comes?"
+
+"I will try."
+
+She came up to him slowly and stood facing him, so near that she
+could have reached out and put her hands on his shoulders.
+
+"St. Pierre has told me a great deal about the Scarlet Police,"
+she said, looking at him quietly and steadily. "He says that the
+men who wear the red jackets never play low tricks, and that they
+come after a man squarely and openly. He says they are men, and
+many times he has told me wonderful stories of the things they
+have done. He calls it 'playing the game.' And I'm going to ask
+you, M'sieu David, will you play square with me? If I give you the
+freedom of the bateau, of the boats, even of the shore, will you
+wait for St. Pierre and play the rest of the game out with him,
+man to man?"
+
+Carrigan bowed his head slightly. "Yes, I will wait and finish the
+game with St. Pierre."
+
+He saw a quick throb come and go in her white throat, and with a
+sudden, impulsive movement she held out her hand to him. For a
+moment he held it close. Her little fingers tightened about his
+own, and the warm thrill of them set his blood leaping with the
+thing he was fighting down. She was so near that he could feel the
+throb of her body. For an instant she bowed her head, and the
+sweet perfume of her hair was in his nostrils, the lustrous beauty
+of it close under his lips.
+
+Gently she withdrew her hand and stood back from him. To Carrigan
+she was like a young girl now. It was the loveliness of girlhood
+he saw in the flush of her face and in the gladness that was
+flaming unashamed in her eyes.
+
+"I am not frightened any more," she exclaimed, her voice trembling
+a bit. "When St. Pierre comes, I shall tell him everything. And
+then you may ask the questions, and he will answer. And he will
+not cheat! He will play square. You will love St. Pierre, and you
+will forgive me for what happened behind the rock!"
+
+She made a little gesture toward the door. "Everything is free to
+you out there now," she added. "I shall tell Bateese and the
+others. When we are tied up, you may go ashore. And we will forget
+all that has happened, M'sieu David. We will forget until St.
+Pierre comes."
+
+"St. Pierre!" he groaned. "If there were no St. Pierre!"
+
+"I should be lost," she broke in quickly. "I should want to die!"
+
+Through the open window came the sound of a voice. It was the
+weird monotone of Andre, the Broken Man. Marie-Anne went to the
+window. And David, following her, looked over her head, again so
+near that his lips almost touched her hair. Andre had come back.
+He was watching two York boats that were heading for the bateau.
+
+"You heard him asking for Black Roger Audemard," she said. "It is
+strange. I know how it must have shocked you when he stood like
+that in the door. His mind, like his body, is a wreck, M'sieu
+David. Years ago, after a great storm, St. Pierre found him in the
+forest. A tree had fallen on him. St. Pierre carried him in on his
+shoulders. He lived, but he has always been like that. St. Pierre
+loves him, and poor Andre worships St. Pierre and follows him
+about like a dog. His brain is gone. He does not know what his
+name is, and we call him Andre. And always, day and night, he is
+asking that same question, 'Has any one seen Black Roger
+Audemard?' Sometime--if you will, M'sieu David--I should like to
+have you tell me what it is so terrible that you know about Roger
+Audemard."
+
+The York boats were half-way across the river, and from them came
+a sudden burst of wild song. David could make out six men in each
+boat, their oars flashing in the morning sun to the rhythm of
+their chant. Marie-Anne looked up at him suddenly, and in her face
+and eyes he saw what the starry gloom of evening had half hidden
+from him in those thrilling moments when they shot through the
+rapids of the Holy Ghost. She was girl now. He did not think of
+her as woman. He did not think of her as St. Pierre's wife. In
+that upward glance of her eyes was something that thrilled him to
+the depth of his soul. She seemed, for a moment, to have dropped a
+curtain from between herself and him.
+
+Her red lips trembled, she smiled at him, and then she faced the
+river again, and he leaned a little forward, so that a breath of
+wind floated a shimmering tress of her hair against his cheek. An
+irresistible impulse seized upon him. He leaned still nearer to
+her, holding his breath, until his lips softly touched one of the
+velvety coils of her hair. And then he stepped back. Shame swept
+over him. His heart rose and choked him, and his fists were
+clenched at his side. She had not noticed what he had done, and
+she seemed to him like a bird yearning to fly out through the
+window, throbbing with the desire to answer the chanting song that
+came over the water. And then she was smiling up again into his
+face hardened with the struggle which he was making with himself.
+
+"My people are happy," she cried. "Even in storm they laugh and
+sing. Listen, m'sieu. They are singing La Derniere Domaine. That
+is our song. It is what we call our home, away up there in the
+lost wilderness where people never come--the Last Domain. Their
+wives and sweethearts and families are up there, and they are
+happy in knowing that today we shall travel a few miles nearer to
+them. They are not like your people in Montreal and Ottawa and
+Quebec, M'sieu David. They are like children. And yet they are
+glorious children!"
+
+She ran to the wall and took down the banner of St. Pierre
+Boulain. "St. Pierre is behind us," she explained. "He is coming
+down with a raft of timber such as we can not get in our country,
+and we are waiting for him. But each day we must float down with
+the stream a few miles nearer the homes of my people. It makes
+them happier, even though it is but a few miles. They are coming
+now for my bateau. We shall travel slowly, and it will be
+wonderful on a day like this. It will do you good to come outside,
+M'sieu David--with me. Would you care for that? Or would you
+rather be alone?"
+
+In her face there was no longer the old restraint. On her lips was
+the witchery of a half-smile; in her eyes a glow that flamed the
+blood in his veins. It was not a flash of coquetry. It was
+something deeper and warmer than that, something real--a new
+Marie-Anne Boulain telling him plainly that she wanted him to
+come. He did not know that his hands were still clenched at his
+side. Perhaps she knew. But her eyes did not leave his face, eyes
+that were repeating the invitation of her lips, openly asking him
+not to refuse.
+
+"I shall be happy to come," he said.
+
+The words fell out of him numbly. He scarcely heard them or knew
+what he was saying, yet he was conscious of the unnatural note in
+his voice. He did not know he was betraying himself beyond that,
+did not see the deepening of the wild-rose flush in the cheeks of
+St. Pierre's wife. He picked up his pipe from the table and moved
+to accompany her.
+
+"You must wait a little while," she said, and her hand rested for
+an instant upon his arm. Its touch was as light as the touch of
+his lips had been against her shining hair, but he felt it in
+every nerve of his body. "Nepapinas is making a special lotion for
+your hurt. I will send him in, and then you may come."
+
+The wild chant of the rivermen was near as she turned to the door.
+From it she looked back at him swiftly.
+
+"They are happy, M'sieu David," she repeated softly. "And I, too,
+am happy. I am no longer afraid. And the world is beautiful again.
+Can you guess why? It is because you have given me your promise,
+M'sieu David, and because I believe you!"
+
+And then she was gone.
+
+For many minutes he did not move. The chanting of the rivermen, a
+sudden wilder shout, the voices of men, and after that the grating
+of something alongside the bateau came to him like sounds from
+another world. Within himself there was a crash greater than that
+of physical things. It was the truth breaking upon him, truth
+surging over him like the waves of a sea, breaking down the
+barriers he had set up, inundating him with a force that was
+mightier than his own will. A voice in his soul was crying out the
+truth--that above all else in the world he wanted to reach out his
+arms to this glorious creature who was the wife of St. Pierre,
+this woman who had tried to kill him and was sorry. He knew that
+it was not desire for beauty. It was the worship which St. Pierre
+himself must have for this woman who was his wife. And the shock
+of it was like a conflagration sweeping through him, leaving him
+dead and shriven, like the crucified trees standing in the wake of
+a fire. A breath that was almost a cry came from him, and his
+fists knotted until they were purple. She was St. Pierre's wife!
+And he, David Carrigan, proud of his honor, proud of the strength
+that made him man, had dared covet her in this hour when her
+husband was gone! He stared at the closed door, beginning to cry
+out against himself, and over him there swept slowly and terribly
+another thing--the shame of his weakness, the hopelessness of the
+thing that for a space had eaten into him and consumed him.
+
+And as he stared, the door opened, and Nepapinas came in.
+
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+During the next quarter of an hour David was as silent as the old
+Indian doctor. He was conscious of no pain when Nepapinas took off
+his bandage and bathed his head in the lotion he had brought.
+Before a fresh bandage was put on, he looked at himself for a
+moment in the mirror. It was the first time he had seen his wound,
+and he expected to find himself marked with a disfiguring scar. To
+his surprise there was no sign of his hurt except a slightly
+inflamed spot above his temple. He stared at Nepapinas, and there
+was no need of the question that was in his mind.
+
+The old Indian understood, and his dried-up face cracked and
+crinkled in a grin. "Bullet hit a piece of rock, an' rock, not
+bullet, hit um head," he explained. "Make skull almost break--bend
+um in--but Nepapinas straighten again with fingers, so-so." He
+shrugged his thin shoulders with a cackling laugh of pride as he
+worked his claw-like fingers to show how the operation had been
+done.
+
+David shook hands with him in silence; then Nepapinas put on the
+fresh bandage, and after that went out, chuckling again in his
+weird way, as though he had played a great joke on the white man
+whom his wizardry had snatched out of the jaws of death.
+
+For some time there had been a subdued activity outside. The
+singing of the boatmen had ceased, a low voice was giving
+commands, and looking through the window, David saw that the
+bateau was slowly swinging away from the shore. He turned from the
+window to the table and lighted the cigar St. Pierre's wife had
+given him.
+
+In spite of the mental struggle he had made during the presence of
+Nepapinas, he had failed to get a grip on himself. For a time he
+had ceased to be David Carrigan, the man-hunter. A few days ago
+his blood had run to that almost savage thrill of the great game
+of one against one, the game in which Law sat on one side of the
+board and Lawlessness on the other, with the cards between. It was
+the great gamble. The cards meant life or death; there was never a
+checkmate--one or the other had to lose. Had some one told him
+then that soon he would meet the broken and twisted hulk of a man
+who had known Black Roger Audemard, every nerve in him would have
+thrilled in anticipation of that hour. He realized this as he
+paced back and forth over the thick rugs of the bateau floor. And
+he knew, even as he struggled to bring them back, that the old
+thrill and the old desire were gone. It was impossible to lie to
+himself. St. Pierre, in this moment, was of more importance to him
+than Roger Audemard. And St. Pierre's wife, Marie-Anne--
+
+His eyes fell on the crumpled handkerchief on the piano keys.
+Again he was crushing it in the palm of his hand, and again the
+flood of humiliation and shame swept over him. He dropped the
+handkerchief, and the great law of his own life seemed to rise up
+in his face and taunt him. He was clean. That had been his
+greatest pride. He hated the man who was unclean. It was his
+instinct to kill the man who desecrated another man's home. And
+here, in the sacredness of St. Pierre's paradise, he found himself
+at last face to face with that greatest fight of all the ages.
+
+He faced the door. He threw back his shoulders until they snapped,
+and he laughed, as if at the thing that had risen up to point its
+finger at him. After all, it did not hurt a man to go through a
+bit of fire--if he came out of it unburned. And deep in his heart
+he knew it was not a sin to love, even as he loved, if he kept
+that love to himself. What he had done when Marie-Anne stood at
+the window he could not undo. St. Pierre would probably have
+killed him for touching her hair with his lips, and he would not
+have blamed St. Pierre. But she had not felt that stolen caress.
+No one knew--but himself. And he was happier because of it. It was
+a sort of sacred thing, even though it brought the heat of shame
+into his face.
+
+He went to the door, opened it, and stood out in the sunshine. It
+was good to feel the warmth of the sun in his face again and the
+sweet air of the open day in his lungs. The bateau was free of the
+shore and drifting steadily towards midstream. Bateese was at the
+great birchwood rudder sweep, and to David's surprise he nodded in
+a friendly way, and his wide mouth broke into a grin.
+
+"Ah, it is coming soon, that fight of ours, little coq de
+bruyere!" he chuckled gloatingly. "An' ze fight will be jus' lak
+that, m'sieu--you ze little fool-hen's rooster, ze partridge, an'
+I, Concombre Bateese, ze eagle!"
+
+The anticipation in the half-breed's eyes reflected itself for an
+instant in David's. He turned back into the cabin, bent over his
+pack, and found among his clothes two pairs of boxing gloves. He
+fondled them with the loving touch of a brother and comrade, and
+their velvety smoothness was more soothing to his nerves than the
+cigar he was smoking. His one passion above all others was boxing,
+and wherever he went, either on pleasure or adventure, the gloves
+went with him. In many a cabin and shack of the far hinterland he
+had taught white men and Indians how to use them, so that he might
+have the pleasure of feeling the thrill of them on his hands. And
+now here was Concombre Bateese inviting him on, waiting for him to
+get well!
+
+He went out and dangled the clumsy-looking mittens under the half-
+breed's nose.
+
+Bateese looked at them curiously. "Mitaines," he nodded. "Does ze
+little partridge rooster keep his claws warm in those in ze
+winter? They are clumsy, m'sieu. I can make a better mitten of
+caribou skin." Putting on one of the gloves, David doubled up his
+fist. "Do you see that, Concombre Bateese?" he asked. "Well, I
+will tell you this, that they are not mittens to keep your hands
+warm. I am going to fight you in them when our time comes. With
+these mittens I will fight you and your naked fists. Why? Because
+I do not want to hurt you too badly, friend Bateese! I do not want
+to break your face all to pieces, which I would surely do if I did
+not put on these soft mittens. Then, when you have really learned
+to fight--"
+
+The bull neck of Concombre Bateese looked as if it were about to
+burst. His eyes seemed ready to pop out of their sockets, and
+suddenly he let out a roar. "What!--You dare talk lak that to
+Concombre Bateese, w'at is great'st fightin' man on all T'ree
+River? You talk lak that to me, Concombre Bateese, who will kill
+ze bear wit' hees ban's, who pull down ze tree, who--who--"
+
+The word-flood of his outraged dignity sprang to his lips; emotion
+choked him, and then, looking suddenly over Carrigan's shoulder--
+he stopped. Something in his look made David turn. Three paces
+behind him stood Marie-Anne, and he knew that from the corner of
+the cabin she had heard what had passed between them. She was
+biting her lips, and behind the flash of her eyes he saw laughter.
+
+"You must not quarrel, children," she said. "Bateese, you are
+steering badly."
+
+She reached out her hands, and without a word David gave her the
+gloves. With her palm and fingers she caressed them softly, yet
+David saw little lines of doubt come into her white forehead.
+
+"They are pretty--and soft, M'sieu David. Surely they can not hurt
+much! Some day when St. Pierre comes, will you teach me how to use
+them?"
+
+"Always it is 'When St. Pierre comes,'" he replied. "Shall we be
+waiting long?"
+
+"Two or three days, perhaps a little longer. Are you coming with
+me to the proue, m'sieu?"
+
+She did not wait for his answer, but went ahead of him, dangling
+the two pairs of gloves at her side. David caught a last glimpse
+of the half-breed's face as he followed Marie-Anne around the end
+of the cabin. Bateese was making a frightful grimace and shaking
+his huge fist, but scarcely were they out of sight on the narrow
+footway that ran between the cabin and the outer timbers of the
+scow when a huge roar of laughter followed them. Bateese had not
+done laughing when they reached the proue, or bow-nest, a deck
+fully ten feet in length by eight in width, sheltered above by an
+awning, and comfortably arranged with chairs, several rugs, a
+small table, and, to David's amazement, a hammock. He had never
+seen anything like this on the Three Rivers, nor had he ever heard
+of a scow so large or so luxuriously appointed. Over his head, at
+the tip of a flagstaff attached to the forward end of the cabin,
+floated the black and white pennant of St. Pierre Boulain. And
+under this staff was a screened door which undoubtedly opened into
+the kitchenette which Marie-Anne had told him about. He made no
+effort to hide his surprise. But St. Pierre's wife seemed not to
+notice it. The puckery little lines were still in her forehead,
+and the laughter had faded out of her eyes. The tiny lines
+deepened as there came another wild roar of laughter from Bateese
+in the stern.
+
+"Is it true that you have given your word to fight Bateese?" she
+asked.
+
+"It is true, Marie-Anne. And I feel that Bateese is looking ahead
+joyously to the occasion."
+
+"He is," she affirmed. "Last night he spread the news among all my
+people. Those who left to join St. Pierre this morning have taken
+the news with them, and there is a great deal of excitement and
+much betting. I am afraid you have made a bad promise. No man has
+offered to fight Bateese in three years--not even my great St.
+Pierre, who says that Concombre is more than a match for him."
+
+"And yet they must have a little doubt, as there is betting, and
+it takes two to make a bet," chuckled David.
+
+The lines went out of Marie-Anne's forehead, and a half-smile
+trembled on her red lips. "Yes, there is betting. But those who
+are for you are offering next autumn's muskrat skins and frozen
+fish against lynx and fisher and marten. The odds are about thirty
+to one against you, M'sieu David!"
+
+The look of pity which was clearly in her eyes brought a rush of
+blood to David's face. "If only I had something to wager!" he
+groaned.
+
+"You must not fight. I shall forbid it!"
+
+"Then Bateese and I will steal off into the forest and have it out
+by ourselves."
+
+"He will hurt you badly. He is terrible, like a great beast, when
+he fights. He loves to fight and is always asking if there is not
+some one who will stand up to him. I think he would desert even me
+for a good fight. But you, M'sieu David--"
+
+"I also love a fight," he admitted, unashamed.
+
+St. Pierre's wife studied him thoughtfully for a moment. "With
+these?" she asked then, holding up the gloves.
+
+"Yes, with those. Bateese may use his fists, but I shall use
+those, so that I shall not disfigure him permanently. His face is
+none too handsome as it is."
+
+For another flash her lips trembled on the edge of a smile. Then
+she gave him the gloves, a bit troubled, and nodded to a chair
+with a deep, cushioned seat and wide arms. "Please make yourself
+comfortable, M'sieu David. I have something to do in the cabin and
+will return in a little while."
+
+He wondered if she had gone back to settle the matter with Bateese
+at once, for it was clear that she did not regard with favor the
+promised bout between himself and the half-breed. It was on the
+spur of a careless moment that he had promised to fight Bateese,
+and with little thought that it was likely to be carried out or
+that it would become a matter of importance with all of St.
+Pierre's brigade. He was evidently in for it, he told himself, and
+as a fighting man it looked as though Concombre Bateese was at
+least the equal of his braggadocio. He was glad of that. He
+grinned as he watched the bending backs of St. Pierre's men. So
+they were betting thirty to one against him! Even St. Pierre might
+be induced to bet--with HIM. And if he did--
+
+The hot blood leaped for a moment in Carrigan's veins. The thrill
+went to the tips of his fingers. He stared out over the river,
+unseeing, as the possibilities of the thing that had come into his
+mind made him for a moment oblivious of the world. He possessed
+one thing against which St. Pierre and St. Pierre's wife would
+wager a half of all they owned in the world! And if he should
+gamble that one thing, which had come to him like an inspiration,
+and should whip Bateese--
+
+He began to pace back and forth over the narrow deck, no longer
+watching the rowers or the shore. The thought grew, and his mind
+was consumed by it. Thus far, from the moment the first shot was
+fired at him from the ambush, he had been playing with adventure
+in the dark. But fate had at last dealt him a trump card. That
+something which he possessed was more precious than furs or gold
+to St. Pierre, and St. Pierre would not refuse the wager when it
+was offered. He would not dare refuse. More than that, he would
+accept eagerly, strong in the faith that Bateese would whip him as
+he had whipped all other fighters who had come up against him
+along the Three Rivers. And when Marie-Anne knew what that wager
+was to be, she, too, would pray for the gods of chance to be with
+Concombre Bateese!
+
+He did not hear the light footsteps behind him, and when he turned
+suddenly in his pacing, he found himself facing Marie-Anne, who
+carried in her hands the little basket he had seen on the cabin
+table. She seated herself in the hammock and took from the basket
+a bit of lace work. For a moment he watched her fingers flashing
+in and out with the needles.
+
+Perhaps his thought went to her. He was almost frightened as he
+saw her cheeks coloring under the long, dark lashes. He faced the
+rivermen again, and while he gripped at his own weakness, he tried
+to count the flashings of their oars. And behind him, the
+beautiful eyes of St. Pierre's wife were looking at him with a
+strange glow in their depths.
+
+"Do you know," he said, speaking slowly and still looking toward
+the flashing of the oars, "something tells me that unexpected
+things are going to happen when St. Pierre returns. I am going to
+make a bet with him that I can whip Bateese. He will not refuse.
+He will accept. And St. Pierre will lose, because I shall whip
+Bateese. It is then that these unexpected things will begin to
+happen. And I am wondering--after they do happen--if you will care
+so very much?"
+
+There was a moment of silence. And then, "I don't want you to
+fight Bateese," she said.
+
+The needles were working swiftly when he turned toward her again,
+and a second time the long lashes shadowed what a moment before he
+might have seen in her eyes.
+
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+The morning passed like a dream to Carrigan. He permitted himself
+to live and breathe it as one who finds himself for a space in the
+heart of a golden mirage. He was sitting so near Marie-Anne that
+now and then the faint perfume of her came to him like the
+delicate scent of a flower. It was a breath of crushed violets,
+sweet as the air he was breathing, violets gathered in the deep
+cool of the forest, a whisper of sweetness about her, as if on her
+bosom she wore always the living flowers. He fancied her gathering
+them last bloom-time, a year ago, alone, her feet seeking out the
+damp mosses, her little fingers plucking the smiling and laughing
+faces of the violet flowers to be treasured away in fragrant
+sachets, as gentle as the wood-thrush's note, compared with the
+bottled aromas fifteen hundred miles south. It seemed to be a
+physical part of her, a thing born of the glow in her cheeks, a
+living exhalation of her soft red lips--and yet only when he was
+near, very near, did the life of it reach him.
+
+She did not know he was thinking these things. There was nothing
+in his voice, he thought, to betray him. He was sure she was
+unconscious of the fight he was making. Her eyes smiled and
+laughed with him, she counted her stitches, her fingers worked,
+and she talked to him as she might have talked to a friend of St.
+Pierre's. She told him how St. Pierre had made the barge, the
+largest that had ever been on the river, and that he had built it
+entirely of dry cedar, so that it floated like a feather wherever
+there was water enough to run a York boat. She told him how St.
+Pierre had brought the piano down from Edmonton, and how he had
+saved it from pitching in the river by carrying the full weight of
+it on his shoulders when they met with an accident in running
+through a dangerous rapids bringing it down. St. Pierre was a very
+strong man, she said, a note of pride in her voice. And then she
+added,
+
+"Sometimes, when he picks me up in his arms, I feel that he is
+going to squeeze the life out of me!"
+
+Her words were like a sharp thrust into his heart. For an instant
+they painted a vision for him, a picture of that slim and adorable
+creature crushed close in the great arms of St. Pierre, so close
+that she could not breathe. In that mad moment of his hurt it was
+almost a living, breathing reality for him there on the golden
+fore-deck of the scow. He turned his face toward the far shore,
+where the wilderness seemed to reach off into eternity. What a
+glory it was--the green seas of spruce and cedar and balsam, the
+ridges of poplar and birch rising like silvery spume above the
+darker billows, and afar off, mellowed in the sun-mists, the
+guardian crests of Trout Mountains sentineling the country beyond!
+Into that mystery-land on the farther side of the Wabiskaw
+waterways Carrigan would have loved to set his foot four days ago.
+It was that mystery of the unpeopled places that he most desired,
+their silence, the comradeship of spaces untrod by the feet of
+man. And now, what a fool he was! Through vast distances the
+forests he loved seemed to whisper it to him, and ahead of him the
+river seemed to look back, nodding over its shoulder, beckoning to
+him, telling him the word of the forests was true. It streamed on
+lazily, half a mile wide, as if resting for the splashing and
+roaring rush it would make among the rocks of the next rapids, and
+in its indolence it sang the low and everlasting song of deep and
+slowly passing water. In that song David heard the same whisper,
+that he was a fool! And the lure of the wilderness shores crept in
+on him and gripped him as of old. He looked at the rowers in the
+two York boats, and then his eyes came back to the end of the
+barge and to St. Pierre's wife.
+
+Her little toes were tapping the floor of the deck. She, too, was
+looking out over the wilderness. And again it seemed to him that
+she was like a bird that wanted to fly.
+
+"I should like to go into those hills," she said, without looking
+at him. "Away off yonder!"
+
+"And I--I should like to go with you."
+
+"You love all that, m'sieu?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, madame!"
+
+"Why 'madame,' when I have given you permission to call me 'Marie-
+Anne'?" she demanded.
+
+"Because you call me 'm'sieu'."
+
+"But you--you have not given me permission--"
+
+"Then I do now," he interrupted quickly.
+
+"Merci! I have wondered why you did not return the courtesy," she
+laughed softly. "I do not like the m'sieu. I shall call you
+'David'!"
+
+She rose out of the hammock suddenly and dropped her needles and
+lace work into the little basket. "I have forgotten something. It
+is for you to eat when it comes dinner-time, m'sieu--I mean David.
+So I must turn fille de cuisine for a little while. That is what
+St. Pierre sometimes calls me, because I love to play at cooking.
+I am going to bake a pie!"
+
+The dark-screened door of the kitchenette closed behind her, and
+Carrigan walked out from under the awning, so that the sun beat
+down upon him. There was no longer a doubt in his mind. He was
+more than fool. He envied St. Pierre, and he coveted that which
+St. Pierre possessed. And yet, before he would take what did not
+belong to him, he knew he would put a pistol to his head and blow
+his life out. He was confident of himself there. Yet he had
+fallen, and out of the mire into which he had sunk he knew also
+that he must drag himself, and quickly, or be everlastingly
+lowered in his own esteem. He stripped himself naked and did not
+lie to that other and greater thing of life that was in him.
+
+He was not only a fool, but a coward. Only a coward would have
+touched the hair of St. Pierre's wife with his lips; only a coward
+would have let live the thoughts that burned in his brain. She was
+St. Pierre's wife--and he was anxious now for the quick homecoming
+of the chief of the Boulains. After that everything would happen
+quickly. He thanked God that the inspiration of the wager had come
+to him. After the fight, after he had won, then once more would he
+be the old Dave Carrigan, holding the trump hand in a thrilling
+game.
+
+Loud voices from the York boats ahead and answering cries from
+Bateese in the stern drew him to the open deck. The bateau was
+close to shore, and the half-breed was working the long stern
+sweep as if the power of a steam-engine was in his mighty arms.
+The York boats had shortened their towline and were pulling at
+right angles within a few yards of a gravelly beach. A few strokes
+more, and men who were bare to the knees jumped out into shallow
+water and began tugging at the tow rope with their hands. David
+looked at his watch. It was ten o'clock. Never in his life had
+time passed so swiftly as that morning on the forward deck of the
+barge. And now they were tying up, after a drop of six or eight
+miles down the river, and he wondered how swiftly St. Pierre was
+overtaking them with his raft.
+
+He was filled with the desire to feel the soft crush of the earth
+under his feet again, and not waiting for the long plank that
+Bateese was already swinging from the scow to the shore, he made a
+leap that put him on the sandy beach, St. Pierre's wife had given
+him this permission, and he looked to see what effect his act had
+on the half-breed. The face of Concombre Bateese was like sullen
+stone. Not a sound came from his thick lips, but in his eyes was a
+deep and dangerous fire as he looked at Carrigan. There was no
+need for words. In them were suspicion, warning, the deadly threat
+of what would happen if he did not come back when it was time to
+return. David nodded. He understood. Even though St. Pierre's wife
+had faith in him, Bateese had not. He passed between the men, and
+to a man their faces turned on him, and in their quiet and
+watchful eyes he saw again that warning and suspicion, the
+unspoken threat of what would happen if he forgot his promise to
+Marie-Anne Boulain. Never, in a single outfit, had he seen such
+splendid men. They were not a mongrel assortment of the lower
+country. Slim, tall, clean-cut, sinewy--they were stock of the old
+voyageurs of a hundred years ago, and all of them were young. The
+older men had gone to St. Pierre. The reason for this dawned upon
+Carrigan. Not one of these twelve but could beat him in a race
+through the forest; not one that could not outrun him and cut him
+off though he had hours the start!
+
+Passing beyond them, he paused and looked back at the bateau. On
+the forward deck stood Marie-Anne, and she, too, was looking at
+him now. Even at that distance he saw that her face was quiet and
+troubled with anxiety. She did not smile when he lifted his hat to
+her, but gave only a little nod. Then he turned and buried himself
+in the green balsams that grew within fifty paces of the river.
+The old joy of life leaped into him as his feet crushed in the
+soft moss of the shaded places where the sun did not break
+through. He went on, passing through a vast and silent cathedral
+of spruce and cedar so dense that the sky was hidden, and came
+then to higher ground, where the evergreen was sprinkled with
+birch and poplar. About him was an invisible choir of voices, the
+low twittering of timid little gray-backs, the song of hidden--
+warblers, the scolding of distant jays. Big-eyed moose-birds
+stared at him as he passed, fluttering so close to his face that
+they almost touched his shoulders in their foolish
+inquisitiveness. A porcupine crashed within a dozen feet of his
+trail. And then he came to a beaten path, and other paths worn
+deep in the cool, damp earth by the hoofs of moose and caribou.
+Half a mile from the bateau he sat down on a rotting log and
+filled his pipe with fresh tobacco, while he listened to catch the
+subdued voice of the life in this land that he loved.
+
+It was then that the curious feeling came over him that he was not
+alone, that other eyes than those of beast and bird were watching
+him. It was an impression that grew on him. He seemed to feel
+their stare, seeking him out from the darkest coverts, waiting for
+him to shove on, dogging him like a ghost. Within him the hound-
+like instincts of the man-hunter rose swiftly to the suspicion of
+invisible presence.
+
+He began to note the changes in the cries of certain birds. A
+hundred yards on his right a jay, most talkative of all the forest
+things, was screeching with a new note in its voice. On the other
+side of him, in a dense pocket of poplar and spruce, a warbler
+suddenly brought its song to a jerky end. He heard the excited Pe-
+wee--Pe-wee--Pe-wee of a startled little gray-back giving warning
+of an unwelcome intruder near its nest. And he rose to his feet,
+laughing softly as he thumbed down the tobacco in his pipe. Jeanne
+Marie-Anne Boulain might believe in him, but Bateese and her wary
+henchmen had ways of their own of strengthening their faith.
+
+It was close to noon when he turned back, and he did not return by
+the moose path. Deliberately he struck out a hundred yards on
+either side of it, traveling where the moss grew thick and the
+earth was damp and soft. And five times he found the moccasin-
+prints of men.
+
+Bateese, with his sleeves up, was scrubbing the deck of the bateau
+when David came over the plank.
+
+"There are moose and caribou in there, but I fear I disturbed your
+hunters," said Carrigan, grinning at the half-breed. "They are too
+clumsy to hunt well, so clumsy that even the birds give them away.
+I am afraid we shall go without fresh meat tomorrow!"
+
+Concombre Bateese stared as if some one had stunned him with a
+blow, and he spoke no word as David went on to the forward deck.
+Marie-Anne had come out under the awning. She gave a little cry of
+relief and pleasure.
+
+"I am glad you have come back, M'sieu David!"
+
+"So am I, madame," he replied. "I think the woods are unhealthful
+to travel in!"
+
+Out of the earth he felt that a part of the old strength had
+returned to him. Alone they sat at dinner, and Marie-Anne waited
+on him and called him David again--and he found it easier now to
+call her Marie-Anne and look into her eyes without fear that he
+was betraying himself. A part of the afternoon he spent in her
+company, and it was not difficult for him to tell her something of
+his adventuring in the north, and how, body and soul, the
+northland had claimed him, and that he hoped to die in it when his
+time came. Her eyes glowed at that. She told him of two years she
+had spent in Montreal and Quebec, of her homesickness, her joy
+when she returned to her forests. It seemed, for a time, that they
+had forgotten St. Pierre. They did not speak of him. Twice they
+saw Andre, the Broken Man, but the name of Roger Audemard was not
+spoken. And a little at a time she told him of the hidden paradise
+of the Boulains away up in the unmapped wildernesses of the
+Yellowknife beyond the Great Bear, and of the great log chateau
+that was her home.
+
+A part of the afternoon he spent on shore. He filled a moosehide
+bag full of sand and suspended it from the limb of a tree, and for
+three-quarters of an hour pommeled it with his fists, much to the
+curiosity and amusement of St. Pierre's men, who could see nothing
+of man-fighting in these antics. But the exercise assured David
+that he had lost but little of his strength and that he would be
+in form to meet Bateese when the time came. Toward evening Marie-
+Anne joined him, and they walked for half an hour up and down the
+beach. It was Bateese who got supper. And after that Carrigan sat
+with Marie-Anne on the foredeck of the barge and smoked another of
+St. Pierre's cigars.
+
+The camp of the rivermen was two hundred yards below the bateau,
+screened between by a finger of hardwood, so that except when they
+broke into a chorus of laughter or strengthened their throats with
+snatches of song, there was no sound of their voices. But Bateese
+was in the stern, and Nepapinas was forever flitting in and out
+among the shadows on the shore, like a shadow himself, and Andre,
+the Broken Man, hovered near as night came on. At last he sat down
+in the edge of the white sand of the beach, and there he remained,
+a silent and lonely figure, as the twilight deepened. Over the
+world hovered a sleepy quiet. Out of the forest came the droning
+of the wood-crickets, the last twitterings of the day birds, and
+the beginning of night sounds. A great shadow floated out over the
+river close to the bateau, the first of the questing, blood-
+seeking owls adventuring out like pirates from their hiding-places
+of the day. One after another, as the darkness thickened, the
+different tribes of the people of the night answered the summons
+of the first stars. A mile down the river a loon gave its harsh
+love-cry; far out of the west came the faint trail-song of a wolf;
+in the river the night-feeding trout splashed like the tails of
+beaver; over the roof of the wilderness came the coughing, moaning
+challenge of a bull moose that yearned for battle. And over these
+same forest tops rose the moon, the stars grew thicker and
+brighter, and through the finger of hardwood glowed the fire of
+St. Pierre Boulain's men--while close beside him, silent in these
+hours of silence, David felt growing nearer and still nearer to
+him the presence of St. Pierre's wife.
+
+On the strip of sand Andre, the Broken Man, rose and stood like
+the stub of a misshapen tree. And then slowly he moved on and was
+swallowed up in the mellow glow of the night.
+
+"It is at night that he seeks," said St. Pierre's wife, for it was
+as if David had spoken the thought that was in his mind.
+
+David, for a moment, was silent. And then he said, "You asked me
+to tell you about Black Roger Audemard. I will, if you care to
+have me. Do you?"
+
+He saw the nodding of her head, though the moon and star-mist
+veiled her face.
+
+"Yes. What do the Police say about Roger Audemard?"
+
+He told her. And not once in the telling of the story did she
+speak or move. It was a terrible story at best, he thought, but he
+did not weaken it by smoothing over the details. This was his
+opportunity. He wanted her to know why he must possess the body of
+Roger Audemard, if not alive, then dead, and he wanted her to
+understand how important it was that he learn more about Andre,
+the Broken Man.
+
+"He was a fiend, this Roger Audemard," he began. "A devil in man
+shape, afterward called 'Black Roger' because of the color of his
+soul."
+
+Then he went on. He described Hatchet River Post, where the
+tragedy had happened; then told of the fight that came about one
+day between Roger Audemard and the factor of the post and his two
+sons. It was an unfair fight; he conceded that--three to one was
+cowardly in a fight. But it could not excuse what happened
+afterward. Audemard was beaten. He crept off into the forest,
+almost dead. Then he came back one stormy night in the winter with
+three strange friends. Who the friends were the Police never
+learned. There was a fight, but all through the fight Black Roger
+Audemard cried out not to kill the factor and his sons. In spite
+of that one of the sons was killed. Then the terrible thing
+happened. The father and his remaining son were bound hand and
+foot and fastened in the ancient dungeon room under the Post
+building. Then Black Roger set the building on fire, and stood
+outside in the storm and laughed like a madman at the dying
+shrieks of his victims. It was the season when the trappers were
+on their lines, and there were but few people at the post. The
+company clerk and one other attempted to interfere, and Black
+Roger killed them with his own hands. Five deaths that night--two
+of them horrible beyond description!
+
+Resting for a moment, Carrigan went on to tell of the long years
+of unavailing search made by the Police after that; how Black
+Roger was caught once and killed his captor. Then came the rumor
+that he was dead, and rumor grew into official belief, and the
+Police no longer hunted for his trails. Then, not long ago, came
+the discovery that Black Roger was still living, and he, Dave
+Carrigan, was after him.
+
+For a time there was silence after he had finished. Then St.
+Pierre's wife rose to her feet. "I wonder," she said in a low
+voice, "what Roger Audemard's own story might be if he were here
+to tell it?"
+
+She stepped out from under the awning, and in the full radiance of
+the moon he saw the pale beauty of her face and the crowning
+luster of her hair.
+
+"Good night!" she whispered.
+
+"Good night!" said David.
+
+He listened until her retreating footsteps died away, and for
+hours after that he had no thought of sleep. He had insisted that
+she take possession of her cabin again, and Bateese had brought
+out a bundle of blankets. These he spread under the awning, and
+when he drowsed off, it was to dream of the lovely face he had
+seen last in the glow of the moon.
+
+It was in the afternoon of the fourth day that two things
+happened--one that he had prepared himself for, and another so
+unexpected that for a space it sent his world crashing out of its
+orbit. With St. Pierre's wife he had gone again to the ridge-line
+for flowers, half a mile back from the river. Returning a new way,
+they came to a shallow stream, and Marie-Anne stood at the edge of
+it, and there was laughter in her shining eyes as she looked to
+the other side of it. She had twined flowers into her hair. Her
+cheeks were rich with color. Her slim figure was exquisite in its
+wild pulse of life.
+
+Suddenly she turned on him, her red lips smiling their witchery in
+his face. "You must carry me across," she said.
+
+He did not answer. He was a-tremble as he drew near her. She
+raised her arms a little, waiting. And then he picked her up. She
+was against his breast. Her two hands went to his shoulders as he
+waded into the stream; he slipped, and they clung a little
+tighter. The soft note of laughter was in her throat when the
+current came to his knees out in the middle of the stream. He held
+her tighter; and then stupidly, he slipped again, and the movement
+brought her lower in his arms, so that for a space her head was
+against his breast and his face was crushed in the soft masses of
+her hair. He came with her that way to the opposite shore and
+stood her on her feet again, standing back quickly so that she
+would not hear the pounding of his heart. Her face was radiantly
+beautiful, and she did not look at David, but away from him.
+
+"Thank you," she said.
+
+And then, suddenly, they heard running feet behind them, and in
+another moment one of the brigade men came dashing through the
+stream. At the same time there came from the river a quarter of a
+mile away a thunderous burst of voice. It was not the voice of a
+dozen men, but of half a hundred, and Marie-Anne grew tense,
+listening, her eyes on fire even before the messenger could get
+the words out of his mouth.
+
+"It is St. Pierre!" he cried then. "He has come with the great
+raft, and you must hurry if you would reach the bateau before he
+lands!"
+
+In that moment it seemed to David that Marie-Anne forgot he was
+alive. A little cry came to her lips, and then she left him,
+running swiftly, saying no word to him, flying with the speed of a
+fawn to St. Pierre Boulain! And when David turned to the man who
+had come up behind them, there was a strange smile on the lips of
+the lithe-limbed forest-runner as his eyes followed the hurrying
+figure of St. Pierre's wife.
+
+Until she was out of sight he stood in silence and then he said:
+
+"Come, m'sieu. We, also, must meet St. Pierre!"
+
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+David moved slowly behind the brigade man. He had no desire to
+hurry. He did not wish to see what happened when Marie-Anne met
+St. Pierre Boulain. Only a moment ago she had been in his arms;
+her hair had smothered his face; her hands had clung to his
+shoulders; her flushed cheeks and long lashes had for an instant
+lain close against his breast. And now, swiftly, without a word of
+apology, she was running away from him to meet her husband.
+
+He almost spoke that word aloud as he saw the last of her slim
+figure among the silver birches. She was going to the man to whom
+she belonged, and there was no hesitation in the manner of her
+going. She was glad. And she was entirely forgetful of him, Dave
+Carrigan, in that gladness.
+
+He quickened his steps, narrowing the distance between him and the
+hurrying brigade man. Only the diseased thoughts in his brain had
+made the happening in the creek anything but an accident. It was
+all an accident, he told himself. Marie-Anne had asked him to
+carry her across just as she would have asked any one of her
+rivermen. It was his fault, and not hers, that he had slipped in
+mid-stream, and that his arms had closed tighter about her, and
+that her hair had brushed his face. He remembered she had laughed,
+when it seemed for a moment that they were going to fall into the
+stream together. Probably she would tell St. Pierre all about it.
+Surely she would never guess it had been nearer tragedy than
+comedy for him.
+
+Once more he was convinced he had proved himself a weakling and a
+fool. His business now was with St. Pierre, and the hour was at
+hand when the game had ceased to be a woman's game. He had looked
+ahead to this hour. He had prepared himself for it and had
+promised himself action that would be both quick and decisive. And
+yet, as he went on, his heart was still thumping unsteadily, and
+in his arms and against his face remained still the sweet, warm
+thrill of his contact with Marie-Anne. He could not drive that
+from him. It would never completely go. As long as he lived, what
+had happened in the creek would live with him. He did not deny
+that crying voice inside him. It was easy for his mouth to make
+words. He could call himself a fool and a weakling, but those
+words were purely mechanical, hollow, meaningless. The truth
+remained. It was a blazing fire in his breast, a conflagration
+that might easily get the best of him, a thing which he must fight
+and triumph over for his own salvation. He did not think of danger
+for Marie-Anne, for such a thought was inconceivable. The tragedy
+was one-sided. It was his own folly, his own danger. For just as
+he loved Marie-Anne, so did she love her husband, St. Pierre.
+
+He came to the low ridge close to the river and climbed up through
+the thick birches and poplars. At the top was a bald knob of
+sandstone, over which the riverman had already passed. David
+paused there and looked down on the broad sweep of the Athabasca.
+
+What he saw was like a picture spread out on the great breast of
+the river and the white strip of shoreline. Still a quarter of a
+mile upstream, floating down slowly with the current, was a mighty
+raft, and for a space his eyes took in nothing else. On the
+Mackenzie, the Athabasca, the Saskatchewan, and the Peace he had
+seen many rafts, but never a raft like this of St. Pierre Boulain.
+It was a hundred feet in width and twice and a half times as long,
+and with the sun blazing down upon it from out of a cloudless sky
+it looked to him like a little city swept up from out of some
+archaic and savage desert land to be transplanted to the river. It
+was dotted with tents and canvas shelters. Some of these were
+gray, and some were white, and two or three were striped with
+broad bands of yellow and red. Behind all these was a cabin, and
+over this there rose a slender staff from which floated the black
+and white pennant of St. Pierre. The raft was alive. Men were
+running between the tents. The long rudder sweeps were flashing in
+the sun. Rowers with naked arms and shoulders were straining their
+muscles in four York boats that were pulling like ants at the
+giant mass of timber. And to David's ears came a deep monotone of
+human voices, the chanting of the men as they worked.
+
+Nearer to him a louder response suddenly made answer to it. A
+dozen steps carried him round a projecting thumb of brush, and he
+could see the open shore where the bateau was tied. Marie-Anne had
+crossed the strip of sand, and Bateese was helping her into a
+waiting York boat. Then Bateese shoved it off, and the four men in
+it began to row. Two canoes were already half-way to the raft, and
+David recognized the occupant of one of them as Andre, the Broken
+Man. Then he saw Marie-Anne rise in the York boat and wave
+something white in her hand.
+
+He looked again toward the raft. The current and the sweeps and
+the tugging boats were drawing it steadily nearer. Standing at the
+very edge of it he saw now a solitary figure, and in the clear
+sunlight the man stood out clean-cut as a carven statue. He was a
+giant in size. His head and arms were bare, and he was looking
+steadily toward the bateau and the approaching York boat. He
+raised an arm, and a moment later the movement was followed by a
+voice that rose above all other voices. It boomed over the river
+like the rumble of a gun. In response to it Marie-Anne waved the
+white thing in her hand, and David thought he heard her voice in
+an answering cry. He stared again at the solitary figure of the
+man, seeing nothing else, hearing no other sound but the booming
+of the deep cry that came again over the river. His heart was
+thumping. In his eyes was a gathering fire. His body grew tense.
+For he knew that at last he was looking at St. Pierre, chief of
+the Boulains, and husband of the woman he loved.
+
+As the significance of the situation grew upon him, a flash of his
+old humor returned. It was the same grim humor that had possessed
+him behind the rock, when he had thought he was going to die. Fate
+had played him a dishonest turn then, and it was doing the same
+thing by him now. Unless he deliberately turned his face away, he
+was going to see the reunion of Marie-Anne and St. Pierre.
+
+Yesterday he had strapped his binoculars to his belt. Today Marie-
+Anne had looked through them a dozen times. They had been a source
+of pleasure and thrill to her. Now, David thought, they would be
+good medicine for him. He would see the whole thing through, and
+at close range. He would leave himself no room for doubt. He had
+laughed behind the rock, when bullets were zipping close to his
+head, and the same grim smile came to his lips now as he focused
+his glasses on the solitary figure at the head of the raft.
+
+The smile died away when he saw St. Pierre. It was as if he could
+reach out and touch him with his hand. And never, he thought, had
+he seen such a man. A moment before, a flashing vision had come to
+him from out of an Arabian desert; the multitude of colored tents,
+the half-naked men, the great raft floating almost without
+perceptible motion on the placid breast of the river had stirred
+his imagination until he saw a strange picture. But there was
+nothing Arabic, nothing desert-like, in this man his binoculars
+brought within a few feet of his eyes. He was more like a viking
+pirate who had roved the sea a few centuries ago. One great, bare
+arm was raised as David looked, and his booming voice was rolling
+over the river again. His hair was shaggy, and untrimmed, and red;
+he wore a short beard that glistened in the sun--he was laughing
+as he waved and shouted to Marie-Anne--a joyous, splendid giant of
+a man who seemed almost on the point of leaping into the water in
+his eagerness to clasp in his naked arms the woman who was coming
+to him.
+
+David drew a deep breath, and there came an unconscious tightening
+at his heart as he turned his glasses upon Marie-Anne. She was
+still standing in the bow of the York boat, and her back was
+toward him. He could see the glisten of the sun in her hair. She
+was waving her handkerchief, and the poise of her slim body told
+him that in her eagerness she would have darted from the bow of
+the boat had she possessed wings.
+
+Again he looked at St. Pierre. And this was the man who was no
+match for Concombre Bateese! It was inconceivable. Yet he heard
+Marie-Anne's voice repeating those very words in his ear. But she
+had surely been joking with him. She had been storing up this
+little surprise for him. She had wanted him to discover with his
+own eyes what a splendid man was this chief of the Boulains. And
+yet, as David stared, there came to him an unpleasant thought of
+the incongruity of this thing he was looking upon. It struck upon
+him like a clashing discord, the fact of matehood between these
+two--a condition inconsistent and out of tune with the beautiful
+things he had built up in his mind about the woman. In his soul he
+had enshrined her as a lovely wildflower, easily crushed, easily
+destroyed, a sweet treasure to be guarded from all that was rough
+and savage, a little violet-goddess as fragile as she was brave
+and loyal. And St. Pierre, standing there at the edge of his raft,
+looked as if he had come up out of the caves of a million years
+ago! There was something barbaric about him. He needed only a club
+and a shield and the skin of a beast about his loins to transform
+him into prehistoric man. At least these were his first
+impressions--impressions roused by thought of Marie-Anne's slim,
+beautiful body crushed close in the embrace of that laughing,
+powerful-lunged giant. Then the reaction swept over him. St.
+Pierre was not a monster, even though his disturbed mind
+unconsciously made an effort to conceive him as such. There were
+gladness and laughter in his face. There was the contagion of joy
+and good cheer in the voice that boomed over the water. Laughter
+and shouts answered it from the shore. The rowers in Marie-Anne's
+York boat burst into a wild and exultant snatch of song and made
+their oars fairly crack. There came a solitary yell from Andre,
+the Broken Man, who was close to the head of the raft now. And
+from the raft itself came a slowly swelling volume of sound, the
+urge and voice and exultation of red-blooded men a-thrill with the
+glory of this day and the wild freedom of their world. The truth
+came to David. St. Pierre Boulain was the beloved Big Brother of
+his people.
+
+He waited, his muscles tense, his jaws set tight. Good medicine,
+he called it again, a righteous sort of punishment set upon him
+for the moral cowardice he had betrayed in falling down in worship
+at the feet of another man's wife. The York boat was very close to
+the head of the raft now. He saw Marie-Anne herself fling a rope
+to St. Pierre. Then the boat swung alongside. In another moment
+St. Pierre had leaned over, and Marie-Anne was with him on the
+raft. For a space everything else in the world was obliterated for
+David. He saw St. Pierre's arms gather the slim form into their
+embrace. He saw Marie-Anne's hands go up fondly to the bearded
+face. And then--
+
+Carrigan cut the picture there. He turned his shoulder to the raft
+and snapped the binoculars in the case at his belt. Some one was
+coming in his direction from the bateau. It was the riverman who
+had brought to Marie-Anne the news of St. Pierre's arrival. David
+went down to meet him. From the foot of the ridge he again turned
+his eyes in the direction of the raft. St. Pierre and Marie-Anne
+were just about to enter the little cabin built in the center of
+the drifting mass of timber.
+
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+It was easy for Carrigan to guess why the riverman had turned back
+for him. Men were busy about the bateau, and Concombre Bateese
+stood in the stern, a long pole in his hands, giving commands to
+the others. The bateau was beginning to swing out into the stream
+when he leaped aboard. A wide grin spread over the half-breed's
+face. He eyed David keenly and laughed in his deep chest, an
+unmistakable suggestiveness in the note of it.
+
+"You look seek, m'sieu," he said in an undertone, for David's ears
+alone, "You look ver' unhappy, an' pale lak leetle boy! Wat happen
+w'en you look t'rough ze glass up there, eh? Or ees it zat you
+grow frighten because ver' soon you stan' up an' fight Concombre
+Bateese? Eh, coq de bruyere? Ees it zat?"
+
+A quick thought came to David. "Is it true that St. Pierre can not
+whip you, Bateese?"
+
+Bateese threw out his chest with a mighty intake of breath. Then
+he exploded: "No man on all T'ree River can w'ip Concombre
+Bateese."
+
+"And St. Pierre is a powerful man," mused David, letting his eyes
+travel slowly from the half-breed's moccasined feet to the top of
+his head. "I measured him well through the glasses, Bateese. It
+will be a great fight. But I shall whip you!"
+
+He did not wait for the half-breed to reply, but went into the
+cabin and closed the door behind him. He did not like the taunting
+note of suggestiveness in the other's words. Was it possible that
+Bateese suspected the true state of his mind, that he was in love
+with the wife of St. Pierre, and that his heart was sick because
+of what he had seen aboard the raft? He flushed hotly. It made him
+uncomfortable to feel that even the half-breed might have guessed
+his humiliation.
+
+David looked through the window toward the raft. The bateau was
+drifting downstream, possibly a hundred feet from the shore, but
+it was quite evident that Concombre Bateese was making no effort
+to bring it close to the floating mass of timber, which had made
+no change in its course down the river. David's mind painted
+swiftly what was happening in the cabin into which Marie-Anne and
+St. Pierre had disappeared. At this moment Marie-Anne was telling
+of him, of the adventure in the hot patch of sand. He fancied the
+suppressed excitement in her voice as she unburdened herself. He
+saw St. Pierre's face darken, his muscles tighten--and crouching
+in silence, he seemed to see the misshapen hulk of Andre, the
+Broken Man, listening to what was passing between the other two.
+And he heard again the mad monotone of Andre's voice, crying
+plaintively, "HAS ANY ONE SEEN BLACK ROGER AUDEMARD?"
+
+His blood ran a little faster, and his old craft was a dominantly
+living thing within him once more. Love had dulled both his
+ingenuity and his desire. For a space a thing had risen before him
+that was mightier than the majesty of the Law, and he had TRIED to
+miss the bull's-eye--because of his love for the wife of St.
+Pierre Boulain. Now he shot squarely for it, and the bell rang in
+his brain. Two times two again made four. Facts assembled
+themselves like arguments in flesh and blood. Those facts would
+have convinced Superintendent McVane, and they now convinced
+David. He had set out to get Black Roger Audemard, alive or dead.
+And Black Roger, wholesale murderer, a monster who had painted the
+blackest page of crime known in the history of Canadian law, was
+closely and vitally associated with Marie-Anne and St. Pierre
+Boulain!
+
+The thing was a shock, but Carrigan no longer tried to evade the
+point. His business was no longer with a man supposed to be a
+thousand or fifteen hundred miles farther north. It was with
+Marie-Anne, St. Pierre, and Andre, the Broken Man. And also with
+Concombre Bateese.
+
+He smiled a little grimly as he thought of his approaching battle
+with the half-breed. St. Pierre would be astounded at the
+proposition he had in store for him. But he was sure that St.
+Pierre would accept. And then, if he won the fight with Bateese--
+
+The smile faded from his lips. His face grew older as he looked
+slowly about the bateau cabin, with its sweet and lingering
+whispers of a woman's presence. It was a part of her. It breathed
+of her fragrance and her beauty; it seemed to be waiting for her,
+crying softly for her return. Yet once had there been another
+woman even lovelier than the wife of St. Pierre. He had not
+hesitated then. Without great effort he had triumphed over the
+loveliness of Carmin Fanchet and had sent her brother to the
+hangman. And now, as he recalled those days, the truth came to him
+that even in the darkest hour Carmin Fanchet had made not the
+slightest effort to buy him off with her beauty. She had not tried
+to lure him. She had fought proudly and defiantly. And had Marie-
+Anne done that? His fingers clenched slowly, and a thickening came
+in his throat. Would she tell St. Pierre of the many hours they
+had spent together? Would she confess to him the secret of that
+precious moment when she had lain close against his breast, her
+arms about him, her face pressed to his? Would she speak to him of
+secret hours, of warm flushes that had come to her face, of
+glowing fires that at times had burned in her eyes when he had
+been very near to her? Would she reveal EVERYTHING to St. Pierre--
+her husband? He was powerless to combat the voice that told him
+no. Carmin Fanchet had fought him openly as an enemy and had not
+employed her beauty as a weapon. Marie-Anne had put in his way a
+great temptation. What he was thinking seemed to him like a
+sacrilege, yet he knew there could be no discriminating
+distinctions between weapons, now that he was determined to play
+the game to the end, for the Law.
+
+When Carrigan went out on deck, the half-breed was sweating from
+his exertion at the stern sweep. He looked at the agent de police
+who was going to fight him, perhaps tomorrow or the next day.
+There was a change in Carrigan. He was not the same man who had
+gone into the cabin an hour before, and the fact impressed itself
+upon Bateese. There was something in his appearance that held back
+the loose talk at the end of Concombre's tongue. And so it was
+Carrigan himself who spoke first.
+
+"When will this man St. Pierre come to see me?" he demanded. "If
+he doesn't come soon, I shall go to him."
+
+For an instant Concombre's face darkened. Then, as he bent over
+the sweep with his great back to David, he chuckled audibly, and
+said:
+
+"Would you go, m'sieu? Ah--it is le malade d'amour over there in
+the cabin. Surely you would not break in upon their love-making?"
+
+Bateese did not look over his shoulder, and so he did not see the
+hot flush that gathered in David's face. But David was sure he
+knew it was there and that Concombre had guessed the truth of
+matters. There was a sly note in his voice, as if he could not
+quite keep to himself his exultation that beauty and bright eyes
+had played a clever trick on this man who, if his own judgment had
+been followed, would now be resting peacefully at the bottom of
+the river. It was the final stab to Carrigan. His muscles tensed.
+For the first time he felt the desire to shoot a naked fist into
+the grinning mouth of Concombre Bateese. He laid a hand on the
+half-breed's shoulder, and Bateese turned about slowly. He saw
+what was in the other's eyes.
+
+"Until this moment I have not known what a great pleasure it will
+be to fight you, Bateese," said David quietly. "Make it tomorrow--
+in the morning, if you wish. Take word to St. Pierre that I will
+make him a great wager that I win, a gamble so large that I think
+he will be afraid to cover it. For I don't think much of this St.
+Pierre of yours, Bateese. I believe him to be a big-winded bluff,
+like yourself. And also a coward. Mark my word, he will be so much
+afraid that he will not accept my wager!"
+
+Bateese did not answer. He was looking over David's shoulder. He
+seemed not to have heard what the other had said, yet there had
+come a sudden gleam of exultation in his eyes, and he replied,
+still gazing toward the raft,
+
+"Diantre, m'sieu coq de bruyere may keep ze beeg word in hees
+mout'! See!--St. Pierre, he ees comin' to answer for himself. Mon
+Dieu, I hope he does not wring ze leetle rooster's neck, for zat
+would spoil wan great, gran' fight tomorrow!"
+
+David turned toward the big raft. At the distance which separated
+them he could make out the giant figure of St. Pierre Boulain
+getting into a canoe. The humped-up form already in that canoe he
+knew was the Broken Man. He could not see Marie-Anne.
+
+Very lightly Bateese touched his arm. "M'sieu will go into ze
+cabin," he suggested softly. "If somet'ing happens, it ees bes'
+too many eyes do not see it. You understan', m'sieu agent de
+police?"
+
+Carrigan nodded. "I understand," he said.
+
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+In the cabin David waited. He did not look through the window to
+watch St. Pierre's approach. He sat down and picked up a magazine
+from the table upon which Marie-Anne's work-basket lay. He was
+cool as ice now. His blood flowed evenly and his pulse beat
+unhurriedly. Never had he felt himself more his own master, more
+like grappling with a situation. St. Pierre was coming to fight.
+He had no doubt of that. Perhaps not physically, at first. But,
+one way or another, something dynamic was bound to happen in the
+bateau cabin within the next half-hour. Now that the impending
+drama was close at hand, Carrigan's scheme of luring St. Pierre
+into the making of a stupendous wager seemed to him rather
+ridiculous. With calculating coldness he was forced to concede
+that St. Pierre would be somewhat of a fool to accept the wager he
+had in mind, when he was so completely in St. Pierre's power. For
+Marie-Anne and the chief of the Boulains, the bottom of the river
+would undoubtedly be the best and easiest solution, and the half-
+breed's suggestion might be acted upon after all.
+
+As his mind charged itself for the approaching struggle, David
+found himself staring at a double page in the magazine, given up
+entirely to impossibly slim young creatures exhibiting certain
+bits of illusive and mysterious feminine apparel. Marie-Anne had
+expressed her approbation in the form of pencil notes under
+several of them. Under a cobwebby affair that wreathed one of the
+slim figures he read, "St. Pierre will love this!" There were two
+exclamation points after that particular notation!
+
+David replaced the magazine on the table and looked toward the
+door. No, St. Pierre would not hesitate to put him at the bottom
+of the river, for her. Not if he, Dave Carrigan, made the solution
+of the matter a necessity. There were times, he told himself, when
+it was confoundedly embarrassing to force the letter of the law.
+And this was one of them. He was not afraid of the river bottom.
+He was thinking again of Marie-Anne.
+
+The scraping of a canoe against the side of the bateau recalled
+him suddenly to the moment at hand. He heard low voices, and one
+of them, he knew, was St. Pierre's. For an interval the voices
+continued, frequently so low that he could not distinguish them at
+all. For ten minutes he waited impatiently. Then the door swung
+open, and St. Pierre came in.
+
+Slowly and coolly David rose to meet him, and at the same moment
+the chief of the Boulains closed the door behind him. There was no
+greeting in Carrigan's manner. He was the Law, waiting, unexcited,
+sure of himself, impassive as a thing of steel. He was ready to
+fight. He expected to fight. It only remained for St. Pierre to
+show what sort of fight it was to be. And he was amazed at St.
+Pierre, without betraying that amazement. In the vivid light that
+shot through the western windows the chief of the Boulains stood
+looking at David. He wore a gray flannel shirt open at the throat,
+and it was a splendid throat David saw, and a splendid head above
+it, with its reddish beard and hair. But what he saw chiefly were
+St. Pierre's eyes. They were the sort of eyes he disliked to find
+in an enemy--a grayish, steely blue that reflected sunlight like
+polished flint. But there was no flash of battle-glow in them now.
+St. Pierre was neither excited nor in a bad humor. Nor did
+Carrigan's attitude appear to disturb him in the least. He was
+smiling; his eyes glowed with almost boyish curiosity as he stared
+appraisingly at David--and then, slowly, a low chuckle of laughter
+rose in his deep chest, and he advanced with an outstretched hand.
+
+"I am St. Pierre Boulain," he said. "I have heard a great deal
+about you, Sergeant Carrigan. You have had an unfortunate time!"
+
+Had the man advanced menacingly, David would have felt more
+comfortable. It was disturbing to have this giant come to him with
+an extended hand of apparent friendship when he had anticipated an
+entirely different sort of meeting. And St. Pierre was laughing at
+him! There was no doubt of that. And he had the colossal nerve to
+tell him that he had been unfortunate, as though being shot up by
+somebody's wife was a fairly decent joke!
+
+Carrigan's attitude did not change. He did not reach out a hand to
+meet the other. There was no responsive glimmer of humor in his
+eyes or on his lips. And seeing these things, St. Pierre turned
+his extended hand to the open box of cigars, so that he stood for
+a moment with his back toward him.
+
+"It's funny," he said, as if speaking to himself, and with only a
+drawling note of the French patois in his voice. "I come home,
+find my Jeanne in a terrible mix-up, a stranger in her room--and
+the stranger refuses to let me laugh or shake hands with him.
+Tonnerre, I say it is funny! And my Jeanne saved his life, and
+made him muffins, and gave him my own bed, and walked with him in
+the forest! Ah, the ungrateful cochon!"
+
+He turned, laughing openly, so that his deep voice filled the
+cabin. "Vous aves de la corde de pendu, m'sieu--yes, you are a
+lucky dog! For only one other man in the world would my Jeanne
+have done that. You are lucky because you were not ended behind
+the rock; you are lucky because you are not at the bottom of the
+river; you are lucky--"
+
+He shrugged his big shoulders hopelessly. "And now, after all our
+kindness and your good luck, you wait for me like an enemy,
+m'sieu. Diable, I can not understand!"
+
+For the life of him Carrigan could not, in these few moments,
+measure up his man. He had said nothing. He had let St. Pierre
+talk. And now St. Pierre stood there, one of the finest men he had
+ever looked upon, as if honestly overcome by a great wonder. And
+yet behind that apparent incredulity in his voice and manner David
+sensed the deep underflow of another thing. St. Pierre was all
+that Marie-Anne had claimed for him, and more. She had given him
+assurance of her unlimited confidence that her husband could
+adjust any situation in the world, and Carrigan conceded that St.
+Pierre measured up splendidly to that particular type of man. The
+smile had not left his face; the good humor was still in his eyes.
+
+David smiled back at him coldly. He recognized the cleverness of
+the other's play. St. Pierre was a man who would smile like that
+even as he fought, and Carrigan loved a smiling fighter, even when
+he had to slip steel bracelets over his wrists.
+
+"I am Sergeant Carrigan, of 'N' Division, Royal Northwest Mounted
+Police," he said, repeating the formula of the law. "Sit down, St.
+Pierre, and I will tell you a few things that have happened. And
+then--"
+
+"Non, non, it is not necessary, m'sieu. I have already listened
+for an hour, and I do not like to hear a story twice. You are of
+the Police. I love the Police. They are brave men, and brave men
+are my brothers. You are out after Roger Audemard, the rascal! Is
+it not so? And you were shot at behind the rock back there. You
+were almost killed. Ma foi, and it was my Jeanne who did the
+shooting! Yes, she thought you were another man." The chuckling,
+drum-like note of laughter came again out of St. Pierre's great
+chest. "It was bad shooting. I have taught her better, but the sun
+was blinding there in the hot, white sand. And after that--I know
+everything that has happened. Bateese was wrong. I shall scold him
+for wanting to put you at the bottom of the river--perhaps. Oui,
+ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut--that is it. A woman must have her
+way, and my Jeanne's gentle heart was touched because you were a
+brave and handsome man, M'sieu Carrigan. But I am not jealous.
+Jealousy is a worm that does not make friendship! And we shall be
+friends. Only as a friend could I take you to the Chateau Boulain,
+far up on the Yellowknife. And we are going there."
+
+In spite of what might have been the entirely proper thing to do
+at this particular moment, Carrigan's face broke into a smile as
+he drew a second chair up close to the table. He was swift to
+readjust himself. It came suddenly back to him how he had grinned
+behind the rock, when death seemed close at hand. And St. Pierre
+was like that now. David measured him again as the chief of the
+Boulains sat down opposite him. Such a man could not be afraid of
+anything on the face of the earth, even of the Law. The gleam that
+lay in his eyes told David that as they met his own over the
+table. "We are smiling now because it happens to please us," David
+read in them. "But in a moment, if it is necessary, we shall
+fight."
+
+Carrigan leaned a little over the table. "You know we are not
+going to the Chateau Boulain, St. Pierre," he said. "We are going
+to stop at Fort McMurray, and there you and your wife must answer
+for a number of things that have happened. There is one way out--
+possibly. That is largely up to you. Why did your wife try to kill
+me behind the rock? And what did you know about Black Roger
+Audemard?"
+
+St. Pierre's eyes did not for an instant leave Carrigan's face.
+Slowly a change came into them; the smile faded, the blue went
+out, and up from behind seemed to come another pair of eyes that
+were hard as steel and cold as ice. Yet they were not eyes that
+threatened, nor eyes that betrayed excitement or passion. And St.
+Pierre's voice, when he spoke, lacked the deep and vibrant note
+that had been in it. It was as if he had placed upon it the force
+of a mighty will, chaining it back, just as something hidden and
+terrible lay chained behind his eyes.
+
+"Why play like little children, M'sieu Carrigan?" he asked. "Why
+not come out squarely, honestly, like men? I know what has
+happened. Mon Dieu, it was bad! You were almost killed, and you
+heard that poor wreck, Andre, call for Roger Audemard. My Jeanne
+has told you about that--how I found him in the forest with his
+broken mind and body. And about my Jeanne--" St. Pierre's fists
+grew into knotted lumps on the table. "Non, I will die--I will
+kill you--before I will tell you why she shot at you behind the
+rock! We are men, both of us. We are not afraid. And you--in my
+place--what would YOU do, m'sieu?"
+
+In the moment's silence each man looked steadily at the other.
+
+"I would--fight," said David slowly. "If it was for her, I am
+pretty sure I would fight."
+
+He believed that he was drawing the net in now, that it would
+catch St. Pierre. He leaned a little farther over the table.
+
+"And I, too, must fight," he added. "You know our law, St. Pierre.
+We don't go back without our man--unless we happen to die. And I
+would be stupid if I did not understand the situation here. It
+would be quite easy for you to get rid of me. But I don't believe
+you are a murderer, even if your Jeanne tried to be." A flicker of
+a smile crossed his lips. "And Marie-Anne--I beg pardon!--your
+wife--"
+
+St. Pierre interrupted him. "It will please me to have you call
+her Marie-Anne. And it will please her also, m'sieu. Dieu, if we
+only had eyes that could see what is in a woman's heart! Life is
+funny, m'sieu. It is a great joke, I swear it on my soul!"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, smiling again straight into David's
+eyes. "See what has happened! You set out for a murderer. My
+Jeanne makes a great mistake and shoots you. Then she pities you,
+saves your life, brings you here, and--ma foi! it is true--learns
+to care for you more than she should! But that does not make me
+want to kill you. Non, her happiness is mine. Dead men tell no
+tales, m'sieu, but there are times when living men also keep tales
+to themselves. And that is what you are going to do, M'sieu
+Carrigan. You are going to keep to yourself the thing that
+happened behind the rock. You are going to keep to yourself the
+mumblings of our poor mad Andre. Never will they pass your lips. I
+know. I swear it. I stake my life on it!" St. Pierre was talking
+slowly and unexcitedly. There was an immeasurable confidence in
+his deep voice. It did not imply a threat or a warning. He was
+sure of himself. And his eyes had deepened into blue again and
+were almost friendly.
+
+"You would stake your life?" repeated Carrigan questioningly. "You
+would do that?"
+
+St. Pierre rose to his feet and looked about the cabin with a
+shining light in his eyes that was both pride and exaltation. He
+moved toward the end of the room, where the piano stood, and for a
+moment his big fingers touched the keys; then, seeing the lacy bit
+of handkerchief that lay there, he picked it up--and placed it
+back again. Carrigan did not urge his question, but waited. In
+spite of his effort to fight it down he found himself in the grip
+of a mysterious and growing thrill as he watched St. Pierre. Never
+had the presence of another man had the same effect upon him, and
+strangely the thought came to him that he was matched--even
+overmatched. It was as if St. Pierre had brought with him into the
+cabin something more than the splendid strength of his body, a
+thing that reached out in the interval of silence between them,
+warning Carrigan that all the law in the world would not swerve
+the chief of the Boulains from what was already in his mind. For a
+moment the thought passed from David that fate had placed him up
+against the hazard of enmity with St. Pierre. His vision centered
+in the man alone. And as he, too, rose to his feet, an unconscious
+smile came to his lips as he recalled the boastings of Bateese.
+
+"I ask you," said he, "if you would really stake your life in a
+matter such as that? Of course, if your words were merely
+accidental, and meant nothing--"
+
+"If I had a dozen lives, I would stake them, one on top of the
+other, as I have said," interrupted St. Pierre. Suddenly his laugh
+boomed out and his voice became louder. "M'sieu Carrigan, I have
+come to offer you just that test! Oui, I could kill you now. I
+could put you at the bottom of the river, as Bateese thinks is
+right. Mon Dieu, how completely I could make you disappear! And
+then my Jeanne would be safe. She would not go behind prison bars.
+She would go on living, and laughing, and singing in the big
+forests, where she belongs. And Black Roger Audemard, the rascal,
+would be safe for a time! But that would be like destroying a
+little child. You are so helpless now. So you are going on to the
+Chateau Boulain with us, and if at the end of the second month
+from today you do not willingly say I have won my wager--why--
+m'sieu--I will go with you into the forest, and you may shoot out
+of me the life which is my end of the gamble. Is that not fair?
+Can you suggest a better way--between men like you and me?"
+
+"I can at least suggest a way that has the virtue of saving time,"
+replied David. "First, however, I must understand my position
+here. I am, I take it, a prisoner."
+
+"A guest, with certain restrictions placed upon you, m'sieu,"
+corrected St. Pierre.
+
+The eyes of the two men met on a dead level.
+
+"Tomorrow morning I am going to fight Bateese," said David. "It is
+a little sporting event we have fixed up between us for the
+amusement of--your men. I have heard that Bateese is the best
+fighting man along the Three Rivers. And I--I do not like to have
+any other man claim that distinction when I am around."
+
+For the first time St. Pierre's placidity seemed to leave him. His
+brow became clouded, a moment's frown grew in his face, and there
+was a certain disconsolate hopelessness in the shrug of his
+shoulders. It was as if Carrigan's words had suddenly robbed the
+day of all its sunshine for the chief of the Boulains. His voice,
+too, carried an unhappy and disappointed note as he made a gesture
+toward the window.
+
+"M'sieu, on that raft out there are many of my men, and they have
+scarcely rested or slept since word was brought to them that a
+stranger was to fight Concombre Bateese. Tonnerre, they have
+gambled without ever seeing you until the clothes on their backs
+are in the hazard, and they have cracked their muscles in labor to
+overtake you! They have prayed away their very souls that it would
+be a good fight, and that Bateese would not eat you up too
+quickly. It has been a long time since we have seen a good fight,
+a long time since the last man dared to stand up against the half-
+breed. Ugh, it tears out my heart to tell you that the fight can
+not be!"
+
+St. Pierre made no effort to suppress his emotion. He was like a
+huge, disappointed boy. He walked to the window, peered forth at
+the raft, and as he shrugged his big shoulders again something
+like a groan came from him.
+
+The thrill of approaching triumph swept through David's blood. The
+flame of it was in his eyes when St. Pierre turned from the
+window.
+
+"And you are disappointed, St. Pierre? You would like to see that
+fight!"
+
+The blue steel in St. Pierre's eyes flashed back. "If the price
+were a year of my life, I would give it--if Bateese did not eat
+you up too quickly. I love to look upon a good fight, where there
+is no venom of hatred in the blows!"
+
+"Then you shall see a good fight, St. Pierre."
+
+"Bateese would kill you, m'sieu. You are not big. You are not his
+match."
+
+"I shall whip him, St. Pierre--whip him until he avows me his
+master."
+
+"You do not know the half-breed, m'sieu. Twice I have tried him in
+friendly combat myself and have been beaten."
+
+"But I shall whip him," repeated Carrigan. "I will wager you
+anything--anything in the world--even life against life--that I
+whip him!"
+
+The gloom had faded from the face of St. Pierre Boulain. But in a
+moment it clouded again.
+
+"My Jeanne has made me promise that I will stop the fight," he
+said.
+
+"And why--why should she insist in a matter such as this, which
+properly should be settled among men?" asked David.
+
+Again St. Pierre laughed; with an effort, it seemed, "She is
+gentle-hearted, m'sieu. She laughed and thought it quite a joke
+when Bateese humbled me. 'What! My great St. Pierre, with the
+blood of old France in his veins, beaten by a man who has been
+named after a vegetable!' she cried. I tell you she was merry over
+it, m'sieu! She laughed until the tears came into her eyes. But
+with you it is different. She was white when she entreated me not
+to let you fight Bateese. Yes, she is afraid you will be badly
+hurt. And she does not want to see you hurt again. But I tell you
+that I am not jealous, m'sieu! She does not try to hide things
+from me. She tells me everything, like a little child. And so--"
+
+"I am going to fight Bateese," said David. He wondered if St.
+Pierre could hear the thumping of his heart, or if his face gave
+betrayal of the hot flood it was pumping through his body.
+"Bateese and I have pledged ourselves. We shall fight, unless you
+tie one of us hand and foot. And as for a wager--"
+
+"Yes--what have you to wager?" demanded St. Pierre eagerly.
+
+"You know the odds are great," temporized Carrigan.
+
+"That I concede, m'sieu."
+
+"But a fight without a wager would be like a pipe without tobacco,
+St. Pierre."
+
+"You speak truly, m'sieu."
+
+David came nearer and laid a hand on the other's arm. "St. Pierre,
+I hope you--and your Jeanne--will understand what I am about to
+offer. It is this. If Bateese whips me, I will disappear into the
+forests, and no word shall ever pass my lips of what has passed
+since that hour behind the rock--and this. No whisper of it will
+ever reach the Law. I will forget the attempted murder and the
+suspicious mumblings of your Broken Man. You will be safe. Your
+Jeanne will be safe--if Bateese whips me."
+
+He paused, and waited. St. Pierre made no answer, but amazement
+came into his face, and after that a slow and burning fire in his
+eyes which told how deeply and vitally Carrigan's words had struck
+into his soul.
+
+"And if I should happen to win," continued David, turning a bit
+carelessly toward the window, "why, I should expect as large a
+payment from you. If I win, your fulfillment of the wager will be
+to tell me in every detail why your wife tried to kill me behind
+the rock, and you will also tell me all that you know about the
+man I am after, Black Roger Audemard. That is all. I am asking for
+no odds, though you concede the handicap is great."
+
+He did not look at St. Pierre. Behind him he heard the other's
+deep breathing. For a space neither spoke. Outside they could hear
+the soft swish of water, the low voices of men in the stern, and a
+shout and the barking of a dog coming from the raft far out on the
+river. For David the moment was one of suspense. He turned again,
+a bit carelessly, as if his proposition were a matter of but
+little significance to him. St. Pierre was not looking at him. He
+was staring toward the door, as if through it he could see the
+powerful form of Bateese bending over the stern sweep. And
+Carrigan could see that his face was flaming with a great desire,
+and that the blood in his body was pounding to the mighty urge of
+it.
+
+Suddenly he faced Carrigan.
+
+"M'sieu, listen to me," he said. "You are a brave man. You are a
+man of honor, and I know you will bury sacredly in your heart what
+I am going to tell you now, and never let a word of it escape--
+even to my Jeanne. I do not blame you for loving her. Non! You
+could not help that. You have fought well to keep it within
+yourself, and for that I honor you. How do I know? Mon Dieu, she
+has told me! A woman's heart understands, and a woman's ears are
+quick to hear, m'sieu. When you were sick, and your mind was
+wandering, you told her again and again that you loved her--and
+when she brought you back to life, her eyes saw more than once the
+truth of what your lips had betrayed, though you tried to keep it
+to yourself. Even more, m'sieu--she felt the touch of your lips on
+her hair that day. She understands. She has told me everything,
+openly, innocently--yet her heart thrills with that sympathy of a
+woman who knows she is loved. M'sieu, if you could have seen the
+light in her eyes and the glow in her cheeks as she told me these
+secrets. But I am not jealous! Non! It is only because you are a
+brave man, and one of honor, that I tell you all this. She would
+die of shame did she know I had betrayed her confidence. Yet it is
+necessary that I tell you, because if we make the big wager we
+must drop my Jeanne from the gamble. Do you comprehend me, m'sieu?
+
+"We are two men, strong men, fighting men. I--Pierre Boulain--can
+not feel the shame of jealousy where a woman's heart is pure and
+sweet, and where a man has fought against love with honor as you
+have fought. And you, m'sieu--David Carrigan, of the Police--can
+not strike with your hard man's hand that tender heart, that is
+like a flower, and which this moment is beating faster than it
+should with the fear that some harm is going to befall you. Is it
+not so, m'sieu? We will make the wager, yes. But if you whip
+Bateese--and you can not do that in a hundred years of fighting--I
+will not tell you why my Jeanne shot at you behind the rock. Non,
+never! Yet I swear I will tell you the other. If you win, I will
+tell you all I know about Roger Audemard, and that is
+considerable, m'sieu. Do you agree?"
+
+Slowly David held out a hand. St. Pierre's gripped it. The fingers
+of the two men met like bands of steel.
+
+"Tomorrow you will fight," said St. Pierre. "You will fight and be
+beaten so terribly that you may always show the marks of it. I am
+sorry. Such a man as you I would rather have as a brother than an
+enemy. And she will never forgive me. She will always remember it.
+The thought will never die out of her heart that I was a beast to
+let you fight Bateese. But it is best for all. And my men? Ah!
+Diable, but it will be great sport for them, m'sieu!"
+
+His hand unclasped. He turned to the door. A moment later it
+closed behind him, and David was alone. He had not spoken. He had
+not replied to the engulfing truths that had fallen quietly and
+without a betrayal of passion from St. Pierre's lips. Inwardly he
+was crushed. Yet his face was like stone, hiding his shame. And
+then, suddenly, there came a sound from outside that sent the
+blood through his cold veins again. It was laughter, the great,
+booming laughter of St. Pierre! It was not the merriment of a man
+whose heart was bleeding, or into whose life had come an
+unexpected pain or grief. It was wild and free, and filled with
+the joy of the sun-filled day.
+
+And David, listening to it, felt something that was more than
+admiration for this man growing within him. And unconsciously his
+lips repeated St. Pierre's words.
+
+"Tomorrow--you will fight."
+
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+For many minutes David stood at the bateau window and watched the
+canoe that carried St. Pierre Boulain and the Broken Man back to
+the raft. It moved slowly, as if St. Pierre was loitering with a
+purpose and was thinking deeply of what had passed. Carrigan's
+fingers tightened, and his face grew tense, as he gazed out into
+the glow of the western sun. Now that the stress of nerve-breaking
+moments in the cabin was over, he no longer made an effort to
+preserve the veneer of coolness and decision with which he had
+encountered the chief of the Boulains. Deep in his soul he was
+crushed and humiliated. Every nerve in his body was bleeding.
+
+He had heard St. Pierre's big laugh a moment before, but it must
+have been the laugh of a man who was stabbed to the heart. And he
+was going back to Marie-Anne like that--drifting scarcely faster
+than the current that he might steal time to strengthen himself
+before he looked into her eyes again. David could see him,
+motionless, his giant shoulders hunched forward a little, his head
+bowed, and in the stern the Broken Man paddled listlessly, his
+eyes on the face of his master. Without voice David cursed
+himself. In his egoism he had told himself that he had made a
+splendid fight in resisting the temptation of a great love for the
+wife of St. Pierre. But what was his own struggle compared with
+this tragedy which St. Pierre was now facing?
+
+He turned from the window and looked about the cabin room again--
+the woman's room and St. Pierre's--and his face burned in its
+silent accusation. Like a living thing it painted another picture
+for him. For a space he lost his own identity. He saw himself in
+the place of St. Pierre. He was the husband of Marie-Anne,
+worshipping her even as St. Pierre must worship her, and he came,
+as St. Pierre had come, to find a stranger in his home, a stranger
+who had lain in his bed, a stranger whom his wife had nursed back
+to life, a stranger who had fallen in love with his most
+inviolable possession, who had told her of his love, who had
+kissed her, who had held her close, in his arms, whose presence
+had brought a warmer flush and a brighter glow into eyes and
+cheeks that until this stranger's coming had belonged only to him.
+And he heard her, as St. Pierre had heard her, pleading with him
+to keep this man from harm; he heard her soft voice, telling of
+the things that had passed between them, and he saw in her eyes--
+
+With almost a cry he swept the thought and the picture from him.
+It was an atrocious thing to conceive, impossible of reality. And
+yet the truth would not go. What would he have done in St.
+Pierre's place?
+
+He went to the window again. Yes, St. Pierre was a bigger man than
+he. For St. Pierre had come quietly and calmly, offering a hand of
+friendship, generous, smiling, keeping his hurt to himself, while
+he, Dave Carrigan, would have come with the murder of man in his
+heart.
+
+His eyes passed from the canoe to the raft, and from the big raft
+to the hazy billows of green and golden forest that melted off
+into interminable miles of distance beyond the river. He knew that
+on the other side of him lay that same distance, north, east,
+south, and west, vast spaces in an unpeopled world, the same green
+and golden forests, ten thousand plains and rivers and lakes, a
+million hiding-places where romance and tragedy might remain
+forever undisturbed. The thought came to him that it would not be
+difficult to slip out into that world and disappear. He almost
+owed it to St. Pierre. It was the voice of Bateese in a snatch of
+wild and discordant song that brought him back into grim reality.
+There was, after all, that embarrassing matter of justice--and the
+accursed Law!
+
+After a little he observed that the canoe was moving faster, and
+that Andre's paddle was working steadily and with force. St.
+Pierre no longer sat hunched in the bow. His head was erect, and
+he was waving a hand in the direction of the raft. A figure had
+come from the cabin on the huge mass of floating timber. David
+caught the shimmer of a woman's dress, something white fluttering
+over her head, waving back at St. Pierre. It was Marie-Anne, and
+he moved away from the window.
+
+He wondered what was passing between St. Pierre and his wife in
+the hour that followed. The bateau kept abreast of the raft,
+moving neither faster nor slower than it did, and twice he
+surrendered to the desire to scan the deck of the floating timbers
+through his binoculars. But the cabin held St. Pierre and Marie-
+Anne, and he saw neither of them again until the sun was setting.
+Then St. Pierre came out--alone.
+
+Even at that distance over the broad river he heard the booming
+voice of the chief of the Boulains. Life sprang up where there had
+been the drowse of inactivity aboard the raft. A dozen more of the
+great sweeps were swiftly manned by men who appeared suddenly from
+the shaded places of canvas shelters and striped tents. A murmur
+of voices rose over the water, and then the murmur was broken by
+howls and shouts as the rivermen ran to their places at the
+command of St. Pierre's voice, and as the sweeps began to flash in
+the setting sun, it gave way entirely to the evening chant of the
+Paddling Song.
+
+David gripped himself as he listened and watched the slowly
+drifting glory of the world that came down to the shores of the
+river. He could see St. Pierre clearly, for the bateau had worked
+its way nearer. He could see the bare heads and naked arms of the
+rivermen at the sweeps. The sweet breath of the forests filled his
+lungs, as that picture lay before him, and there came into his
+soul a covetousness and a yearning where before there had been
+humiliation and the grim urge of duty. He could breathe the air of
+that world, he could look at its beauty, he could worship it--and
+yet he knew that he was not a part of it as those others were a
+part of it. He envied the men at the sweeps; he felt his heart
+swelling at the exultation and joy in their song. They were going
+home--home down the big rivers, home to the heart of God's
+Country, where wives and sweethearts and happiness were waiting
+for them, and their visions were his visions as he stared wide-
+eyed and motionless over the river. And yet he was irrevocably an
+alien. He was more than that--an enemy, a man-hound sent out on a
+trail to destroy, an agent of a powerful and merciless force that
+carried with it punishment and death.
+
+The crew of the bateau had joined in the evening song of the
+rivermen on the raft, and over the ridges and hollows of the
+forest tops, red and green and gold in the last warm glory of the
+sun, echoed that chanting voice of men. David understood now what
+St. Pierre's command had been. The huge raft with its tented city
+of life was preparing to tie up for the night. A quarter of a mile
+ahead the river widened, so that on the far side was a low, clean
+shore toward which the efforts of the men at the sweeps were
+slowly edging the raft. York boats shot out on the shore side and
+dropped anchors that helped drag the big craft in. Two others
+tugged at tow-lines fastened to the shoreside bow, and within
+twenty minutes the first men were plunging up out of the water on
+the white strip of beach and were whipping the tie-lines about the
+nearest trees. David unconsciously was smiling in the thrill and
+triumph of these last moments, and not until they were over did he
+sense the fact that Bateese and his crew were bringing the bateau
+in to the opposite shore. Before the sun was quite down, both raft
+and house-boat were anchored for the night.
+
+As the shadows of the distant forests deepened, Carrigan felt
+impending about him an oppression of emptiness and loneliness
+which he had not experienced before. He was disappointed that the
+bateau had not tied up with the raft. Already he could see men
+building fires. Spirals of smoke began to rise from the shore, and
+he knew that the riverman's happiest of all hours, supper time,
+was close at hand. He looked at his watch. It was after seven
+o'clock. Then he watched the fading away of the sun until only the
+red glow of it remained in the west, and against the still thicker
+shadows the fires of the rivermen threw up yellow flames. On his
+own side, Bateese and the bateau crew were preparing their meal.
+It was eight o'clock when a man he had not seen before brought in
+his supper. He ate, scarcely sensing the taste of his food, and
+half an hour later the man reappeared for the dishes.
+
+It was not quite dark when he returned to his window, but the far
+shore was only an indistinct blur of gloom. The fires were
+brighter. One of them, built solely because of the rivermen's
+inherent love of light and cheer, threw the blaze of its flaming
+logs twenty feet into the air.
+
+He wondered what Marie-Anne was doing in this hour. Last night
+they had been together. He had marveled at the witchery of the
+moonlight in her hair and eyes, he had told her of the beauty of
+it, she had smiled, she had laughed softly with him--for hours
+they had sat in the spell of the golden night and the glory of the
+river. And tonight--now--was she with St. Pierre, waiting as they
+had waited last night for the rising of the moon? Had she
+forgotten? COULD she forget? Or was she, as he thought St. Pierre
+had painfully tried to make him believe, innocent of all the
+thoughts and desires that had come to him, as he sat worshipping
+her in their stolen hours? He could think of them only as stolen,
+for he did not believe Marie-Anne had revealed to her husband all
+she might have told him.
+
+He was sure he would never see her again as he had seen her then,
+and something of bitterness rose in him as he thought of that. St.
+Pierre, could he have seen her face and eyes when he told her that
+her hair in the moonlight was lovelier than anything he had ever
+seen, would have throttled him with his naked hands in that
+meeting in the cabin. For St. Pierre's code would not have had her
+eyes droop under their long lashes or her cheeks flush so warmly
+at the words of another man--and he could not take vengeance on
+the woman herself. No, she had not told St. Pierre all she might
+have told! There were things which she must have kept to herself,
+which she dared not reveal even to this great-hearted man who was
+her husband. Shame, if nothing more, had kept her silent.
+
+Did she feel that shame as he was feeling it? It was inconceivable
+to think otherwise. And for that reason, more than all others, he
+knew that she would not meet him face to face again--unless he
+forced that meeting. And there was little chance of that, for his
+pledge with St. Pierre had eliminated her from the aftermath of
+tomorrow's drama, his fight with Bateese. Only when St. Pierre
+might stand in a court of law would there be a possibility of her
+eyes meeting his own again, and then they would flame with the
+hatred that at another time had been in the eyes of Carmin
+Fanchet.
+
+With the dull stab of a thing that of late had been growing inside
+him, he wondered what had happened to Carmin Fanchet in the years
+that had gone since he had brought about the hanging of her
+brother. Last night and the night before, strange dreams of her
+had come to him in restless slumber. It was disturbing to him that
+he should wake up in the middle of the night dreaming of her, when
+he had gone to his bed with a mind filled to overflowing with the
+sweet presence of Marie-Anne Boulain. And now his mind reached out
+poignantly into mysterious darkness and doubt, even as the
+darkness of night spread itself in a thickening canopy over the
+river.
+
+Gray clouds had followed the sun of a faultless day, and the stars
+were veiled overhead. When David turned from the window, it was so
+dark in the cabin that he could not see. He did not light the
+lamps, but made his way to St. Pierre's couch and sat down in the
+silence and gloom.
+
+Through the open windows came to him the cadence of the river and
+the forests. There was silence of human voice ashore, but under
+him he heard the lapping murmur of water as it rustled under the
+stern and side of the bateau, and from the deep timber came the
+never-ceasing whisper of the spruce and cedar tops, and the
+subdued voice of creatures whose hours of activity had come with
+the dying out of the sun.
+
+For a long time he sat in this darkness. And then there came to
+him a sound that was different than the other sounds--a low
+monotone of voices, the dipping of a paddle--and a canoe passed
+close under his windows and up the shore. He paid small attention
+to it until, a little later, the canoe returned, and its occupants
+boarded the bateau. It would have roused little interest in him
+then had he not heard a voice that was thrillingly like the voice
+of a woman.
+
+He drew his hunched shoulders erect and stared through the
+darkness toward the door. A moment more and there was no doubt. It
+was almost shock that sent the blood leaping suddenly through his
+veins. The inconceivable had happened. It was Marie-Anne out
+there, talking in a low voice to Bateese!
+
+Then there came a heavy knock at his door, and he heard the door
+open. Through it he saw the grayer gloom of the outside night
+partly shut out a heavy shadow.
+
+"M'sieu!" called the voice of Bateese.
+
+"I am here," said David.
+
+"You have not gone to bed, m'sieu?"
+
+"No."
+
+The heavy shadow seemed to fade away, and yet there still remained
+a shadow there. David's heart thumped as he noted the slenderness
+of it. For a space there was silence. And then,
+
+"Will you light the lamps, M'sieu David?" a soft voice came to
+him. "I want to come in, and I am afraid of this terrible
+darkness!"
+
+He rose to his feet, fumbling in his pocket for matches.
+
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+He did not turn toward Marie-Anne when he had lighted the first of
+the great brass lamps hanging at the side of the bateau. He went
+to the second, and struck another match, and flooded the cabin
+with light.
+
+She still stood silhouetted against the darkness beyond the cabin
+door when he faced her. She was watching him, her eyes intent, her
+face a little pale, he thought. Then he smiled and nodded. He
+could not see a great change in her since this afternoon, except
+that there seemed to be a little more fire in the glow of her
+eyes. They were looking at him steadily as she smiled and nodded,
+wide, beautiful eyes in which there was surely no revelation of
+shame or regret, and no very clear evidence of unhappiness. David
+stared, and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.
+
+"Why is it that you sit in darkness?" she asked, stepping within
+and closing the door. "Did you not expect me to return and
+apologize for leaving you so suddenly this afternoon? It was
+impolite. Afterward I was ashamed. But I was excited, M'sieu
+David. I--"
+
+"Of course," he hurried to interrupt her. "I understand. St.
+Pierre is a lucky man. I congratulate you--as well as him. He is
+splendid, a man in whom you can place great faith and confidence."
+
+"He scolded me for running away from you as I did, M'sieu David.
+He said I should have shown better courtesy than to leave like
+that one who was a guest in our--home. So I have returned, like a
+good child, to make amends."
+
+"It was not necessary."
+
+"But you were lonesome and in darkness!"
+
+He nodded. "Yes."
+
+"And besides," she added, so quietly and calmly that he was
+amazed, "you know my sleeping apartment is also on the bateau. And
+St. Pierre made me promise to say good night to you."
+
+"It is an imposition," cried David, the blood rushing to his face.
+"You have given up all this to me! Why not let me go into that
+little room forward, or sleep on the raft and you and St. Pierre--
+"
+
+"St. Pierre would not leave the raft," replied Marie-Anne, turning
+from him toward the table on which were the books and magazines
+and her work-basket. "And I like my little room forward."
+
+"St. Pierre--"
+
+He stopped himself. He could see a sudden color deepening in the
+cheek of St. Pierre's wife as she made pretense of looking for
+something in her basket. He felt that if he went on he would
+blunder, if he had not already blundered. He was uncomfortable,
+for he believed he had guessed the truth. It was not quite
+reasonable to expect that Marie-Anne would come to him like this
+on the first night of St. Pierre's homecoming. Something had
+happened over in the little cabin on the raft, he told himself.
+Perhaps there had been a quarrel--at least ironical implications
+on St. Pierre's part. And his sympathy was with St. Pierre.
+
+He caught suddenly a little tremble at the corner of Marie-Anne's
+mouth as her face was turned partly from him, and he stepped to
+the opposite side of the table so he could look at her fairly. If
+there had been unpleasantness in the cabin on the raft, St.
+Pierre's wife in no way gave evidence of it. The color had
+deepened to almost a blush in her cheeks, but it was not on
+account of embarrassment, for one who is embarrassed is not
+usually amused, and as she looked up at him her eyes were filled
+with the flash of laughter which he had caught her lips struggling
+to restrain. Then, finding a bit of lace work with the needles
+meshed in it, she seated herself, and again he was looking down on
+the droop of her long lashes and the seductive glow of her
+lustrous hair. Yesterday, in a moment of irresistible impulse, he
+had told her how lovely it was as she had dressed it, a bewitching
+crown of interwoven coils, not drawn tightly, but crumpled and
+soft, as if the mass of tresses were openly rebelling at closer
+confinement. She had told him the effect was entirely accidental,
+largely due to carelessness and haste in dressing it. Accidental
+or otherwise, it was the same tonight, and in the heart of it were
+the drooping red petals of a flower she had gathered with him
+early that afternoon.
+
+"St. Pierre brought me over," she said in a calmly matter-of-fact
+voice, as though she had expected David to know that from the
+beginning. "He is ashore talking over important matters with
+Bateese. I am sure he will drop in and say good night before he
+returns to the raft. He asked me to wait for him--here." She
+raised her eyes, so clear and untroubled, so quietly unembarrassed
+under his gaze, that he would have staked his life she had no
+suspicion of the confessions which St. Pierre had revealed to him.
+
+"Do you care? Would you rather put out the lights and go to bed?"
+
+He shook his head. "No. I am glad. I was beastly lonesome. I had
+an idea--"
+
+He was on the point of blundering again when he caught himself.
+The effect of her so near him was more than ever disturbing, in
+spite of St. Pierre. Her eyes, clear and steady, yet soft as
+velvet when they looked at him, made his tongue and his thoughts
+dangerously uncertain.
+
+"You had an idea, M'sieu David?"
+
+"That you would have no desire to see me again after my talk with
+St. Pierre," he said. "Did he tell you about it?"
+
+"He said you were very fine, M'sieu David--and that he liked you."
+
+"And he told you it is determined that I shall fight Bateese in
+the morning?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The one word was spoken with a quiet lack of excitement, even of
+interest--it seemed to belie some of the things St. Pierre had
+told him, and he could scarcely believe, looking at her now, that
+she had entreated her husband to prevent the encounter, or that
+she had betrayed any unusual emotion in the matter at all.
+
+"I was afraid you would object," he could not keep from saying.
+"It does not seem nice to pull off such a thing as that, when
+there is a lady about--"
+
+"Or LADIES." She caught him up quickly, and he saw a sudden little
+tightening of her pretty mouth as she turned her eyes to the bit
+of lace work again. "But I do not object, because what St. Pierre
+says is right--must be right."
+
+And the softness, he thought, went altogether out of the curve of
+her lips for an instant. In a flash their momentary betrayal of
+vexation was gone, and St. Pierre's wife had replaced the work-
+basket on the table and was on her feet, smiling at him. There was
+something of wild daring in her eyes, something that made him
+think of the glory of adventure he had seen flaming in her face
+the night they had run the rapids of the Holy Ghost.
+
+"Tomorrow will be very unpleasant, M'sieu David," she cried
+softly. "Bateese will beat you--terribly. Tonight we must think of
+things more agreeable."
+
+He had never seen her more radiant than when she turned toward the
+piano. What the deuce did it mean? Had St. Pierre been making a
+fool of him? She actually appeared unable to restrain her elation
+at the thought that Bateese would surely beat him up! He stood
+without moving and made no effort to answer her. Just before they
+had started on that thrilling adventure into the forest, which had
+ended with his carrying her in his arms, she had gone to the piano
+and had played for him. Now her fingers touched softly the same
+notes. A little humming trill came in her throat, and it seemed to
+David that she was deliberately recalling his thoughts to the
+things that had happened before the coming of St. Pierre. He had
+not lighted the lamp over the piano, and for a flash her dark eyes
+smiled at him out of the half shadow. After a moment she began to
+sing.
+
+Her voice was low and without effort, untrained, and subdued as if
+conscious and afraid of its limitations, yet so exquisitely sweet
+that to David it was a new and still more wonderful revelation of
+St. Pierre's wife. He drew nearer, until he stood close at her
+side, the dark luster of her hair almost touching his arm, her
+partly upturned face a bewitching profile in the shadows.
+
+Her voice grew lower, almost a whisper in its melody, as if meant
+for him alone. Many times he had heard the Canadian Boat Song, but
+never as its words came now from the lips of Marie-Anne Boulain.
+
+  "Faintly as tolls the evening chime,   Our voices keep tune, and
+our oars keep time.   Soon as the woods on shore look dim,   We'll
+sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn;   Row, brothers, row, the
+stream runs fast,   The rapids are near, and the daylight's past."
+
+She paused. And David, staring down at her shining head, did not
+speak. Her fingers trembled over the keys, he could see dimly the
+shadow of her long lashes, and the spirit-like scent of crushed
+violets rose to him from the soft lace about her throat and her
+hair.
+
+"It is your music," he whispered. "I have never heard the Boat
+Song like that!"
+
+He tried to drag his eyes from her face and hair, sensing that he
+was a near-criminal, fighting a mighty impulse. The notes under
+her fingers changed, and again--by chance or design--she was
+stabbing at him; bringing him face to face with the weakness of
+his flesh, the iniquity of his desire to reach out his arms and
+crumple her in them. Yet she did not look up, she did not see him,
+as she began to sing "Ave Maria."
+
+  "Ave, Maria, hear my cry!   O, guide my path where no harm, no
+harm is nigh--"
+
+As she went on, he knew she had forgotten to think of him. With
+the reverence of a prayer the holy words came from her lips,
+slowly, softly, trembling with a pathos and sweetness that told
+David they came not alone from the lips, but from the very soul of
+St, Pierre's wife. And then--
+
+  "Oh, Mother, hear me where thou art,   And guard and guide my
+aching heart, my aching heart!"
+
+The last words drifted away into a whisper, and David was glad
+that he was not looking into the face of St. Pierre's wife, for
+there must have been something there now which it would have been
+sacrilege for him to stare at, as he was staring at her hair.
+
+No sound of opening door had come from behind them. Yet St. Pierre
+had opened it and stood there, watching them with a curious humor
+in eyes that seemed still to hold a glitter of the fire that had
+leaped from the half-breed's flaming birch logs. His voice was a
+shock to Carrigan.
+
+"PESTE, but you are a gloomy pair!" he boomed. "Why no light over
+there in the corner, and why sing that death-song to chase away
+the devil when there is no devil near?"
+
+Guilt was in David's heart, but there was no sting of venom in St.
+Pierre's words, and he was laughing at them now, as though what he
+saw were a pretty joke and amused him.
+
+"Late hours and shady bowers! I say it should be a love song or
+something livelier," he cried, closing the door behind him and
+coming toward them. "Why not En Roulant ma Boule, my sweet Jeanne?
+You know that is my favorite."
+
+He suddenly interrupted himself, and his voice rolled out in a
+wild chant that rocked the cabin.
+
+ "The wind is fresh, the wind is free,   En roulant ma boule!  The
+wind is fresh--my love waits me,   Rouli, roulant, ma boule
+roulant!  Behind our house a spring you see,   In it three ducks
+swim merrily,  And hunting, the Prince's son went he,   With a
+silver gun right fair to see--"
+
+David was conscious that St. Pierre's wife had risen to her feet,
+and now she came out of shadow into light, and he was amazed to
+see that she was laughing back at St. Pierre, and that her two
+fore-fingers were thrust in her ears to keep out the bellow of her
+husband's voice. She was not at all discomfited by his unexpected
+appearance, but rather seemed to join in the humor of the thing
+with St. Pierre, though he fancied he could see something in her
+face that was forced and uneasy. He believed that under the
+surface of her composure she was suffering a distress which she
+did not reveal.
+
+St. Pierre advanced and carelessly patted her shoulder with one of
+his big hands, while he spoke to David.
+
+"Has she not the sweetest voice in the world, m'sieu? Did you ever
+hear a sweeter or as sweet? I say it is enough to get down into
+the soul of a man, unless he is already half dead! That voice--"
+
+He caught Marie-Anne's eyes. Her cheeks were flaming. Her look,
+for an instant, flashed lightning as she halted him.
+
+"Ma foi, I speak it from the heart," he persisted, with a shrug of
+his shoulders. "Am I not right, M'sieu Carrigan? Did you ever hear
+a sweeter voice?"
+
+"It is wonderful," agreed David, wondering if he was hazarding too
+much.
+
+"Good! It fills me with happiness to know I am right. And now,
+cherie, good-night! I must return to the raft."
+
+A shadow of vexation crossed Marie-Anne's face. "You seem in great
+haste."
+
+"Plagues and pests! You are right, Pretty Voice! I am most anxious
+to get back to my troubles there, and you--"
+
+"Will also bid M'sieu Carrigan good-night," she quickly
+interrupted him. "You will at least see me to my room, St. Pierre,
+and safely put away for the night."
+
+She held out her hand to David. There was not a tremor in it as it
+lay for an instant soft and warm in his own. She made no effort to
+withdraw it quickly, nor did her eyes hide their softness as they
+looked into his own.
+
+Mutely David stood as they went out. He heard St. Pierre's loud
+voice rumbling about the darkness of the night. He heard them pass
+along the side of the bateau forward, and half a minute later he
+knew that St. Pierre was getting into his canoe. The dip of a
+paddle came to him.
+
+For a space there was silence, and then, from far out in the black
+shadow of the river, rolled back the great voice of St. Pierre
+Boulain singing the wild river chant, "En Roulant ma Boule."
+
+At the open window he listened. It seemed to him that from far
+over the river, where the giant raft lay, there came a faint
+answer to the words of the song,
+
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+With the slow approach of the storm which was advancing over the
+wilderness, Carrigan felt more poignantly the growing unrest that
+was in him. He heard the last of St. Pierre's voice, and after
+that the fires on the distant shore died out slowly, giving way to
+utter blackness. Faintly there came to him the far-away rumbling
+of thunder. The air grew heavy and thick, and there was no sound
+of night-bird over the breast of the river, and out of the thick
+cedar and spruce and balsam there came no cry or whisper of the
+nocturnal life waiting in silence for the storm to break. In that
+stillness David put out the lights in the cabin and sat close to
+the window in darkness.
+
+He was more than sleepless. Every nerve in his body demanded
+action, and his brain was fired by strange thoughts until their
+vividness seemed to bring him face to face with a reality that set
+his blood stirring with an irresistible thrill. He believed he had
+made a discovery, that St. Pierre had betrayed himself. What he
+had visioned, the conclusion he had arrived at, seemed
+inconceivable, yet what his own eyes had seen and his ears had
+heard pointed to the truth of it all. The least he could say was
+that St. Pierre's love for Marie-Anne Boulain was a strange sort
+of love. His attitude toward her seemed more like that of a man in
+the presence of a child of whom he was fond in a fatherly sort of
+way. His affection, as he had expressed it, was parental and
+careless. Not for an instant had there been in it a betrayal of
+the lover, no suggestion of the husband who cared deeply or who
+might be made jealous by another man.
+
+Sitting in darkness thickening with the nearer approach of storm,
+David recalled the stab of pain mingled with humiliation that had
+come into the eyes of St. Pierre's wife when she had stood facing
+her husband. He heard again, with a new understanding, the low
+note of pathos in her voice as in song she had called upon the
+Mother of Christ to hear her--and help her. He had not guessed at
+the tragedy of it then. Now he knew, and he thought of her lying
+awake in the gloom beyond the bulkhead, her eyes were with tears.
+And St. Pierre had gone back to his raft, singing in the night!
+Where before there had been sympathy for him, there rose a sincere
+revulsion. There had been a reason for St. Pierre's masterly
+possession of himself, and it had not been, as he had thought,
+because of his bigness of soul. It was because he had not cared.
+He was a splendid hypocrite, playing his game well at the
+beginning, but betraying the lie at the end. He did not love
+Marie-Anne as he, Dave Carrigan, loved her. He had spoken of her
+as a child, and he had treated her as a child, and was serenely
+dispassionate in the face of a situation which would have roused
+the spirit in most men. And suddenly, recalling that thrilling
+hour in the white strip of sand and all that had happened since,
+it flashed upon David that St. Pierre was using his wife as the
+vital moving force in a game of his own--that under the masquerade
+of his apparent faith and bigness of character he was sacrificing
+her to achieve a certain mysterious something it the scheme of his
+own affairs.
+
+Yet he could not forget the infinite faith Marie-Anne Boulain had
+expressed in her husband. There had been no hypocrisy in her
+waiting and her watching for him, or in her belief that he would
+straighten out the tangles of the dilemma in which she had become
+involved. Nor had there been make-believe in the manner she had
+left him that day in her eagerness to go to St. Pierre. Adding
+these facts as he had added the others, he fancied he saw the
+truth staring at him out of the darkness of his cabin room. Marie-
+Anne loved her husband. And St. Pierre was merely the possessor,
+careless and indifferent, almost brutally dispassionate in his
+consideration of her.
+
+A heavy crash of thunder brought Carrigan back to a realization of
+the impending storm. He rose to his feet in the chaotic gloom,
+facing the bulkhead beyond which he was certain St. Pierre's wife
+lay wide awake. He tried to laugh. It was inexcusable, he told
+himself, to let his thoughts become involved in the family affairs
+of St. Pierre and Marie-Anne. That was not his business. Marie-
+Anne, in the final analysis, did not appear to be especially
+abused, and her mind was not a child's mind. Probably she would
+not thank him for his interest in the matter. She would tell him,
+like any other woman with pride, that it was none of his business
+and that he was presuming upon forbidden ground.
+
+He went to the window. There was scarcely a breath of air, and
+unfastening the screen, he thrust out his head and shoulders into
+the night. It was so black that he could not see the shadow of the
+water almost within reach of his hands, but through the chaos of
+gloom that lay between him and the opposite shore he made out a
+single point of yellow light. He was positive the light was in the
+cabin on the raft. And St. Pierre was probably in that cabin.
+
+A huge drop of rain splashed on his hand, and behind him he heard
+sweeping over the forest tops the quickening march of the deluge.
+There was no crash of thunder or flash of lightning when it broke.
+Straight down, in an inundation, it came out of a sky thick enough
+to slit with a knife. Carrigan drew in his head and shoulders and
+sniffed the sweet freshness of it. He tried again to make out the
+light on the raft, but it was obliterated.
+
+Mechanically he began taking off his clothes, and in a few moments
+he stood again at the window, naked. Thunder and lightning had
+caught up with the rain, and in the flashes of fire Carrigan's
+ghost-white face stared in the direction of the raft. In his veins
+was at work an insistent and impelling desire. Over there was St.
+Pierre, he was undoubtedly in the cabin, and something might
+happen if he, Dave Carrigan, took advantage of storm and gloom to
+go to the raft.
+
+It was almost a presentiment that drew his bare head and shoulders
+out through the window, and every hunting instinct in him urged
+him to the adventure. The stygian darkness was torn again by a
+flash of fire. In it he saw the river and the vivid silhouette of
+the distant shore. It would not be a difficult swim, and it would
+be good training for tomorrow.
+
+Like a badger worming his way out of a hole a bit too small for
+him, Carrigan drew himself through the window. A lightning flash
+caught him at the edge of the bateau, and he slunk back quickly
+against the cabin, with the thought that other eyes might be
+staring out into that same darkness. In the pitch gloom that
+followed he lowered himself quietly into the river, thrust himself
+under water, and struck out for the opposite shore.
+
+When he came to the surface again it was in the glare of another
+lightning flash. He flung the water from his face, chose a point
+several hundred yards above the raft, and with quick, powerful
+strokes set out in its direction. For ten minutes he quartered the
+current without raising his head. Then he paused, floating
+unresistingly with the slow sweep of the river, and waited for
+another illumination. When it came, he made out the tented raft
+scarcely a hundred yards away and a little below him. In the next
+darkness he found the edge of it and dragged himself up on the
+mass of timbers.
+
+The thunder had been rolling steadily westward, and David crouched
+low, hoping for one more flash to illumine the raft. It came at
+last from a mass of inky cloud far to the west, so indistinct that
+it made only dim shadows out of the tents and shelters, but it was
+sufficient to give him direction. Before its faint glare died out,
+he saw the deeper shadow of the cabin forward.
+
+For many minutes he lay where he had dragged himself, without
+making a movement in its direction. Nowhere about him could he see
+a sign of light, nor could he hear any sound of life. St. Pierre's
+people were evidently deep in slumber.
+
+Carrigan had no very definite idea of the next step in his
+adventure. He had swum from the bateau largely under impulse, with
+no preconceived scheme of action, urged chiefly by the hope that
+he would find St. Pierre in the cabin and that something might
+come of it. As for knocking at the door and rousing the chief of
+the Boulains from sleep--he had at the present moment no very good
+excuse for that. No sooner had the thought and its objection come
+to him than a broad shaft of light shot with startling suddenness
+athwart the blackness of the raft, darkened in another instant by
+an obscuring shadow. Swift as the light itself David's eyes turned
+to the source of the unexpected illumination. The door of St.
+Pierre's cabin was wide open. The interior was flooded with
+lampglow, and in the doorway stood St. Pierre himself.
+
+The chief of the Boulains seemed to be measuring the weather
+possibilities of the night. His subdued voice reached David,
+chuckling with satisfaction, as he spoke to some one who was
+behind him in the cabin.
+
+"Pitch and brimstone, but it's black!" he cried. "You could carve
+it with a knife, and stand it on end, AMANTE. But it's going west.
+In a few hours the stars will be out."
+
+He drew back into the cabin, and the door closed. David held his
+breath in amazement, staring at the blackness where a moment
+before the light had been. Who was it St. Pierre had called
+sweetheart? AMANTE! He could not have been mistaken. The word had
+come to him clearly, and there was but one guess to make. Marie-
+Anne was not on the bateau. She had played him for a fool, had
+completely hoodwinked him in her plot with St. Pierre. They were
+cleverer than he had supposed, and in darkness she had rejoined
+her husband on the raft! But why that senseless play of falsehood?
+What could be their object in wanting him to believe she was still
+aboard the bateau?
+
+He stood up on his feet and mopped the warm rain from his face,
+while the gloom hid the grim smile that came slowly to his lips.
+Close upon the thrill of his astonishment he felt a new stir in
+his blood which added impetus to his determination and his action.
+He was not disgusted with himself, nor was he embittered by what
+he had thought of a moment ago as the lying hypocrisy of his
+captors. To be beaten in his game of man-hunting was sometimes to
+be expected, and Carrigan always gave proper credit to the
+winners. It was also "good medicine" to know that Marie-Anne,
+instead of being an unhappy and neglected wife, had blinded him
+with an exquisitely clever simulation. Just why she had done it,
+and why St. Pierre had played his masquerade, it was his duty now
+to find out.
+
+An hour ago he would have cut off a hand before spying upon St.
+Pierre's wife or eavesdropping under her window. Now he felt no
+uneasiness of conscience as he approached the cabin, for Marie-
+Anne herself had destroyed all reason for any delicate
+discrimination on his part.
+
+The rain had almost stopped, and in one of the near tents he heard
+a sleepy voice. But he had no fear of chance discovery. The night
+would remain dark for a long time, and in his bare feet he made no
+sound the sharpest ears of a dog ten feet away might have heard.
+Close to the cabin door, yet in such a way that the sudden opening
+of it would not reveal him, he paused and listened.
+
+Distinctly he heard St. Pierre's voice, but not the words. A
+moment later came the soft, joyous laughter of a woman, and for an
+instant a hand seemed to grip David's heart, filling it with pain.
+There was no unhappiness in that laughter. It seemed, instead, to
+tremble in an exultation of gladness.
+
+Suddenly St. Pierre came nearer the door, and his voice was more
+distinct. "Chere-coeur, I tell you it is the greatest joke of my
+life," he heard him say. "We are safe. If it should come to the
+worst, we can settle the matter in another way. I can not but sing
+and laugh, even in the face of it all. And she, in that very
+innocence which amuses me so, has no suspicion--"
+
+He turned, and vainly David keyed his ears to catch the final
+words. The voices in the cabin grew lower. Twice he heard the soft
+laughter of the woman. St. Pierre's voice, when he spoke, was
+unintelligible.
+
+The thought that his random adventure was bringing him to an
+important discovery possessed Carrigan. St. Pierre, he believed,
+had been on the very edge of disclosing something which he would
+have given a great deal to know. Surely in this cabin there must
+be a window, and the window would be open--
+
+Quietly he felt his way through the darkness to the shore side of
+the cabin. A narrow bar of light at least partly confirmed his
+judgment. There was a window. But it was almost entirely
+curtained, and it was closed. Had the curtain been drawn two
+inches lower, the thin stream of light would have been shut
+entirely out from the night.
+
+Under this window David crouched for several minutes, hoping that
+in the calm which was succeeding the storm it might be opened. The
+voices were still more indistinct inside. He scarcely heard St.
+Pierre, but twice again he heard the low and musical laughter of
+the woman. She had laughed differently with HIM--and the grim
+smile settled on his lips as he looked up at the narrow slit of
+light over his head. He had an overwhelming desire to look in.
+After all, it was a matter of professional business--and his duty.
+
+He was glad the curtain was drawn so low. From experiments of his
+own he knew there was small chance of those inside seeing him
+through the two-inch slit, and he raised himself boldly until his
+eyes were on a level with the aperture.
+
+Directly in the line of his vision was St. Pierre's wife. She was
+seated, and her back was toward him, so he could not see her face.
+She was partly disrobed, and her hair was streaming loose about
+her. Once, he remembered, she had spoken of fiery lights that came
+into her hair under certain illumination. He had seen them in the
+sun, but never as they revealed themselves now in that cabin lamp
+glow. He scarcely looked at St. Pierre, who was on his feet,
+looking down upon her--not until St. Pierre reached out and
+crumpled the smothering mass of glowing tresses in his big hands,
+and laughed. It was a laugh filled with the unutterable joy of
+possession. The woman rose to her feet. Up through her hair went
+her two white, bare arms, encircling St. Pierre's neck. The giant
+drew her close. Her slim form seemed to melt in his, and their
+lips met.
+
+And then the woman threw back her head, laughing, so that her
+glory of hair fell straight down, and she was out of reach of St.
+Pierre's lips. They turned. Her face fronted the window, and out
+in the night Carrigan stifled a cry that almost broke from his
+lips. For a flash he was looking straight into her eyes. Her
+parted lips seemed smiling at him; her white throat and bosom were
+bared to him. He dropped down, his heart choking him as he
+stumbled through the darkness to the edge of the raft. There, with
+the lap of the water at his feet, he paused. It was hard for him
+to get Breath. He stared through the gloom in the direction of the
+bateau. Marie-Anne Boulain, the woman he loved, was there! In her
+little cabin, alone, on the bateau, was St. Pierre's wife, her
+heart crushed.
+
+And in this cabin on the raft, forgetful of her degradation and
+her grief, was the vilest wretch he had ever known--St. Pierre
+Boulain. And with him, giving herself into his arms, caressing him
+with her lips and hair, was the sister of the man he had helped to
+hang--CARMIN FANCHET!
+
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+The shock of the amazing discovery which Carrigan had made was as
+complete as it was unexpected. His eyes had looked upon the last
+thing in the world he might have guessed at or anticipated when
+they beheld through the window of St. Pierre's cabin the beautiful
+face and partly disrobed figure of Carmin Fanchet. The first
+effect of that shock had been to drive him away. His action had
+been involuntary, almost without the benefit of reason, as if
+Carmin had been Marie-Anne herself receiving the caresses which
+were rightfully hers, and upon which it was both insult and
+dishonor for him to spy. He realized now that he had made a
+mistake in leaving the window too quickly.
+
+But he did not move back through the gloom, for there was
+something too revolting in what he had seen, and with the
+revulsion of it a swift understanding of the truth which made his
+hands clench as he sat down on the edge of the raft with his feet
+and legs submerged in the slow-moving current of the river. The
+thing was not uncommon. It was the same monstrous story, as old as
+the river itself, but in this instance it filled him with a
+sickening sort of horror which gripped him at first even more than
+the strangeness of the fact that Carmin Fanchet was the other
+woman. His vision and his soul were reaching out to the bateau
+lying in darkness on the far side of the river, where St. Pierre's
+wife was alone in her unhappiness. His first impulse was to fling
+himself in the river and race to her--his second, to go back to
+St. Pierre, even in his nakedness, and call him forth to a
+reckoning. In his profession of man-hunting he had never had the
+misfortune to kill, but he could kill St. Pierre--now. His fingers
+dug into the slippery wood of the log under him, his blood ran
+hot, and in his eyes blazed the fury of an animal as he stared
+into the wall of gloom between him and Marie-Anne Boulain.
+
+How much did she know? That was the first question which pounded
+in his brain. He suddenly recalled his reference to the fight, his
+apology to Marie-Anne that it should happen so near to her
+presence, and he saw again the queer little twist of her mouth as
+she let slip the hint that she was not the only one of her sex who
+would know of tomorrow's fight. He had not noticed the
+significance of it then. But now it struck home. Marie-Anne was
+surely aware of Carmin Fanchet's presence on the raft.
+
+But did she know more than that? Did she know the truth, or was
+her heart filled only with suspicion and fear, aggravated by St.
+Pierre's neglect and his too-apparent haste to return to the raft
+that night? Again David's mind flashed back, recalling her defense
+of Carmin Fanchet when he had first told her his story of the
+woman whose brother he had brought to the hangman's justice. There
+could be but one conclusion. Marie-Anne knew Carmin Fanchet, and
+she also knew she was on the raft with St. Pierre.
+
+As cooler judgment returned to him, Carrigan refused to concede
+more than that. For any one of a dozen reasons Carmin Fanchet
+might be on the raft going down the river, and it was also quite
+within reason that Marie-Anne might have some apprehension of a
+woman as beautiful as Carmin, and possibly intuition had begun to
+impinge upon her a disturbing fear of a something that might
+happen. But until tonight he was confident she had fought against
+this suspicion, and had overridden it, even though she knew a
+woman more beautiful than herself was slowly drifting down the
+stream with her husband. She had betrayed no anxiety to him in the
+days that had passed; she had waited eagerly for St. Pierre; like
+a bird she had gone to him when at last he came, and he had seen
+her crushed close in St. Pierre's arms in their meeting. It was
+this night, with its gloom and its storm, that had made the
+shadowings of her unrest a torturing reality. For St. Pierre had
+brought her back to the bateau and had played a pitiably weak part
+in concealing his desire to return to the raft.
+
+So he told himself Marie-Anne did not know the truth, not as he
+had seen it through the window of St. Pierre's cabin. She had been
+hurt, for he had seen the sting of it, and in that same instant he
+had seen her soul rise up and triumph. He saw again the sudden
+fire that came into her eyes when St. Pierre urged the necessity
+of his haste, he saw her slim body grow tense, her red lips curve
+in a flash of pride and disdain. And as Carrigan thought of her in
+that way his muscles grew tighter, and he cursed St. Pierre.
+Marie-Anne might be hurt, she might guess that her husband's eyes
+and thoughts were too frequently upon another's face--but in the
+glory of her womanhood it was impossible for her to conceive of a
+crime such as he had witnessed through the cabin window. Of that
+he was sure.
+
+And then, suddenly, like a blinding sheet of lightning out of a
+dark sky, came back to him all that St. Pierre had said about
+Marie-Anne. He had pitied St. Pierre then; he had pitied this
+great cool-eyed giant of a man who was fighting gloriously, he had
+thought, in the face of a situation that would have excited most
+men. Frankly St. Pierre had told him Marie-Anne cared more for him
+than she should. With equal frankness he had revealed his wife's
+confessions to him, that she knew of his love for her, of his kiss
+upon her hair.
+
+In the blackness Carrigan's face burned hot. If he had in him the
+desire to kill St. Pierre now, might not St. Pierre have had an
+equally just desire to kill him? For he had known, even as he
+kissed her hair, and as his arms held her close to his breast in
+crossing the creek, that she was the wife of St. Pierre. And
+Marie-Anne--
+
+His muscles relaxed. Slowly he lowered himself into the cool wash
+of the river, and struck out toward the bateau. He did not breast
+the current with the same fierce determination with which he had
+crossed through the storm to the raft, but drifted with it and
+reached the opposite shore a quarter of a mile below the bateau.
+Here he waited for a time, while the thickness of the clouds
+broke, and a gray light came through them, revealing dimly the
+narrow path of pebbly wash along the shore. Silently, a stark
+naked shadow in the night, he came back to the bateau and crawled
+through his window.
+
+He lighted a lamp, and turned it very low, and in the dim glow of
+it rubbed his muscles until they burned. He was fit for tomorrow,
+and the knowledge of that fitness filled him with a savage
+elation. A good-humored love of sport had induced him to fling his
+first half-bantering challenge into the face of Concombre Bateese,
+but that sentiment was gone. The approaching fight was no longer
+an incident, a foolish error into which he had unwittingly plunged
+himself. In this hour it was the biggest physical thing that had
+ever loomed up in his life, and he yearned for the dawn with the
+eagerness of a beast that waits for the kill which comes with the
+break of day. But it was not the half-breed's face he saw under
+the hammering of his blows. He could not hate the half-breed. He
+could not even dislike him now. He forced himself to bed, and
+later he slept. In the dream that came to him it was not Bateese
+who faced him in battle, but St. Pierre Boulain.
+
+He awoke with that dream a thing of fire in his brain. The sun was
+not yet up, but the flush of it was painting the east, and he
+dressed quietly and carefully, listening for some sound of
+awakening beyond the bulkhead. If Marie-Anne was awake, she was
+very still. There was noise ashore. Across the river he could hear
+the singing of men, and through his window saw the white smoke of
+early fires rising above the tree-tops. It was the Indian who
+unlocked the door and brought in his breakfast, and it was the
+Indian who returned for the dishes half an hour later.
+
+After that Carrigan waited, tense with the desire for action to
+begin. He sensed no premonition of evil about to befall him. Every
+nerve and sinew in his body was alive for the combat. He thrilled
+with an overwhelming confidence, a conviction of his ability to
+win, an almost dangerous, self-conviction of approaching triumph
+in spite of the odds in weight and brute strength which were
+pitted against him. A dozen times he listened at the bulkhead
+between him and Marie-Anne, and still he heard no movement on the
+other side.
+
+It was eight o'clock when one of the bateau men appeared at the
+door and asked if he was ready. Quickly David joined him. He
+forgot his taunts to Concombre Bateese, forgot the softly padded
+gloves in his pack with which he had promised to pommel the half-
+breed into oblivion. He was thinking only of naked fists.
+
+Into a canoe he followed the bateau man, who turned his craft
+swiftly in the direction of the opposite shore. And as they went,
+David was sure he caught the slight movement of a curtain at the
+little window of Marie-Anne's forward cabin. He smiled back and
+raised his hand, and at that the curtain was drawn back entirely,
+and he knew that St. Pierre's wife was watching him as he went to
+the fight.
+
+The raft was deserted, but a little below it, on a wide strip of
+beach made hard and smooth by flood water, had gathered a crowd of
+men. It seemed odd to David they should remain so quiet, when he
+knew the natural instinct of the riverman was to voice his emotion
+at the top of his lungs. He spoke of this to the bateau man, who
+shrugged his shoulders and grinned.
+
+"Eet ees ze command of St. Pierre," he explained. "St. Pierre say
+no man make beeg noise at--what you call heem--funeral? An' theese
+goin' to be wan gran' fun-e-RAL, m'sieu!"
+
+"I see," David nodded. He did not grin back at the other's humor.
+
+He was looking at the crowd. A giant figure had appeared out of
+the center of it and was coming slowly down to the river. It was
+St. Pierre. Scarcely had the prow of the canoe touched shore when
+David leaped out and hurried to meet him. Behind St. Pierre came
+Bateese, the half-breed. He was stripped to the waist and naked
+from the knees down. His gorilla-like arms hung huge and loose at
+his sides, and the muscles of his hulking body stood out like
+carven mahogany in the glisten of the morning sun. He was like a
+grizzly, a human beast of monstrous power, something to look at,
+to back away from, to fear.
+
+Yet, David scarcely noticed him. He met St. Pierre, faced him, and
+stopped--and he had gone swiftly to this meeting, so that the
+chief of the Boulains was within earshot of all his men.
+
+St. Pierre was smiling. He held out his hand as he had held it out
+once before in the bateau cabin, and his big voice boomed out a
+greeting.
+
+Carrigan did not answer, nor did he look at the extended hand. For
+an instant the eyes of the two men met, and then, swift as
+lightning, Carrigan's arm shot out, and with the flat of his hand
+he struck St. Pierre a terrific blow squarely on the cheek. The
+sound of the blow was like the smash of a paddle on smooth water.
+Not a riverman but heard it, and as St. Pierre staggered back,
+flung almost from his feet by its force, a subdued cry of
+amazement broke from the waiting men. Concombre Bateese stood like
+one stupefied. And then, in another flash, St. Pierre had caught
+himself and whirled like a wild beast. Every muscle in his body
+was drawn for a gigantic, overwhelming leap; his eyes blazed; the
+fury of a beast was in his face. Before all his people he had
+suffered the deadliest insult that could be offered a man of the
+Three River Country--a blow struck with the flat of another's
+hand. Anything else one might forgive, but not that. Such a blow,
+if not avenged, was a brand that passed down into the second and
+third generations, and even children would call out "Yellow-Back--
+Yellow-Back," to the one who was coward enough to receive it
+without resentment. A rumbling growl rose in the throat of
+Concombre Bateese in that moment when it seemed as though St.
+Pierre Boulain was about to kill the man who had struck him. He
+saw the promise of his own fight gone in a flash. For no man in
+all the northland could now fight David Carrigan ahead of St.
+Pierre.
+
+David waited, prepared to meet the rush of a madman. And then, for
+a second time, he saw a mighty struggle in the soul of St. Pierre.
+The giant held himself back. The fury died out of his face, but
+his great hands remained clenched as he said, for David alone,
+
+"That was a playful blow, m'sieu? It was--a joke?"
+
+"It was for you, St. Pierre," replied Carrigan, "You are a coward
+--and a skunk. I swam to the raft last night, looked through your
+window, and saw what happened there. You are not fit for a decent
+man to fight, yet I will fight you, if you are not too great a
+coward--and dare to let our wagers stand as they were made."
+
+St. Pierre's eyes widened, and for a breath or two he stared at
+Carrigan, as if looking into him and not at him. His big hands
+relaxed, and slowly the panther-like readiness went out of his
+body. Those who looked beheld the transformation in amazement, for
+of all who waited only St. Pierre and the half-breed had heard
+Carrigan's words, though they had seen and heard the blow of
+insult.
+
+"You swam to the raft," repeated St. Pierre in a low voice, as if
+doubting what he had heard. "You looked through the window--and
+saw--"
+
+David nodded. He could not cover the sneering poison in his voice,
+his contempt for the man who stood before him.
+
+"Yes, I looked through the window. And I saw you, and the lowest
+woman on the Three Rivers--the sister of a man I helped to hang,
+I--"
+
+"STOP!"
+
+St. Pierre's voice broke out of him like the sudden crash of
+thunder. He came a step nearer, his face livid, his eyes shooting
+flame. With a mighty effort he controlled himself again. And then,
+as if he saw something which David could not see, he tried to
+smile, and in that same instant David caught a grin cutting a
+great slash across the face of Concombre Bateese. The change that
+came over St. Pierre now was swift as sunlight coming out from
+shadowing cloud. A rumble grew in his great chest. It broke in a
+low note of laughter from his lips, and he faced the bateau across
+the river.
+
+"M'sieu, you are sorry for HER. Is that it? You would fight--"
+
+"For the cleanest, finest little girl who ever lived--your wife!"
+
+"It is funny," said St. Pierre, as if speaking to himself, and
+still looking at the bateau. "Yes, it is very funny, ma belle
+Marie-Anne! He has told you he loves you, and he has kissed your
+hair and held you in his arms--yet he wants to fight me because he
+thinks I am steeped in sin, and to make me fight in place of
+Bateese he has called my Carmin a low woman! So what else can I
+do? I must fight. I must whip him until he can not walk. And then
+I will send him back for you to nurse, cherie, and for that
+blessing I think he will willingly take my punishment! Is it not
+so, m'sieu?"
+
+He was smiling and no longer excited when he turned to David.
+
+"M'sieu, I will fight you. And the wagers shall stand. And in this
+hour let us be honest, like men, and make confession. You love ma
+belle Jeanne--Marie-Anne? Is it not so? And I--I love my Carmin,
+whose brother you hanged, as I love no other woman in the world.
+Now, if you will have it so, let us fight!"
+
+He began stripping off his shirt, and with a bellow in his throat
+Concombre Bateese slouched away like a beaten gorilla to explain
+to St. Pierre's people the change in the plan of battle. And as
+that news spread like fire in the fir-tops, there came but a
+single cry in response--shrill and terrible--and that was from the
+throat of Andre, the Broken Man.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+As Carrigan stripped off his shirt, he knew that at least in one
+way he had met more than his match in St. Pierre Boulain. In the
+splendid service of which he was a part he had known many men of
+iron and steel, men whose nerve and coolness not even death could
+very greatly disturb. Yet St. Pierre, he conceded, was their
+master--and his own. For a flash he had transformed the chief of
+the Boulains into a volcano which had threatened to break in
+savage fury, yet neither the crash nor destruction had come. And
+now St. Pierre was smiling again, as Carrigan faced him, stripped
+to the waist. He betrayed no sign of the tempest of passion that
+had swept him a few minutes before. His cool, steely eyes had in
+them a look that was positively friendly, as Concombre Bateese
+marked in the hard sand the line of the circle within which no man
+might come. And as he did this and St. Pierre's people crowded
+close about it, St. Pierre himself spoke in a low voice to David.
+
+"M'sieu, it seems a shame that we should fight. I like you. I have
+always loved a man who would fight to protect a woman, and I shall
+be careful not to hurt you more than is necessary to make you see
+reason--and to win the wagers. So you need not be afraid of my
+killing you, as Bateese might have done. And I promise not to
+destroy your beauty, for the sake of--the lady in the bateau. My
+Carmin, if she knew you spied through her window last night, would
+say kill you with as little loss of time as possible, for as
+regards you her sweet disposition was spoiled when you hung her
+brother, m'sieu. Yet to me she is an angel!"
+
+Contempt for the man who spoke of his wife and the infamous Carmin
+Fanchet in the same breath drew a sneer to Carrigan's lips. He
+nodded toward the waiting circle of men.
+
+"They are ready for the show, St. Pierre. You talk big. Now let us
+see if you can fight."
+
+For another moment St. Pierre hesitated. "I am so sorry, m'sieu--
+
+"Are you ready, St. Pierre?"
+
+"It is not fair, and she will never forgive me. You are no match
+for me. I am half again as heavy."
+
+"And as big a coward as you are a scoundrel, St. Pierre."
+
+"It is like a man fighting a boy."
+
+"Yet it is less dishonorable than betraying the woman who is your
+wife for another who should have been hanged along with her
+brother, St. Pierre."
+
+Boulain's face darkened. He drew back half a dozen steps and cried
+out a word to Bateese. Instantly the circle of waiting men grew
+tense as the half-breed jerked the big handkerchief from his head
+and held it out at arm's length. Yet, with that eagerness for the
+fight there was something else which Carrigan was swift to sense.
+The attitude of the watchers was not one of uncertainty or of very
+great expectation, in spite of the staring faces and the muscular
+tightening of the line. He knew what was passing in their minds
+and in the low whispers from lip to lip. They were pitying him.
+Now that he stood stripped, with only a few paces between him and
+the giant figure of St. Pierre, the unfairness of the fight struck
+home even to Concombre Bateese. Only Carrigan himself knew how
+like tempered steel the sinews of his body were built. But to the
+eye, in size alone, he stood like a boy before St. Pierre. And St.
+Pierre's people, their voices stilled by the deadly inequality of
+it, were waiting for a slaughter and not a fight.
+
+A smile came to Carrigan's lips as he saw Bateese hesitating to
+drop the handkerchief, and with the swiftness of the trained
+fighter he made his first plan for the battle before the cloth
+fell from the half-breed's fingers, As the handkerchief fluttered
+to the ground, he faced St. Pierre, the smile gone.
+
+"Never smile when you fight," the greatest of all masters of the
+ring had told him. "Never show anger, Don't betray any emotion at
+all if you can help it."
+
+Carrigan wondered what the old ring-master would say could he see
+him now, backing away slowly from St. Pierre as the giant advanced
+upon him, for he knew his face was betraying to St. Pierre and his
+people the deadliest of all sins--anxiety and indecision. Very
+closely, yet with eyes that seemed to shift uneasily, he watched
+the effect of his trick on Boulain. Twice the huge riverman
+followed him about the ring of sand, and the steely glitter in his
+eyes changed to laughter, and the tense faces of the men about
+them relaxed. A subdued ripple of merriment rose where there had
+been silence. A third time David maneuvered his retreat, and his
+eyes shot furtively to Concombre Bateese and the men at his back.
+They were grinning. The half-breed's mouth was wide open, and his
+grotesque body hung limp and astonished. This was not a fight! It
+was a comedy--like a rooster following a sparrow around a
+barnyard! And then a still funnier thing happened, for David began
+to trot in a circle around St. Pierre, dodging and feinting, and
+keeping always at a safe distance. A howl of laughter came from
+Bateese and broke in a roar from the men. St. Pierre stopped in
+his tracks, a grin on his face, his big arms and shoulders limp
+and unprepared as Carrigan dodged in close and out again. And
+then--
+
+A howl broke in the middle of the half-breed's throat. Where there
+had been laughter, there came a sudden shutting off of sound, a
+great gasp, as if made by choking men. Swifter than anything they
+had ever seen in human action Carrigan had leaped in. They saw him
+strike. They heard the blow. They saw St. Pierre's great head rock
+back, as if struck from his shoulders by a club, and they saw and
+heard another blow, and a third--like so many flashes of
+lightning--and St. Pierre went down as if shot. The man they had
+laughed at was no longer like a hopping sparrow. He was waiting,
+bent a little forward, every muscle in his body ready for action.
+They watched for him to leap upon his fallen enemy, kicking and
+gouging and choking in the riverman way. But David waited, and St.
+Pierre staggered to his feet. His mouth was bleeding and choked
+with sand, and a great lump was beginning to swell over his eye. A
+deadly fire blazed in his face, as he rushed like a mad bull at
+the insignificant opponent who had tricked and humiliated him.
+This time Carrigan did not retreat, but held his ground, and a
+yell of joy went up from Bateese as the mighty bulk of the giant
+descended upon his victim. It was an avalanche of brute-force,
+crushing in its destructiveness, and Carrigan seemed to reach for
+it as it came upon him. Then his head went down, swifter than a
+diving grebe, and as St. Pierre's arm swung like an oaken beam
+over his shoulder, his own shot in straight for the pit of the
+other's stomach. It was a bull's-eye blow with the force of a
+pile-driver behind it, and the groan that forced its way out of
+St. Pierre's vitals was heard by every ear in the cordon of
+watchers. His weight stopped, his arms opened, and through that
+opening Carrigan's fist went a second time to the other's jaw, and
+a second time the great St. Pierre Boulain sprawled out upon the
+sand. And there he lay, and made no effort to rise.
+
+Concombre Bateese, with his great mouth agape, stood for an
+instant as if the blow had stunned him in place of his master.
+Then, suddenly he came to life, and leaped to David's side.
+
+"Diable! Tonnerre! You have not fight Concombre Bateese yet!" he
+howled. "Non, you have cheat me, you have lie, you have run lak
+cat from Concombre Bateese, ze stronges' man on all T'ree River!
+You are wan' gran' coward, wan poltroon, an' you 'fraid to fight
+ME, who ees greates' fightin' man in all dees countree! Sapristi!
+Why you no hit Concombre Bateese, m'sieu? Why you no hit ze
+greates' fightin' man w'at ees--"
+
+David did not hear the rest. The opportunity was too tempting. He
+swung, and with a huge grunt the gorilla-like body of Concombre
+Bateese rolled over that of the chief of the Boulains. This time
+Carrigan did not wait, but followed up so closely that the half-
+breed had scarcely gathered the crook out of his knees when
+another blow on the jaw sent him into the sand again. Three times
+he tried the experiment of regaining his feet, and three times he
+was knocked down. After the last blow he raised himself groggily
+to a sitting posture, and there he remained, blinking like a
+stunned pig, with his big hands clutching in the sand. He stared
+up unseeingly at Carrigan, who waited over him, and then stupidly
+at the transfixed cordon of men, whose eyes were bulging and who
+were holding their breath in the astonishment of this miracle
+which had descended upon them. They heard Bateese muttering
+something incoherent as his head wobbled, and St. Pierre himself
+seemed to hear it, for he stirred and raised himself slowly, until
+he also was sitting in the sand, staring at Bateese.
+
+Carrigan picked up his shirt, and the riverman who had brought him
+from the bateau returned with him to the canoe. There was no
+demonstration behind them. To David himself the whole thing had
+been an amazing surprise, and he was not at all reluctant to leave
+as quickly as his dignity would permit, before some other of St.
+Pierre's people offered to put a further test upon his prowess. He
+wanted to laugh. He wanted to thank God at the top of his voice
+for the absurd run of luck that had made his triumph not only easy
+but utterly complete. He had expected to win, but he had also
+expected a terrific fight before the last blow was struck. And
+there had been no fight! He was returning to the bateau without a
+scratch, his hair scarcely ruffled, and he had defeated not only
+St, Pierre, but the giant half-breed as well! It was
+inconceivable--and yet it had happened; a veritable burlesque, an
+opera-bouffe affair that might turn quickly into a tragedy if
+either St. Pierre or Concombre Bateese guessed the truth of it.
+For in that event he might have to face them again, with the god
+of luck playing fairly, and he was honest enough with himself to
+confess that the idea no longer held either thrill or desire for
+him. Now that he had seen both St. Pierre and Bateese stripped for
+battle, he had no further appetite for fistic discussion with
+them. After all, there was a merit in caution, and he had several
+lucky stars to bless just at the present moment!
+
+Inwardly he was a bit suspicious of the ultimate ending of the
+affair. St. Pierre had almost no cause for complaint, for it was
+his own carelessness, coupled with his opponent's luck, that had
+been his undoing--and luck and carelessness are legitimate factors
+of every fight, Carrigan told himself. But with Bateese it was
+different. He had held up his big jaw, uncovered and tempting,
+entreating some one to hit him, and Carrigan had yielded to that
+temptation. The blow would have stunned an ox. Three others like
+it had left the huge half-breed sitting weak-mindedly in the sand,
+and no one of those three blows were exactly according to the
+rules of the game. They had been mightily efficacious, but the
+half-breed might demand a rehearing when he came fully into his
+senses.
+
+Not until they were half-way to the bateau did Carrigan dare to
+glance back over his shoulder at the man who was paddling, to see
+what effect the fistic travesty had left on him. He was a big-
+mouthed, clear-eyed, powerfully-muscled fellow, and he was
+grinning from ear to ear.
+
+"Well, what did you think of it, comrade?"
+
+The other gave his shoulders a joyous shrug.
+
+"Mon Dieu! Have you heard of wan garcon named Joe Clamart, m'sieu?
+Non? Well, I am Joe Clamart what was once great fightin' man.
+Bateese hav' whip' me five times, m'sieu--so I say it was wan gr-
+r-r-a-n' fight! Many years ago I have seen ze same t'ing in
+Montreal--ze boxeur de profession. Oui, an' Rene Babin pays me
+fifteen prime martin against which I put up three scrubby red fox
+that you would win. They were bad, or I would not have gambled,
+m'sieu. It ees fonny!"
+
+"Yes, it is funny," agreed David. "I think it is a bit too funny.
+It is a pity they did not stand up on their legs a little longer!"
+Suddenly an inspiration hit him. "Joe, what do you say--shall you
+and I return and put up a REAL fight for them?"
+
+Like a sprung trap Joe Clamart's grinning mouth dosed. "Non, non,
+non," he grunted. "Dere has been plenty fight, an' Joe Clamart
+mus' save hees face tor Antoinette Roland, who hate ze sign of
+fight lak she hate ze devil, m'sieu! Non, non!"
+
+His paddle dug deeper into the water, and David's heart felt
+lighter. If Joe was an average barometer, and he was a husky and
+fearless-looking chap, it was probable that neither St. Pierre nor
+Bateese would demand another chance at him, and St. Pierre would
+pay his wager.
+
+He could see no one aboard the bateau when he climbed from the
+canoe. Looking back, he saw that two other canoes had started from
+the opposite shore. Then he went to his cabin door, opened it, and
+entered, Scarcely had the door closed behind him when he stopped,
+staring toward the window that opened on the river.
+
+Standing full in the morning glow of it was Marie-Anne Boulain.
+She was facing him. Her cheeks were flushed. Her red lips were
+parted. Her eyes were aglow with a fire which she made no effort
+to hide from him. In her hand she still held the binoculars he had
+left on the cabin table. He guessed the truth. Through the glasses
+she had watched the whole miserable fiasco.
+
+He felt creeping over him a sickening shame, and his eyes fell
+slowly from her to the table. What he saw there caught his breath
+in the middle. It was the entire surgical outfit of Nepapinas, the
+old Indian doctor. And there were basins of water, and white
+strips of linen ready for use, and a pile of medicated cotton, and
+all sorts of odds and ends that one might apply to ease the
+agonies of a dying man, And beyond the table, huddled in so small
+a heap that he was almost hidden by it, was Nepapinas himself,
+disappointment writ in his mummy-like face as his beady eyes
+rested on David.
+
+The evidence could not be mistaken. They had expected him to come
+back more nearly dead than alive, and St. Pierre's wife had
+prepared for the thing she had thought inevitable. Even his bed
+was nicely turned down, its fresh white sheets inviting an
+occupant!
+
+And David, looking at St. Pierre's wife again, felt his heart
+beating hard in his breast at the look which was in her eyes. It
+was not the scintillation of laughter, and the flame in her cheeks
+was not embarrassment. She was not amused. The ludicrousness of
+her mislaid plans had not struck her as they had struck him. She
+had placed the binoculars on the table, and slowly she came to
+him. Her hands reached out, and her fingers rested like the touch
+of velvet on his arms.
+
+"It was splendid!" she said softly, "It was splendid!"
+
+She was very near, her breast almost touching him, her hands
+creeping up until the tips of her fingers rested on his shoulders,
+her scarlet mouth so close he could feel the soft breath of it in
+his face.
+
+"It was splendid!" she whispered again.
+
+And then, suddenly, she rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him. So
+swiftly was it done that she was gone before he sensed that wild
+touch of her lips against his own. Like a swallow she was at the
+door, and the door opened and closed behind her, and for a moment
+he heard the quick running of her feet. Then he looked at the old
+Indian, and the Indian, too, was staring at the door through which
+St. Pierre's wife had flown.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+For many seconds that seemed like minutes David stood where she
+had left him, while Nepapinas rose gruntingly to his feet, and
+gathered up his belongings, and hobbled sullenly to the bateau
+door and out. He was scarcely conscious of the Indian's movement,
+for his soul was aflame with a red-hot fire. Deliberately--with
+that ravishing glory of something in her eyes--St. Pierre's wife
+had kissed him! On her tiptoes, her cheeks like crimson flowers,
+she had given her still redder lips to him! And his own lips
+burned, and his heart pounded hard, and he stared for a time like
+one struck dumb at the spot where she had stood by the window.
+Then suddenly, he turned to the door and flung it wide open, and
+on his lips was the reckless cry of Marie-Anne's name. But St.
+Pierre's wife was gone, and Nepapinas was gone, and at the tail of
+the big sweep sat only Joe Clamart, guarding watchfully.
+
+The two canoes were drawing near, and in one of them were two men,
+and in the other three, and David knew that--like Joe Clamart--
+they were watchers set over him by St. Pierre. Then a fourth canoe
+left the far shore, and when it had reached mid-stream, he
+recognized the figure in the stern as that of Andre, the Broken
+Man. The other, he thought, must be St. Pierre.
+
+He went back into the cabin and stood where Marie-Anne had stood--
+at the window. Nepapinas had not taken away the basins of water,
+and the bandages were still there, and the pile of medicated
+cotton, and the suspiciously made-up bed. After all, he was losing
+something by not occupying the bed--and yet if St. Pierre or
+Bateese had messed him up badly, and a couple of fellows had
+lugged him in between them, it was probable that Marie-Anne would
+not have kissed him. And that kiss of St. Pierre's wife would
+remain with him until the day he died!
+
+He was thinking of it, the swift, warm thrill of her velvety lips,
+red as strawberries and twice as sweet, when the door opened and
+St. Pierre came in. The sight of him, in this richest moment of
+his life, gave David no sense of humiliation or shame. Between him
+and St. Pierre rose swiftly what he had seen last night--Carmin
+Fanchet in all the lure of her disheveled beauty, crushed close in
+the arms of the man whose wife only a moment before had pressed
+her lips close to his; and as the eyes of the two met, there came
+over him a desire to tell the other what had happened, that he
+might see him writhe with the sting of the two-edged thing with
+which he was playing. Then he saw that even that would not hurt
+St. Pierre, for the chief of the Boulains, standing there with the
+big lump over his eye, had caught sight of the things on the table
+and the nicely turned down bed, and his one good eye lit up with
+sudden laughter, and his white teeth flashed in an understanding
+smile.
+
+"TONNERRE, I said she would nurse you with gentle hands," he
+rumbled. "See what you have missed, M'sieu Carrigan!"
+
+"I received something which I shall remember longer than a fine
+nursing," retorted David. "And yet right now I have a greater
+interest in knowing what you think of the fight, St. Pierre--and
+if you have come to pay your wager."
+
+St. Pierre was chuckling mysteriously in his throat. "It was
+splendid--splendid," he said, repeating Marie-Anne's words. "And
+Joe Clamart says she ran out, blushing like a red rose in August,
+and that she said no word, but flew like a bird into the white-
+birch ashore!"
+
+"She was dismayed because I beat you, St. Pierre."
+
+"Non, non--she was like a lark filled with joy."
+
+Suddenly his eyes rested on the binoculars.
+
+David nodded. "Yes, she saw it all through the glasses."
+
+St. Pierre seated himself at the table and heaved out a groan as
+he took one of the bandage strips between his fingers. "She saw my
+disgrace. And she didn't wait to bandage ME up, did she?"
+
+"Perhaps she thought Carmin Fanchet would do that, St. Pierre."
+
+"And I am ashamed to go to Carmin--with this great lump over my
+eye, m'sieu. And on top of that disgrace--you insist that I pay
+the wager?"
+
+"I do."
+
+St. Pierre's face hardened.
+
+"OUI, I am to pay. I am to tell you all I know about that BETE
+NOIR--Black Roger Audemard. Is it not so?"
+
+"That is the wager."
+
+"But after I have told you--what then? Do you recall that I gave
+you any other guarantee, M'sieu Carrigan? Did I say I would let
+you go? Did I promise I would not kill you and sink your body to
+the bottom of the river? If I did, I can not remember."
+
+"Are you a beast, St. Pierre--a murderer as well as--"
+
+"Stop! Do not tell me again what you saw through the window, for
+it has nothing to do with this. I am not a beast, but a man. Had I
+been a beast, I should have killed you the first day I saw you in
+this cabin. I am not threatening to kill you, and yet it may be
+necessary if you insist that I pay the wager. You understand,
+m'sieu. To refuse to pay a wager is a greater crime among my
+people than the killing of a man, if there is a good reason for
+the killing. I am helpless. I must pay, if you insist. Before I
+pay it is fair that I give you warning."
+
+"You mean?"
+
+"I mean nothing, as yet. I can not say what it will be necessary
+for me to do, after you have heard what I know about Roger
+Audemard. I am quite settled on a plan just now, m'sieu, but the
+plan might change at any moment. I am only warning you that it is
+a great hazard, and that you are playing with a fire of which you
+know nothing, because it has not burned you yet."
+
+Carrigan seated himself slowly in a chair opposite St. Pierre,
+with the table between them.
+
+"You are wasting time in attempting to frighten me," he said. "I
+shall insist on the payment of the wager, St Pierre."
+
+For a moment St. Pierre was clearly troubled. Then his lips
+tightened, and he smiled grimly over the table at David.
+
+"I am sorry, M'sieu David. I like you. You are a fighting man and
+no coward, and I should like to travel shoulder to shoulder with
+you in many things. And such a thing might be, for you do not
+understand. I tell you it would have been many times better for
+you had I whipped you out there, and it had been you--and not me--
+to pay the wager!"
+
+"It is Roger Audemard I am interested in, St. Pierre. Why do you
+hesitate?"
+
+"I? Hesitate? I am not hesitating, m'sieu. I am giving you a
+chance." He leaned forward, his great arms bent on the table. "And
+you insist, M'sieu David?"
+
+"Yes, I insist."
+
+Slowly the fingers of St. Pierre's hands closed into knotted
+fists, and he said in a low voice, "Then I will pay, m'sieu. _I_
+AM ROGER AUDEMARD!"
+
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+The astounding statement of the man who sat opposite him held
+David speechless. He had guessed at some mysterious relationship
+between St. Pierre and the criminal he was after, but not this,
+and Roger Audemard, with his hands unclenching and a slow humor
+beginning to play about his mouth, waited coolly for him to
+recover from his amazement. In those moments, when his heart
+seemed to have stopped beating, Carrigan was staring at the other,
+but his mind had shot beyond him--to the woman who was his wife.
+Marie-Anne AUDEMARD--the wife of Black Roger! He wanted to cry out
+against the possibility of such a fact, yet he sat like one struck
+dumb, as the monstrous truth took possession of his brain and a
+whirlwind of understanding swept upon him. He was thinking
+quickly, and with a terrific lack of sentiment now. Opposite him
+sat Black Roger, the wholesale murderer. Marie-Anne was his wife.
+Carmin Fanchet, sister of a murderer, was simply one of his kind.
+And Bateese, the man-gorilla, and the Broken Man, and all the
+dark-skinned pack about them were of Black Roger's breed and kind.
+Love for a woman had blinded him to the facts which crowded upon
+him now. Like a lamb he had fallen among wolves, and he had tried
+to believe in them. No wonder Bateese and the man he had known as
+St. Pierre had betrayed such merriment at times!
+
+A fighting coolness possessed him as he spoke to Black Roger.
+
+"I will admit this is a surprise. And yet you have cleared up a
+number of things very quickly. It proves to me again that comedy
+is not very far removed from tragedy at times."
+
+"I am glad you see the humor of it, M'sieu David." Black Roger was
+smiling as pleasantly as his swollen eye would permit. "We must
+not be too serious when we die. If I were to die a-hanging, I
+would sing as the rope choked me, just to show the world one need
+not be unhappy because his life is coming to an end."
+
+"I suppose you understand that ultimately I am going to give you
+that opportunity," said David.
+
+Almost eagerly Black Roger leaned toward him over the table. "You
+believe you are going to hang me?"
+
+"I am sure of it."
+
+"And you are willing to wager the point, M'sieu David?"
+
+"It is impossible to gamble with a condemned man."
+
+Black Roger chuckled, rubbing his big hands together until they
+made a rasping sound, and his one good eye glowed at Carrigan.
+
+"Then I will make a wager with myself, M'sieu David. MA FOI, I
+swear that before the leaves fall from the trees, you will be
+pleading for the friendship of Black Roger Audemard, and you will
+be as much in love with Carmin Fanchet as I am! And as for Marie-
+Anne--"
+
+He thrust back his chair and rose to his feet, the old note of
+subdued laughter rumbling in his chest. "And because I make this
+wager with myself, I cannot kill you, M'sieu David--though that
+might be the best thing to do. I am going to take you to the
+Chateau Boulain, which is in the forests of the Yellowknife,
+beyond the Great Slave. Nothing will happen to you if you make no
+effort to escape. If you do that, you will surely die. And that
+would hurt me, M'sieu David, because I love you like a brother,
+and in the end I know you are going to grip the hand of Black
+Roger Audemard, and get down on your knees to Carmin Fanchet. And
+as for Marie-Anne--" Again he interrupted himself, and went out of
+the cabin, laughing. And there was no mistake in the metallic
+click of the lock outside the door.
+
+For a time David did not move from his seat near the table. He had
+not let Roger Audemard see how completely the confession had upset
+his inner balance, but he made no pretense of concealing the thing
+from himself now. He was in the power of a cut-throat, who in turn
+had an army of cut-throats at his back, and both Marie-Anne and
+Carmin Fanchet were a part of this ring. And he was not only a
+prisoner. It was probable, under the circumstances, that Black
+Roger would make an end of him when a convenient moment came. It
+was even more than a probability. It was a grim necessity. To let
+him live and escape would be fatal to Black Roger.
+
+From back of these convictions, riding over them as if to
+demoralize any coherence and logic that might go with the evidence
+he was building up, came question after question, pounding at him
+one after the other, until his mind became more than ever a
+whirling chaos of uncertainty. If St. Pierre was Black Roger, why
+would he confess to that fact simply to pay a wager? What reason
+could he have for letting him live at all? Why had not Bateese
+killed him? Why had Marie-Anne nursed him back to life? His mind
+shot to the white strip of sand in which he had nearly died. That,
+at least, was convincing. Learning in some way that he was after
+Black Roger, they had attempted to do away with him there. But if
+that were so, why was it Bateese and Black Roger's wife and the
+Indian Nepapinas had risked so much to make him live, when if they
+had left him where he had fallen he would have died and caused
+them no trouble?
+
+There was something exasperatingly uncertain and illogical about
+it all. Was it possible that St. Pierre Boulain was playing a huge
+joke on him? Even that was inconceivable. For there was Carmin
+Fanchet, a fitting companion for a man like Black Roger, and there
+was Marie-Anne, who, if it had been a joke, would not have played
+her part so well.
+
+Suddenly his mind was filled only with her. Had she been his
+friend, using all her influence to protect him, because her heart
+was sick of the environment of which she was a part? His own heart
+jumped at the thought. It was easy to believe. In Marie-Anne he
+had faith, and that faith refused to be destroyed, but persisted--
+even clearer and stronger as he thought again of Carmin Fanchet
+and Black Roger. In his heart grew the conviction it was sacrilege
+to believe the kiss she had given him that morning was a lie. It
+was something else--a spontaneous gladness, a joyous exultation
+that he had returned unharmed, a thing unplanned in the soul of
+the woman, leaping from her before she could stop it. Then had
+come shame, and she had run away from him so swiftly he had not
+seen her face again after the touch of her lips. If it had been a
+subterfuge, a lie, she would not have done that.
+
+He rose to his feet and paced restlessly back and forth as he
+tried to bring together a few tangled bits of the puzzle. He heard
+voices outside, and very soon felt the movement of the bateau
+under his feet, and through one of the shoreward windows he saw
+trees and sandy beach slowly drifting away. On that shore, as far
+as his eyes could travel up and down, he saw no sign of Marie-
+Anne, but there remained a canoe, and near the canoe stood Black
+Roger Audemard, and beyond him, huddled like a charred stump in
+the sand, was Andre, the Broken Man. On the opposite shore the
+raft was getting under way.
+
+During the next half-hour several things happened which told him
+there was no longer a sugar-coating to his imprisonment. On each
+side of the bateau two men worked at his windows, and when they
+had finished, no one of them could be opened more than a few
+inches. Then came the rattle of the lock at the door, the grating
+of a key, and somewhat to Carrigan's surprise it was Bateese who
+came in. The half-reed bore no facial evidence of the paralyzing
+blows which had knocked him out a short time before. His jaw, on
+which they had landed, was as aggressive as ever, yet in his face
+and his attitude, as he stared curiously at Carrigan, there was no
+sign of resentment or unfriendliness. Nor did he seem to be
+ashamed. He merely stared, with the curious and rather puzzled
+eyes of a small boy gazing at an inexplicable oddity. Carrigan,
+standing before him, knew what was passing in the other's mind,
+and the humor of it brought a smile to his lips.
+
+Instantly Concombre's face split into a wide grin. "MON DIEU, w'at
+if you was on'y brother to Concombre Bateese, m'sieu. T'ink of
+zat--you--me--FRERE D'ARMES! VENTRE SAINT GRIS, but we mak' all
+fightin' men in nort' countree run lak rabbits ahead of ze fox!
+OUI, we mak' gr-r-r-eat pair, m'sieu--you, w'at knock down
+Bateese--an' Bateese, w'at keel polar bear wit hees naked hands,
+w'at pull down trees, w'at chew flint w'en hees tobacco gone."
+
+His voice had risen, and suddenly there came a laugh from outside
+the door, and Concombre cut himself short and his mouth closed
+with a snap. It was Joe Clamart who had laughed.
+
+"I w'ip heem five time, an' now I w'ip heem seex!" hissed Bateese
+in an undertone. "Two time each year I w'ip zat gargon Joe Clamart
+so he understan' w'at good fightin' man ees. An' you will w'ip
+heem, eh, m'sieu? Oui? An' I will breeng odder good fightin' mans
+for you to w'ip--all w'at Concombre Bateese has w'ipped--ten,
+dozen, forty--an' you w'ip se gran' bunch, m'sieu. Eh, shall we
+mak' ze bargain?"
+
+"You are planning a pleasant time for me, Bateese," said Carrigan,
+"but I am afraid it will be impossible. You see, this captain of
+yours, Black Roger Audemard--"
+
+"W'at!" Bateese jumped as if stung. "W'at you say, m'sieu?"
+
+"I said that Roger Audemard, Black Roger, the man I thought was
+St. Pierre Boulain--"
+
+Carrigan said no more. What he had started to say was unimportant
+compared with the effect of Roger Audernard's name on Concombre
+Bateese. A deadly light glittered in the half-breed's eyes, and
+for the first time David realized that in the grotesque head of
+the riverman was a brain quick to grip at the significance of
+things. The fact was evident that Black Roger had not confided in
+Bateese as to the price of the wager and the confession of his
+identity, and for a moment after the repetition of Audemard's name
+came from David's lips the half-breed stood as if something had
+stunned him. Then slowly, as if forcing the words in the face of a
+terrific desire that had transformed his body into a hulk of
+quivering steel, he said:
+
+"M'sieu--I come with message--from St. Pierre. You see windows--
+closed. Outside door--she locked. On bot' sides de bateau, all de
+time, we watch. You try get away, an' we keel you. Zat ees all. We
+shoot. We five mans on ze bateau, all ze day, TOUTE LA NUIT. You
+unnerstan'?"
+
+He turned sullenly, waiting for no reply, and the door opened and
+closed after him--and again came the snap of the lock outside.
+
+Steadily the bateau swept down the big river that day. There was
+no let-up in the steady creaking of the long sweep. Even in the
+swifter currents David could hear the working of it, and he knew
+he had seen the last of the more slowly moving raft. Near one of
+the partly open windows he heard two men talking just before the
+bateau shot into the Brule Point rapids. They were strange voices.
+He learned that Audemard's huge raft was made up of thirty-five
+cribs, seven abreast, and that nine times between the Point Brule
+and the Yellowknife the raft would be split up, so that each crib
+could be run through dangerous rapids by itself.
+
+That would be a big job, David assured himself. It would be slow
+work as well as hazardous, and as his own life was in no immediate
+jeopardy, he would have ample time in which to formulate some plan
+of action for himself. At the present moment, it seemed, the one
+thing for him to do was to wait--and behave himself, according to
+the half-breed's instructions. There was, when he came to think
+about it, a saving element of humor about it all. He had always
+wanted to make a trip down the Three Rivers in a bateau. And now--
+he was making it!
+
+At noon a guard brought in his dinner. He could not recall that he
+had ever seen this man before, a tall, lithe fellow built to run
+like a hound, and who wore a murderous-looking knife at his belt.
+As the door opened, David caught a glimpse of two others. They
+were business-like looking individuals, with muscles built for
+work or fight; one sitting cross-legged on the bateau deck with a
+rifle over his knees, and the other standing with a rifle in his
+hand. The man who brought his dinner wasted no time or words. He
+merely nodded, murmured a curt bonjour, and went out. And
+Carrigan, as he began to eat, did not have to tell himself twice
+that Audemard had been particular in his selection of the bateau's
+crew, and that the eyes of the men he had seen could be as keen as
+a hawk's when leveled over the tip of a rifle barrel. They meant
+business, and he felt no desire to smile in the face of them, as
+he had smiled at Concombre Bateese.
+
+It was another man, and a stranger, who brought in his supper. And
+for two hours after that, until the sun went down and gloom began
+to fall, the bateau sped down the river. It had made forty miles
+that day, he figured.
+
+It was still light when the bateau was run ashore and tied up, but
+tonight there were no singing voices or wild laughter of men whose
+hours of play-time and rest had come. To Carrigan, looking through
+his window, there was an oppressive menace about it all. The
+shadowy figures ashore were more like a death-watch than a guard,
+and to dispel the gloom of it he lighted two of the lamps in the
+cabin, whistled, drummed a simple chord he knew on the piano, and
+finally settled down to smoking his pipe. He would have welcomed
+the company of Bateese, or Joe Clamart, or one of the guards, and
+as his loneliness grew upon him there was something of
+companionship even in the subdued voices he heard occasionally
+outside. He tried to read, but the printed words jumbled
+themselves and meant nothing.
+
+It was ten o'clock, and clouds had darkened the night, when
+through his open windows he heard a shout coming from the river.
+Twice it came before it was answered from the bateau, and the
+second time Carrigan recognized it as the voice of Roger Audemard.
+A brief interval passed between that and the scraping of a canoe
+alongside, and then there was a low conversation in which even
+Audemard's great voice was subdued, and after that the grating of
+a key in the lock, and the opening of the door, and Black Roger
+came in, bearing an Indian reed basket under his arm. Carrigan did
+not rise to meet him. It was not like the coming of the old St.
+Pierre, and on Black Roger's lips there was no twist of a smile,
+nor in his eyes the flash of good-natured greeting. His face was
+darkly stern, as if he had traveled far and hard on an unpleasant
+mission, but in it there was no shadow of menace, as there had
+been in that of Concombre Bateese. It was rather the face of a
+tired man, and yet David knew what he saw was not physical
+exhaustion. Black Roger guessed something of his thought, and his
+mouth for an instant repressed a smile.
+
+"Yes, I have been having a rough time," he nodded, "This is for
+you!"
+
+He placed the basket on the table. It held half a bushel, and was
+filled to the curve of the handle. What lay in it was hidden under
+a cloth securely tied about it.
+
+"And you are responsible," he added, stretching himself in a chair
+with a gesture of weariness. "I should kill you, Carrigan. And
+instead of that I bring you good things to eat! Half the day she
+has been fussing with the things in the basket, and then insisted
+that I bring them to you. And I have brought them simply to tell
+you another thing. I am sorry for her. I think, M'sieu Carrigan,
+you will find as many tears in the basket as anything else, for
+her heart is crushed and sick because of the humiliation she
+brought upon herself this morning."
+
+He was twisting his big, rough hands, and David's own heart went
+sick as he saw the furrowed lines that had deepened in the other's
+face. Black Roger did not look at him as he went on.
+
+"Of course, she told me. She tells me everything. And if she knew
+I was telling you this, I think she would kill herself. But I want
+you to understand. She is not what you might think she is. That
+kiss came from the lips of the best woman God ever made, M'sieu
+Carrigan!"
+
+David, with the blood in him running like fire, heard himself
+answering, "I know it. She was excited, glad you had not stained
+your hands with my life--"
+
+This time Audemard smiled, but it was the smile of a man ten years
+older than he had appeared yesterday. "Don't try to answer,
+m'sieu. I only want you to know she is as pure as the stars. It
+was unfortunate, but to follow the impulse of one's heart can not
+be a sin. Everything has been unfortunate since you came. But I
+blame no one, except--"
+
+"Carmin Fanchet?"
+
+Audemard nodded. "Yes. I have sent her away. Marie-Anne is in the
+cabin on the raft now. But even Carmin I can not blame very
+greatly, m'sieu, for it is impossible to hold anything against one
+you love. Tell me if I am right? You must know. You love my Marie-
+Anne. Do you hold anything against her?"
+
+"It is unfair," protested David. "She is your wife, Audemard, is
+it possible you don't love her?"
+
+"Yes, I love her."
+
+"And Carmin Fanchet?"
+
+"I love her, too. They are so different. Yet I love them both. Is
+it not possible for a big heart like mine to do that, m'sieu?"
+
+With almost a snort David rose to his feet and stared through one
+of the windows into the darkness of the river. "Black Roger," he
+said without turning his head, "the evidence at Headquarters
+condemns you as one of the blackest-hearted murderers that ever
+lived. But that crime, to me, is less atrocious than the one you
+are committing against your own wife. I am not ashamed to confess
+I love her, because to deny it would be a lie. I love her so much
+that I would sacrifice myself--soul and body--if that sacrifice
+could give you back to her, clean and undefiled and with your hand
+unstained by the crime for which you must hang!"
+
+He did not hear Roger Audemard as he rose from his chair. For a
+moment the riverman stared at the back of David's head, and in
+that moment he was fighting to keep back what wanted to come from
+his lips in words. He turned before David faced him again, and did
+not pause until he stood at the cabin door with his hand at the
+latch. There he was partly in shadow.
+
+"I shall not see you again until you reach the Yellowknife," he
+said. "Not until then will you know--or will I know--what is going
+to happen. I think you will understand strange things then, but
+that is for the hour to tell. Bateese has explained to you that
+you must not make an effort to escape. You would regret it, and so
+would I. If you have red blood in you, m'sieu--if you would
+understand all that you cannot understand now--wait as patiently
+as you can. Bonne nuit, M'sieu Carrigan!"
+
+"Good night!" nodded David.
+
+In the pale shadows he thought a mysterious light of gladness
+illumined Black Roger's face before the door opened and closed,
+leaving him alone again.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+With the going of Black Roger also went the oppressive loneliness
+which had gripped Carrigan, and as he stood listening to the low
+voices outside, the undeniable truth came to him that he did not
+hate this man as he wanted to hate him. He was a murderer, and a
+scoundrel in another way, but he felt irresistibly the impulse to
+like him and to feel sorry for him. He made an effort to shake off
+the feeling, but a small voice which he could not quiet persisted
+in telling him that more than one good man had committed what the
+law called murder, and that perhaps he didn't fully understand
+what he had seen through the cabin window on the raft. And yet,
+when unstirred by this impulse, he knew the evidence was damning.
+
+But his loneliness was gone. With Audemard's visit had come an
+unexpected thrill, the revival of an almost feverish anticipation,
+the promise of impending things that stirred his blood as he
+thought of them. "You will understand strange things then," Roger
+Audemard had said, and something in his voice had been like a key
+unlocking mysterious doors for the first time. And then, "Wait, as
+patiently as you can!" Out of the basket on the table seemed to
+come to him a whispering echo of that same word--wait! He laid his
+hands upon it, and a pulse of life came with the imagined
+whispering. It was from Marie-Anne. It seemed as though the warmth
+of her hands were still there, and as he removed the cloth the
+sweet breath of her came to him. And then, in the next instant, he
+was trying to laugh at himself and trying equally hard to call
+himself a fool, for it was the breath of newly-baked things which
+her fingers had made.
+
+Yet never had he felt the warmth of her presence more strangely in
+his heart. He did not try to explain to himself why Roger
+Audemard's visit had broken down things which had seemed
+insurmountable an hour ago. Analysis was impossible, because he
+knew the transformation within himself was without a shred of
+reason. But it had come, and with it his imprisonment took on
+another form. Where before there had been thought of escape and a
+scheming to jail Black Roger, there filled him now an intense
+desire to reach the Yellowknife and the Chateau Boulain.
+
+It was after midnight when he went to bed, and he was up with the
+early dawn. With the first break of day the bateau men were
+preparing their breakfast. David was glad. He was eager for the
+day's work to begin, and in that eagerness he pounded on the door
+and called out to Joe Clamart that he was ready for his breakfast
+with the rest of them, but that he wanted only hot coffee to go
+with what Black Roger had brought to him in the basket.
+
+That afternoon the bateau passed Fort McMurray, and before the sun
+was well down in the west Carrigan saw the green slopes of
+Thickwood Hills and the rising peaks of Birch Mountains. He
+laughed outright as he thought of Corporal Anderson and Constable
+Frazer at Fort McMurray, whose chief duty was to watch the big
+waterway. How their eyes would pop if they could see through the
+padlocked door of his prison! But he had no inclination to be
+discovered now. He wanted to go on, and with a growing exultation
+he saw there was no intention on the part of the bateau's crew to
+loiter on the way. There was no stop at noon, and the tie-up did
+not come until the last glow of day was darkening into the gloom
+of night in the sky. For sixteen hours the bateau had traveled
+steadily, and it could not have made less than sixty miles as the
+river ran. The raft, David figured, had not traveled a third of
+the distance.
+
+The fact that the bateau's progress would bring him to Chateau
+Boulain many days, and perhaps weeks, before Black Roger and
+Marie-Anne could arrive on the raft did not check his enthusiasm.
+It was this interval between their arrivals which held a great
+speculative promise for him. In that time, if his efficiency had
+not entirely deserted him, he would surely make discoveries of
+importance.
+
+Day after day the journey continued without rest. On the fourth
+day after leaving Fort McMurray it was Joe Clamart who brought in
+David's supper, and he grunted a protest at his long hours of
+muscle-breaking labor at the sweeps. When David questioned him he
+shrugged his shoulders, and his mouth closed tight as a clam. On
+the fifth, the bateau crossed the narrow western neck of Lake
+Athabasca, slipping past Chipewyan in the night, and on the sixth
+it entered the Slave River. It was the fourteenth day when the
+bateau entered Great Slave Lake, and the second night after that,
+as dusk gathered thickly between the forest walls of the
+Yellowknife, David knew that at last they had reached the mouth of
+the dark and mysterious stream which led to the still more
+mysterious domain of Black Roger Audemard.
+
+That night the rejoicing of the bateau men ashore was that of men
+who had come out from under a strain and were throwing off its
+tension for the first time in many days. A great fire was built,
+and the men sang and laughed and shouted as they piled wood upon
+it. In the flare of this fire a smaller one was built, and kettles
+and pans were soon bubbling and sizzling over it, and a great
+coffee pot that held two gallons sent out its steam laden with an
+aroma that mingled joyously with the balsam and cedar smells in
+the air. David could see the whole thing from his window, and when
+Joe Clamart came in with supper, he found the meat they were
+cooking over the fire was fresh moose steak. As there had been no
+trading or firing of guns coming down, he was puzzled and when he
+asked where the meat had come from Joe Clamart only shrugged his
+shoulders and winked an eye, and went out singing about the
+allouette bird that had everything plucked from it, one by one.
+But David noticed there were never more than four men ashore at
+the same time. At least one was always aboard the bateau, watching
+his door and windows.
+
+And he, too, felt the thrill of an excitement working subtly
+within him, and this thrill pounded in swifter running blood when
+he saw the men about the fire jump to their feet suddenly and go
+to meet new and shadowy figures that came up indistinctly just in
+the edge of the forest gloom. There they mingled and were lost in.
+identity for a long time, and David wondered if the newcomers were
+of the people of Chateau Boulain. After that, Bateese and Joe
+Clamart and two others stamped out the fires and came over the
+plank to the bateau to sleep. David followed their example and
+went to bed.
+
+The cook fires were burning again before the gray dawn was broken
+by a tint of the sun, and when the voices of many men roused
+David, he went to his window and saw a dozen figures where last
+night there had been only four. When it grew lighter he recognized
+none of them. All were strangers. Then he realized the
+significance of their presence. The bateau had been traveling
+north, but downstream. Now it would still travel north, but the
+water of the Yellow-knife flowed south into Great Slave Lake, and
+the bateau must be towed. He caught a glimpse of the two big York
+boats a little later, and six rowers to a boat, and after that the
+bateau set out slowly but steadily upstream.
+
+For hours David was at one window or the other, with something of
+awe working inside him as he saw what they were passing through--
+and between. He fancied the water trail was like an entrance into
+a forbidden land, a region of vast and unbroken mystery, a country
+of enchantment, possibly of death, shut out from the world he had
+known. For the stream narrowed, and the forest along the shores
+was so dense he could not see into it. The tree-tops hung in a
+tangled canopy overhead, and a gloom of twilight filled the
+channel below, so that where the sun shot through, it was like
+filtered moonlight shining on black oil. There was no sound except
+the dull, steady beat of the rowers' oars, and the ripple of water
+along the sides of the bateau. The men did not sing or laugh, and
+if they talked it must have been in whispers. There was no cry of
+birds from ashore. And once David saw Joe Clamart's face as he
+passed the window, and it was set and hard and filled with the
+superstition of a man who was passing through a devil-country.
+
+And then suddenly the end of it came. A flood of sunlight burst in
+at the windows, and all at once voices came from ahead, a laugh, a
+shout, and a yell of rejoicing from the bateau, and Joe Clamart
+started again the everlasting song of the allouette bird that was
+plucked of everything it had. Carrigan found himself grinning.
+They were a queer people, these bred-in-the-blood northerners--
+still moved by the superstitions of children. Yet he conceded that
+the awesome deadness of the forest passage had put strange
+thoughts into his own heart.
+
+Before nightfall Bateese and Joe Clamart came in and tied his arms
+behind him, and he was taken ashore with the rumble of a waterfall
+in his ears. For two hours he watched the labors of the men as
+they beached the bateau on long rollers of smooth birch and rolled
+it foot by foot over a cleared trail until it was launched again
+above the waterfall. Then he was led back into the cabin and his
+arms freed. That night he went to sleep with the music of the
+waterfall in his ears.
+
+The second day the Yellowknife seemed to be no longer a river, but
+a narrow lake, and the third day the rowers came into the Nine
+Lake country at noon, and until another dusk the bateau threaded
+its way through twisting channels and impenetrable forests, and
+beached at last at the edge of a great open where the timber had
+been cut. There was more excitement here, but it was too dark for
+David to understand the meaning of it. There were many voices;
+dogs barked. Then voices were at his door, a key rattled in the
+lock, and it opened. David saw Bateese and Joe Clamart first. And
+then, to his amazement, Black Roger Audemard stood there, smiling
+at him and nodding good-evening.
+
+It was impossible for David to repress his astonishment.
+
+"Welcome to Chateau Boulain," greeted Black Roger. "You are
+surprised? Well, I beat you out by half a dozen hours--in a canoe,
+m'sieu. It is only courtesy that I should be here to give you
+welcome!"
+
+Behind him Bateese and Joe Clamart were grinning widely, and then
+both came in, and Joe Clamart picked up his dunnage-sack and threw
+it over his shoulder.
+
+"If you will come with us, m'sieu--"
+
+David followed, and when he stepped ashore there were Bateese, and
+Joe Clamart and one other behind him, and three or four shadowy
+figures ahead, with Black Roger walking at his side. There were no
+more voices, and the dog had ceased barking. Ahead was a wall of
+darkness, which was the deep black forest beyond the clearing, and
+into it led a trail which they followed. It was a path worn smooth
+by the travel of many feet, and for a mile not a star broke
+through the tree-tops overhead, nor did a flash of light break the
+utter chaos of the way but once, when Joe Clamart lighted his
+pipe. No one spoke. Even Black Roger was silent, and David found
+no word to say.
+
+At the end of the mile the trees began to open above their heads,
+and they soon came to the edge of the timber. In the darkness
+David caught his breath. Dead ahead, not a rifle shot away, was
+the Chateau Boulain. He knew it before Black Roger had said a
+word. He guessed it by the lighted windows, full a score of them,
+without a curtain drawn to shut out their illumination from the
+night. He could see nothing but these lights, yet they measured
+off a mighty place to be built of logs in the heart of a
+wilderness, and at his side he heard Black Roger chuckling in low
+exultation.
+
+"Our home, m'sieu," he said. "Tomorrow, when you see it in the
+light of day, you will say it is the finest chateau in the north--
+all built of sweet cedar where birch is not used, so that even in
+the deep snows it gives us the perfume of springtime and flowers."
+
+David did not answer, and in a moment Audemard said:
+
+"Only on Christmas and New Year and at birthdays and wedding
+feasts is it lighted up like that. Tonight it is in your honor,
+M'sieu David." Again he laughed softly, and under his breath he
+added, "And there is some one waiting for you there whom you will
+be surprised to see!"
+
+David's heart gave a jump. There was meaning in Black Roger's
+words and no double twist to what he meant. Marie-Anne had come
+ahead with her husband!
+
+Now, as they passed on to the brilliantly lighted chateau, David
+made out the indistinct outlines of other buildings almost hidden
+in the out-creeping shadows of the forest-edges, with now and then
+a ray of light to show people were in them. But there was a
+brooding silence over it all which made him wonder, for there was
+no voice, no bark of dog, not even the opening or closing of a
+door. As they drew nearer, he saw a great veranda reaching the
+length of the chateau, with screening to keep out the summer pests
+of mosquitoes and flies and the night prowling insects attracted
+by light. Into this they went, up wide birch steps, and ahead of
+them was a door so heavy it looked like the postern gate of a
+castle. Black Roger opened it, and in a moment David stood beside
+him in a dimly lighted hall where the mounted heads of wild beasts
+looked down like startled things from the gloom of the walls. And
+then David heard the low, sweet notes of a piano coming to them
+very faintly.
+
+He looked at Black Roger. A smile was on the lips of the chateau
+master; his head was up, and his eyes glowed with pride and joy as
+the music came to him. He spoke no word, but laid a hand on
+David's arm and led him toward it, while Bateese and Joe Clamart
+remained standing at the entrance to the hall. David's feet trod
+in thick rugs of fur; he saw the dim luster of polished birch and
+cedar in the walls, and over his head the ceiling was rich and
+matched, as in the bateau cabin. They drew nearer to the music and
+came to a closed door. This Black Roger opened very quietly, as if
+anxious not to disturb the one who was playing.
+
+They entered, and David held his breath. It was a great room he
+stood in, thirty feet or more from end to end, and scarcely less
+in width--a room brilliant with light, sumptuous in its comfort,
+sweet with the perfume of wild-flowers, and with a great black
+fireplace at the end of it, from over which there stared at him
+the glass eyes of a monster moose. Then he saw the figure at the
+piano, and something rose up quickly and choked him when his eyes
+told him it was not Marie-Anne. It was a slim, beautiful figure in
+a soft and shimmering white gown, and its head was glowing gold in
+the lamplight.
+
+Roger Audemard spoke, "Carmin!"
+
+The woman at the piano turned about, a little startled at the
+unexpectedness of the voice, and then rose quickly to her feet--
+and David Carrigan found himself looking into the eyes of Carmin
+Fanchet!
+
+Never had he seen her more beautiful than in this moment, like an
+angel in her shimmering dress of white, her hair a radiant glory,
+her eyes wide and glowing--and, as she looked at him, a smile
+coming to her red lips. Yes, SHE WAS SMILING AT HIM--this woman
+whose brother he had brought to the hangman, this woman who had
+stolen Black Roger from another! She knew him--he was sure of
+that; she knew him as the man who had believed her a criminal
+along with her brother, and who had fought to the last against her
+freedom. Yet from her lips and her eyes and her face the old
+hatred was gone. She was coming toward him slowly; she was
+reaching out her hand, and half blindly his own went out, and he
+felt the warmth of her fingers for a moment, and he heard her
+voice saying softly,
+
+"Welcome to Chateau Boulain, M'sieu Carrigan."
+
+He bowed and mumbled something, and Black Roger gently pressed his
+arm, drawing him back to the door. As he went he saw again that
+Carmin Fanchet was very beautiful as she stood there, and that her
+lips were very red--but her face was white, whiter than he had
+ever seen the face of a woman before.
+
+As they went up a winding stair to the second floor, Roger
+Audemard said, "I am proud of my Carmin, M'sieu David. Would any
+other woman in the world have given her hand like that to the man
+who had helped to kill her brother?"
+
+They stopped at another door. Black Roger opened it. There were
+lights within, and David knew it was to be his room. Audemard did
+not follow him inside, but there was a flashing humor in his eyes.
+
+"I say, is there another woman like her in the world, m'sieu?"
+
+"What have you done to Marie-Anne--your wife?" asked David.
+
+It was hard for him to get the words out. A terrible thing was
+gripping at his throat, and the clutch of it grew tighter as he
+saw the wild light in Black Roger's eyes.
+
+"Tomorrow you will know, m'sieu. But not to-night. You must wait
+until tomorrow,"
+
+He nodded and stepped back, and the door closed--and in the same
+instant came the harsh grating of a key in the lock.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+Carrigan turned slowly and looked about his room. There was no
+other door except one opening into a closet, and but two windows.
+Curtains were drawn at these windows, and he raised them. A grim
+smile came to his lips when he saw the white bars of tough birch
+nailed across each of them, outside the glass. He could see the
+birch had been freshly stripped of bark and had probably been
+nailed there that day. Carmin Fanchet and Black Roger had welcomed
+him to Chateau Boulain, but they were evidently taking no chances
+with their prisoner. And where was Marie-Anne?
+
+The question was insistent, and with it remained that cold grip of
+something in his heart that had come with the sight of Carmin
+Fanchet below. Was it possible that Carmin's hatred still lived,
+deadlier than ever, and that with Black Roger she had plotted to
+bring him here so that her vengeance might be more complete--and a
+greater torture to him? Were they smiling and offering him their
+hands, even as they knew he was about to die? And if that was
+conceivable, what had they done with Marie-Anne?
+
+He looked about the room. It was singularly bare, in an unusual
+sort of way, he thought. There were rich rugs on the floor--three
+magnificent black bearskins, and two wolf. The heads of two bucks
+and a splendid caribou hung against the walls. He could see, from
+marks on the floor, where a bed had stood, but this bed was now
+replaced by a couch made up comfortably for one inclined to sleep.
+The significance of the thing was clear--nowhere in the room could
+he lay his hand upon an object that might be used as a weapon!
+
+His eyes again sought the white-birch bars of his prison, and he
+raised the two windows so that the cool, sweet breath of the
+forests reached in to him. It was then that he noticed the
+mosquito-proof screening nailed outside the bars. It was rather
+odd, this thinking of his comfort even as they planned to kill
+him!
+
+If there was truth to this new suspicion that Black Roger and his
+mistress were plotting both vengeance and murder, their plans must
+also involve Marie-Anne. Suddenly his mind shot back to the raft.
+Had Black Roger turned a clever coup by leaving his wife there,
+while he came on ahead of the bateau with Carmin Fanchet? It would
+be several weeks before the raft reached the Yellowknife, and in
+that time many things might happen. The thought worried him. He
+was not afraid for himself. Danger, the combating of physical
+forces, was his business. His fear was for Marie-Anne. He had seen
+enough to know that Black Roger was hopelessly infatuated with
+Carmin Fanchet. And several things might happen aboard the raft,
+planned by agents as black-souled as himself. If they killed
+Marie-Anne--
+
+His hand gripped the knob of the door, and for a moment he was
+filled with the impulse to shout for Black Roger and face him with
+what was in his mind. And as he stood there, every muscle in his
+body ready to fight, there came to him faintly the sound of music.
+He heard the piano first, and then a woman's voice singing. Soon a
+man's voice joined the woman's, and he knew it was Black Roger,
+singing with Carmin Fanchet.
+
+Suddenly the mad impulse in his heart went out, and he leaned his
+head nearer to the crack of the door, and strained his ears to
+hear. He could make out no word of the song, yet the singing came
+to him with a thrill that set his lips apart and brought a staring
+wonder into his eyes. In the room below him, fifteen hundred miles
+from civilization, Black Roger and Carmin Fanchet were singing
+"Home, Sweet Home!"
+
+An hour later David looked through one of the barred windows upon
+a world lighted by a splendid moon. He could see the dark edge of
+the distant forest that rimmed in the chateau, and about him
+seemed to be a level meadow, with here and there the shadow of a
+building in which the lights were out. Stars were thick in the
+sky, and a strange quietness hovered over the world he looked
+upon. From below him floated up now and then a perfume of tobacco
+smoke. The guard under his window was awake, but he made no sound.
+
+A little later he undressed, put out the two lights in his room,
+and stretched himself between the cool, white sheets on the couch.
+After a time he slept, but it was a restless slumber filled with
+troubled dreams. Twice he was half awake, and the second time it
+seemed to him his nostrils sensed a sharper tang of smoke than
+that of burning tobacco, yet he did not fully rouse himself, and
+the hours passed, and new sounds and smells that rose in the night
+impinged themselves upon him only as a part of the troublous
+fabric of his dreams. But at last there came a shock, something
+which beat over these things which chained him, and seized upon
+his consciousness, demanding that he rouse himself, open his eyes,
+and get up.
+
+He obeyed the command, and before he was fully awake, found
+himself on his feet. It was still dark, but he heard voices,
+voices no longer subdued, but filled with a wild note of
+excitement and command. And what he smelled was not the smell of
+tobacco smoke! It was heavy in his room. It filled his lungs. His
+eyes were smarting with the sting of it.
+
+Then came vision, and with a startled cry he leaped to a window.
+To the north and east he looked out upon a flaming world!
+
+With his fist he rubbed his smarting eyes. The moon was gone. The
+gray he saw outside must be the coming of dawn, ghostly with that
+mist of smoke that had come into his room. He could see shadowy
+figures of men running swiftly in and out and disappearing, and he
+could hear the voices of women and children, and from beyond the
+edge of the forest to the west came the howling of many dogs. One
+voice rose above the others. It was Black Roger's, and at its
+commands little groups of figures shot out into the gray smoke-
+gloom and did not appear again.
+
+North and east the sky was flaming sullen red, and a breath of air
+blowing gently in David's face told him the direction of the wind.
+The chateau lay almost in the center of the growing line of
+conflagration.
+
+He dressed himself and went again to the window. Quite distinctly
+now, he could make out Joe Clamart under his window, running
+toward the edge of the forest at the head of half a dozen men and
+boys who carried axes and cross-cut saws over their shoulders. It
+was the last of Black Roger's people that he saw for some time in
+the open meadow, but from the front of the chateau he could hear
+many voices, chiefly of women and children, and guessed it was
+from there that the final operations against the fire were being
+directed. The wind was blowing stronger in his face. With it came
+a sharper tang of smoke, and the widening light of day was
+fighting to hold its own against the deepening pall of flame-lit
+gloom advancing with the wind.
+
+There seemed to come a low and distant sound with that wind, so
+indistinct that to David's ears it was like a murmur a thousand
+miles away. He strained his ears to hear, and as he listened,
+there came another sound--a moaning, sobbing voice below his
+window! It was grief he heard now, something that went to his
+heart and held him cold and still. The voice was sobbing like that
+of a child, yet he knew it was not a child's. Nor was it a
+woman's. A figure came out slowly in his view, humped over,
+twisted in its shape, and he recognized Andre, the Broken Man.
+David could see that he was crying like a child, and he was facing
+the flaming forests, with his arms reaching out to them in his
+moaning. Then, of a sudden, he gave a strange cry, as if defiance
+had taken the place of grief, and he hurried across the meadow and
+disappeared into the timber where a great lightning-riven spruce
+gleamed dully white through the settling veil of smoke-mist.
+
+For a space David looked after him, a strange beating in his
+heart. It was as if he had seen a little child going into the face
+of a deadly peril, and at last he shouted out for some one to
+bring back the Broken Man. But there was no answer from under his
+window. The guard was gone. Nothing lay between him and escape--if
+he could force the white birch bars from the window.
+
+He thrust himself against them, using his shoulder as a battering-
+ram. Not the thousandth part of an inch could he feel them give,
+yet he worked until his shoulder was sore. Then he paused and
+studied the bars more carefully. Only one thing would avail him,
+and that was some object which he might use as a lever.
+
+He looked about him, and not a thing was there in the room to
+answer the purpose. Then his eyes fell on the splendid horns of
+the caribou head. Black Roger's discretion had failed him there,
+and eagerly David pulled the head down from the wall. He knew the
+woodsman's trick of breaking off a horn from the skull, yet in
+this room, without log or root to help him, the task was
+difficult, and it was a quarter of an hour after he had last seen
+the Broken Man before he stood again at the window with the
+caribou horn in his hands. He no longer had to hold his breath to
+hear the low moaning in the wind, and where there had been smoke-
+gloom before there were now black clouds rolling and twisting up
+over the tops of the north and eastern forests, as if mighty
+breaths were playing with them from behind.
+
+David thrust the big end of the caribou horn between two of the
+white-birch bars, but before he had put his weight to the lever he
+heard a great voice coming round the end of the chateau, and it
+was calling for Andre, the Broken Man. In a moment it was followed
+by Black Roger Audemard, who ran under the window and faced the
+lightning-struck spruce as he shouted Andre's name again.
+
+Suddenly David called down to him, and Black Roger turned and
+looked up through the smoke-gloom, his head bare, his arms naked,
+and his eyes gleaming wildly as he listened.
+
+"He went that way twenty minutes ago," David shouted. "He
+disappeared into the forest where you see the dead spruce yonder.
+And he was crying, Black Roger--he was crying like a child."
+
+If there had been other words to finish, Black Roger would not
+have heard them. He was running toward the old spruce, and David
+saw him disappear where the Broken Man had gone. Then he put his
+weight on the horn, and one of the tough birch bars gave way
+slowly, and after that a second was wrenched loose, and a third,
+until the lower half of the window was free of them entirely. He
+thrust out his head and found no one within the range of his
+vision. Then he worked his way through the window, feet first, and
+hanging the length of arms and body from the lower sill, dropped
+to the ground.
+
+Instantly he faced the direction taken by Roger Audemard, it was
+HIS turn now, and he felt a savage thrill in his blood. For an
+instant he hesitated, held by the impulse to rush to Carmin
+Fanchet and with his fingers at her throat, demand what she and
+her paramour had done with Marie-Anne. But the mighty
+determination to settle it all with Black Roger himself
+overwhelmed that impulse like an inundation. Black Roger had gone
+into the forest. He was separated from his people, and the
+opportunity was at hand.
+
+Positive that Marie-Anne had been left with the raft, the thought
+that the Chateau Boulain might be devoured by the onrushing
+conflagration did not appal David. The chateau held little
+interest for him now. It was Black Roger he wanted. As he ran
+toward the old spruce, he picked up a club that lay in the path.
+
+This path was a faintly-worn trail where it entered the forest
+beyond the spruce, very narrow, and with brush hanging close to
+the sides of it, so that David knew it was not in general use and
+that but few feet had ever used it. He followed swiftly, and in
+five minutes came suddenly out into a great open thick with smoke,
+and here he saw why Chateau Boulain would not burn. The break in
+the forest was a clearing a rifle-shot in width, free of brush and
+grass, and partly tilled; and it ran in a semi-circle as far as he
+could see through the smoke in both directions. Thus had Black
+Roger safeguarded his wilderness castle, while providing tillable
+fields for his people; and as David followed the faintly beaten
+path, he saw green stuffs growing on both sides of him, and
+through the center of the clearing a long strip of wheat, green
+and very thick. Up and down through the fog of smoke he could hear
+voices, and he knew it was this great, circular fire-clearing the
+people of Chateau Boulain were watching and guarding.
+
+But he saw no one as he trailed across the open. In soft patches
+of the earth he found footprints deeply made and wide apart, the
+footprints of hurrying men, telling him Black Roger and the Broken
+Man were both ahead of him, and that Black Roger was running when
+he crossed the clearing.
+
+The footprints led him to a still more indistinct trail in the
+farther forest, a trail which went straight into the face of the
+fire ahead. He followed it. The distant murmur had grown into a
+low moaning over the tree-tops, and with it the wind was coming
+stronger, and the smoke thicker. For a mile he continued along the
+path, and then he stopped, knowing he had come to the dead-line.
+Over him was a swirling chaos. The fire-wind had grown into a roar
+before which the tree-tops bent as if struck by a gale, and in the
+air he breathed he could feel a swiftly growing heat. For a space
+he stood there, breathing quickly in the face of a mighty peril.
+Where had Black Roger and the Broken Man gone? What mad impulse
+could it be that dragged them still farther into the path of
+death? Or had they struck aside from the trail? Was he alone in
+danger?
+
+As if in answer to the questions there came from far ahead of him
+a loud cry. It was Black Roger's voice, and as he listened, it
+called over and over again the Broken Man's name,
+
+"Andre--Andre--Andre--"
+
+Something in the cry held Carrigan. There was a note of terror in
+it, a wild entreaty that was almost drowned in the trembling wind
+and the moaning that was in the air. David was ready to turn back.
+He had already approached too near to the red line of death, yet
+that cry of Black Roger urged him on like the lash of a whip. He
+plunged ahead into the chaos of smoke, no longer able to
+distinguish a trail under his feet. Twice again in as many minutes
+he heard Black Roger's voice, and ran straight toward it. The
+blood of the hunter rushed over all other things in his veins. The
+man he wanted was ahead of him and the moment had passed when
+danger or fear of death could drive him back. Where Black Roger
+lived, he could live, and he gripped his club and ran through the
+low brush that whipped in stinging lashes against his face and
+hands.
+
+He came to the foot of a ridge, and from the top of this he knew
+Black Roger had called. It was a huge hog's-back, rising a hundred
+feet up out of the forest, and when he reached the top of it, he
+was panting for breath. It was as if he had come suddenly within
+the blast of a hot furnace. North and east the forest lay under
+him, and only the smoke obstructed his vision. But through this
+smoke he could make out a thing that made him rub his eyes in a
+fierce desire to see more clearly. A mile away, perhaps two, the
+conflagration seemed to be splitting itself against the tip of a
+mighty wedge. He could hear the roar of it to the right of him and
+to the left, but dead ahead there was only a moaning whirlpool of
+fire-heated wind and smoke. And out of this, as he looked, came
+again the cry,
+
+"Andre--Andre--Andre!"
+
+Again he stared north and south through the smoke-gloom. Mountains
+of resinous clouds, black as ink, were swirling skyward along the
+two sides of the giant wedge. Under that death-pall the flames
+were sweeping through the spruce and cedar tops like race-horses,
+hidden from his eyes. If they closed in there could be no escape;
+in fifteen minutes they would inundate him, and it would take him
+half an hour to reach the safety of the clearing.
+
+His heart thumped against his ribs as he hurried down the ridge in
+the direction of Black Roger's voice. The giant wedge of the
+forest was not burning--yet, and Audemard was hurrying like mad
+toward the tip of that wedge, crying out now and then the name of
+the Broken Man. And always he kept ahead, until at last--a mile
+from the ridge--David came to the edge of a wide stream and saw
+what it was that made the wedge of forest. For under his eyes the
+stream split, and two arms of it widened out, and along each shore
+of the two streams was a wide fire-clearing made by the axes of
+Black Roger's people, who had foreseen this day when fire might
+sweep their world.
+
+Carrigan dashed water into his eyes, and it was warm. Then he
+looked across. The fire had passed, the pall of smoke was clearing
+away, and what he saw was the black corpse of a world that had
+been green. It was smoldering; the deep mold was afire. Little
+tongues of flame still licked at ten thousand stubs charred by the
+fire-death--and there was no wind here, and only the whisper of a
+distant moaning sweeping farther and farther away.
+
+And then, out of that waste across the river, David heard a
+terrible cry. It was Black Roger, still calling--even in that
+place of hopeless death--for Andre, the Broken Man!
+
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+Into the stream Carrigan plunged and found it only waist-deep in
+crossing. He saw where Black Roger had come out of the water and
+where his feet had plowed deep in the ash and char and smoldering
+debris ahead. This trail he followed. The air he breathed was hot
+and filled with stifling clouds of ash and char-dust and smoke.
+His feet struck red-hot embers under the ash, and he smelled
+burning leather. A forest of spruce and cedar skeletons still
+crackled and snapped and burst out into sudden tongues of flame
+about him, and the air he breathed grew hotter, and his face
+burned, and into his eyes came a smarting pain--when ahead of him
+he saw Black Roger. He was no longer calling out the Broken Man's
+name, but was crashing through the smoking chaos like a great
+beast that had gone both blind and mad. Twice David turned aside
+where Black Roger had rushed through burning debris, and a third
+time, following where Audemard had gone, his feet felt the sudden
+stab of living coals. In another moment he would have shouted
+Black Roger's name, but even as the words were on his lips,
+mingled with a gasp of pain, the giant river-man stopped where the
+forest seemed suddenly to end in a ghostly, smoke-filled space,
+and when David came up behind him, he was standing at the black
+edge of a cliff which leaped off into a smoldering valley below.
+
+Out of this narrow valley between two ridges, an hour ago choked
+with living spruce and cedar, rose up a swirling, terrifying heat.
+Down into this pit of death Black Roger stood looking, and David
+heard a strange moaning coming in his breath. His great, bare arms
+were black and scarred with heat; his hair was burned; his shirt
+was torn from his shoulders. When David spoke--and Black Roger
+turned at the sound--his eyes glared wildly out of a face that was
+like a black mask. And when he saw it was David who had spoken,
+his great body seemed to sag, and with an unintelligible cry he
+pointed down.
+
+David, staring, saw nothing with his half-blind eyes, but under
+his feet he felt a sudden giving way, and the fire-eaten tangle of
+earth and roots broke off like a rotten ledge, and with it both he
+and Black Roger went crashing into the depths below, smothered in
+an avalanche of ash and sizzling earth. At the bottom David lay
+for a moment, partly stunned. Then his fingers clutched a bit of
+living fire, and with a savage cry he staggered to his feet and
+looked to see Black Roger. For a space his eyes were blinded, and
+when at last he could see, he made out Black Roger, fifty feet
+away, dragging himself on his hands and knees through the
+blistering muck of the fire. And then, as he stared, the stricken
+giant came to the charred remnant of a stump and crumpled over it
+with a great cry, moaning again that name--
+
+"Andre--Andre--"
+
+David hurried to him, and as he put his hands under Black Roger's
+arms to help him to his feet, he saw that the charred stump was
+not a stump, but the fire-shriveled corpse of Andre, the Broken
+Man!
+
+Horror choked back speech on his own lips. Black Roger looked up
+at him, and a great breath came in a sob out of his body. Then,
+suddenly, he seemed to get grip of himself, and his burned and
+bleeding fingers closed about David's hand at his shoulder.
+
+"I knew he was coming here," he said, the words forcing themselves
+with an effort through his swollen lips. "He came home--to die."
+
+"Home--?"
+
+"Yes. His mother and father were buried here nearly thirty years
+ago, and he worshiped them. Look at him, Carrigan. Look at him
+closely. For he is the man you have wanted all these years, the
+finest man God ever made, Roger Audemard! When he saw the fire, he
+came to shield their graves from the flames. And now he is dead!"
+
+A moan came to his lips, and the weight of his body grew so heavy
+that David had to exert his strength to keep him from falling.
+
+"And YOU?" he cried. "For God's sake, Audemard--tell me--"
+
+"I, m'sieu? Why, I am only St. Pierre Audemard, his brother."
+
+And with that his head dropped heavily, and he was like a dead man
+in David's arms.
+
+How at last David came to the edge of the stream again, with the
+weight of St. Pierre Audemard on his shoulders, was a torturing
+nightmare which would never be quite clear in his brain. The
+details were obliterated in the vast agony of the thing. He knew
+that he fought as he had never fought before; that he stumbled
+again and again in the fire-muck; that he was burned, and blinded,
+and his brain was sick. But he held to St. Pierre, with his
+twisted, broken leg, knowing that he would die if he dropped him
+into the flesh-devouring heat of the smoldering debris under his
+feet. Toward the end he was conscious of St. Pierre's moaning, and
+then of his voice speaking to him. After that he came to the water
+and fell down in the edge of it with St. Pierre, and inside his
+head everything went as black as the world over which the fire had
+swept.
+
+He did not know how terribly he was hurt. He did not feel pain
+after the darkness came. Yet he sensed certain things. He knew
+that over him St. Pierre was shouting. For days, it seemed, he
+could hear nothing but that great voice bellowing away in the
+interminable distance. And then came other voices, now near and
+now far, and after that he seemed to rise up and float among the
+clouds, and for a long time he heard no other sound and felt no
+movement, but was like one dead.
+
+Something soft and gentle and comforting roused him out of
+darkness. He did not move, he did not open his eyes for a time,
+while reason came to him. He heard a voice, and it was a woman's
+voice, speaking softly, and another voice replied to it. Then he
+heard gentle movement, and some one went away from him, and he
+heard the almost noiseless opening and closing of a door. A very
+little he began to see. He was in a room, with a patch of sunlight
+on the wall. Also, he was in a bed. And that gentle, comforting
+hand was still stroking his forehead and hair, light as
+thistledown. He opened his eyes wider and looked up. His heart
+gave a great throb. Over him was a glorious, tender face smiling
+like an angel into his widening eyes. And it was the face of
+Carmin Fanchet!
+
+He made an effort, as if to speak.
+
+"Hush," she whispered, and he saw something shining in her eyes,
+and something wet fell upon his face. "She is returning--and I
+will go. For three days and nights she has not slept, and she must
+be the first to see you open your eyes."
+
+She bent over him. Her soft lips touched his forehead, and he
+heard her sobbing breath.
+
+"God bless you, David Carrigan!"
+
+Then she was going to the door, and his eyes dropped shut again.
+He began to experience pain now, a hot, consuming pain all over
+him, and he remembered the fight through the path of the fire.
+Then the door opened very softly once more, and some one came in,
+and knelt down at his side, and was so quiet that she scarcely
+seemed to breathe. He wanted to open his eyes, to cry out a name,
+but he waited, and lips soft as velvet touched his own. They lay
+there for a moment, then moved to his closed eyes, his forehead,
+his hair--and after that something rested gently against him.
+
+His eyes shot open. It was Marie-Anne, with her head nestled in
+the crook of his arm as she knelt there beside him on the floor.
+He could see only a bit of her face, but her hair was very near,
+crumpled gloriously on his breast, and he could see the tips of
+her long lashes as she remained very still, seeming not to
+breathe. She did not know he had roused from his sleep--the first
+sleep of those three days of torture which he could not remember
+now; and he, looking at her, made no movement to tell her he was
+awake. One of his hands lay over the edge of the bed, and so
+lightly he could scarce feel the weight of her fingers she laid
+one of her own upon it, and a little at a time drew it to her,
+until the bandaged thing was against her lips. It was strange she
+did not hear his heart, which seemed all at once to beat like a
+drum inside him!
+
+Suddenly he sensed the fact that his other hand was not bandaged.
+He was lying on his side, with his right arm partly under him, and
+against that hand he felt the softness of Marie-Anne's cheek, the
+velvety crush of her hair!
+
+And then he whispered, "Marie-Anne--"
+
+She still lay, for a moment, utterly motionless. Then, slowly, as
+if believing he had spoken her name in his sleep, she raised her
+head and looked into his wide-open eyes. There was no word between
+them in that breath or two. His bandaged hand and his well hand
+went to her face and hair, and then a sobbing cry came from Marie-
+Anne, and swiftly she crushed her face down to his, holding him
+close with both her arms for a moment. And after that, as on that
+other day when she kissed him after the fight, she was up and gone
+so quickly that her name had scarcely left his lips when the door
+closed behind her, and he heard her running down the hall.
+
+He called after her, "Marie-Anne! Marie-Anne!"
+
+He heard another door, and voices, and quick footsteps again,
+coming his way, and he was waiting eagerly, half on his elbow,
+when into his room came Nepapinas and Carmin Fanchet. And again he
+saw the glory of something in the woman's face.
+
+His eyes must have burned strangely as he stared at her, but it
+did not change that light in her own, and her hands were
+wonderfully gentle as she helped Nepapinas raise him so that he
+was sitting up straight, with pillows at his back.
+
+"It doesn't hurt so much now, does it?" she asked, her voice low
+with a mothering tenderness.
+
+He shook his head. "No. What is the matter?"
+
+"You were burned--terribly. For two days and nights you were in
+great pain, but for many hours you have been sleeping, and
+Nepapinas says the burns will not hurt any more. If it had not
+been for you--"
+
+She bent over him. Her hand touched his face, and now he began to
+understand the meaning of that glory shining in her eyes.
+
+"If it hadn't been for you--he would have died!"
+
+She drew back, turning to the door. "He is coming to see you--
+alone," she said, a little broken note in her throat. "And I pray
+God you will see with clear understanding, David Carrigan--and
+forgive me--as I have forgiven you--for a thing that happened long
+ago."
+
+He waited. His head was in a jumble, and his thoughts were
+tumbling over one another in an effort to evolve some sort of
+coherence out of things amazing and unexpected. One thing was
+impressed upon him--he had saved St. Pierre's life, and because he
+had done this Carmin Fanchet was very tender to him. She had
+kissed him, and Marie-Anne had kissed him, and--
+
+A strange dawning was coming to him, thrilling him to his finger-
+tips. He listened. A new sound was approaching from the hall. His
+door was opened, and a wheel-chair was rolled in by old Nepapinas.
+In the chair was St. Pierre Audemard. Feet and hands and arms were
+wrapped in bandages, but his face was uncovered and wreathed in
+smiling happiness when he saw David propped up against his
+pillows. Nepapinas rolled him close to the bed and then shuffled
+out, and as he closed the door, David was sure he heard the
+subdued whispering of feminine voices down the hall.
+
+"How are you, David?" asked St. Pierre.
+
+"Fine," nodded Carrigan. "And you?"
+
+"A bit scorched, and a broken leg." He held up his padded hands.
+"Would be dead if you hadn't carried me to the river. Carmin says
+she owes you her life for having saved mine."
+
+"And Marie-Anne?"
+
+"That's what I've come to tell you about," said St. Pierre. "The
+instant they knew you were able to listen, both Carmin and Marie-
+Anne insisted that I come and tell you things. But if you don't
+feel well enough to hear me now--"
+
+"Go on!" almost threatened David.
+
+The look of cheer which had illumined St. Pierre's face faded
+away, and David saw in its place the lines of sorrow which had
+settled there. He turned his gaze toward a window through which
+the afternoon sun was coming, and nodded slowly.
+
+"You saw--out there. He's dead. They buried him in a casket made
+of sweet cedar. He loved the smell of that. He was like a little
+child. And once--a long time ago--he was a splendid man, a greater
+and better man than St. Pierre, his brother, will ever be. What he
+did was right and just, M'sieu David. He was the oldest--sixteen--
+when the thing happened. I was only nine, and didn't fully
+understand. But he saw it all--the death of our father because a
+powerful factor wanted my mother. And after that he knew how and
+why our mother died, but not a word of it did he tell us until
+years later--after the day of vengeance was past.
+
+"You understand, David? He didn't want me in that. He did it
+alone, with good friends from the upper north. He killed the
+murderers of our mother and father, and then he buried himself
+deeper into the forests with us, and we took our mother's family
+names which was Boulain, and settled here on the Yellowknife.
+Roger--Black Roger, as you know him--brought the bones of our
+father and mother and buried them over in the edge of that plain
+where he died and where our first cabin stood. Five years ago a
+falling tree crushed him out of shape, and his mind went at the
+same time, so that he has been like a little child, and was always
+seeking for Roger Audemard--the man he once was. That was the man
+your law wanted. Roger Audemard. Our brother,"
+
+"OUR brother," cried David. "Who is the other?"
+
+"My sister."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Marie-Anne."
+
+"Good God!" choked David. "St. Pierre, do you lie? Is this another
+bit of trickery?"
+
+"It is the truth," said St. Pierre. "Marie-Anne is my sister, and
+Carmin--whom you saw in my arms through the cabin window--"
+
+He paused, smiling into David's staring eyes, taking full measure
+of recompense in the other's heart-breaking attitude as he waited.
+"--Is my wife, M'sieu David."
+
+A great gasp of breath came out of Carrigan.
+
+"Yes, my wife, and the greatest-hearted woman that ever lived,
+without one exception in all the world!" cried St. Pierre, a
+fierce pride in his voice. "It was she, and not Marie-Anne, who
+shot you on that strip of sand, David Carrigan! Mon Dieu, I tell
+you not one woman in a million would have done what she did--let
+you live! Why? Listen, m'sieu, and you will understand at last.
+She had a brother, years younger than she, and to that brother she
+was mother, sister, everything, because they had no parents almost
+from babyhood. She worshiped him. And he was bad. Yet the worse he
+became, the more she loved him and prayed for him. Years ago she
+became my wife, and I fought with her to save the brother. But he
+belonged to the devil hand and foot, and at last he left us and
+went south, and became what he was when you were sent out to get
+him, Sergeant Carrigan. It was then that my wife went down to make
+a last fight to save him, to bring him back, and you know how she
+made that fight, m'sieu--until the day you hanged him!"
+
+St. Pierre was leaning from his chair, his face ablaze. "Tell me,
+did she not fight?" he cried. "And YOU, until the last--did you
+not fight to have her put behind prison bars with her brother?"
+
+"Yes, it is so," murmured Carrigan.
+
+"She hated you," went on St. Pierre. "You hanged her brother, who
+was almost a part of her flesh and body. He was bad, but he had
+been hers from babyhood, and a mother will love her son if he is a
+devil. And then--I won't take long to tell the rest of it! Through
+friends she learned that you, who had hanged her brother, were on
+your way to run down Roger Audemard. And Roger Audemard, mind you,
+was the same as myself, for I had sworn to take my brother's place
+if it became necessary. She was on the bateau with Marie-Anne when
+the messenger came. She had but one desire--to save me--to kill
+you. If it had been some other man, but it was you, who had hanged
+her brother! She disappeared from the bateau that day with a
+rifle. You know, M'sieu David, what happened. Marie-Anne heard the
+shooting and came--alone--just as you rolled out in the sand as if
+dead. It was she who ran out to you first, while my Carmin
+crouched there with her rifle, ready to send another bullet into
+you if you moved. It was Marie-Anne you saw standing over you, it
+was she who knelt down at your side, and then--"
+
+St. Pierre paused, and he smiled, and then grimaced as he tried to
+rub his two bandaged hands together. "David, fate mixes things up
+in a funny way. My Carmin came out and stood over you, hating you;
+and Marie-Anne knelt down there at your side, loving you. Yes, it
+is true. And over you they fought for life or death, and love won,
+because it is always stronger than hate. Besides, as you lay there
+bleeding and helpless, you looked different to my Carmin than as
+you did when you hanged her brother. So they dragged you up under
+a tree, and after that they plotted together and planned, while I
+was away up the river on the raft. The feminine mind works
+strangely, M'sieu David, and perhaps it was that thing we call
+intuition which made them do what they did. Marie-Anne knew it
+would never do for you to see and recognize my Carmin, so in their
+scheming of things she insisted on passing herself off as my wife,
+while my Carmin came back in a canoe to meet me. They were
+frightened, and when I came, the whole thing had gone too far for
+me to mend, and I knew the false game must be played out to the
+end. When I saw what was happening--that you loved Marie-Anne so
+well that you were willing to fight for her honor even when you
+thought she was my wife--I was sure it would all end well. But I
+could take no chances until I knew. And so there were bars at your
+windows, and--"
+
+St. Pierre shrugged his shoulders, and the lines of grief came
+into his face again, and in his voice was a little break as he
+continued: "If Roger had not gone out there to fight back the
+flames from the graves of his dead, I had planned to tell you as
+much as I dared, M'sieu David, and I had faith that your love for
+our sister would win. I did not tell you on the river because I
+wanted you to see with your own eyes our paradise up here, and I
+knew you would not destroy it once you were a part of it. And so I
+could not tell you Carmin was my wife, for that would have
+betrayed us--and--besides--that fight of yours against a love
+which you thought was dishonest interested me very much, for I saw
+in it a wonderful test of the man who might become my brother if
+he chose wisely between love and what he thought was duty. I loved
+you for it, even when you sat me there on the sand like a silly
+loon. And now, even my Carmin loves you for bringing me out of the
+fire--But you are not listening!"
+
+David was looking past him toward the door, and St. Pierre smiled
+when he saw the look that was in his face.
+
+"Nepapinas!" he called loudly. "Nepapinas!"
+
+In a moment there was shuffling of feet outside, and Nepapinas
+came in. St. Pierre held out his two great, bandaged hands, and
+David met them with his own, one bandaged and one free. Not a word
+was spoken between them, but their eyes were the eyes of men
+between whom had suddenly come the faith and understanding of a
+brotherhood as strong as life itself.
+
+Then Nepapinas wheeled St. Pierre from the room and David
+straightened himself against his pillows, and waited, and
+listened, until it seemed two hearts were thumping inside him in
+the place of one.
+
+It was an interminable time, he thought, before Marie-Anne stood
+in the doorway. For a breath she paused there, looking at him as
+he stretched out his bandaged arm to her, moved by every yearning
+impulse in her soul to come in, yet ready as a bird to fly away.
+And then, as he called her name, she ran to him and dropped upon
+her knees at his side, and his arms went about her, insensible to
+their hurt--and her hot face was against his neck, and his lips
+crushed in the smothering sweetness of her hair. He made no effort
+to speak, beyond that first calling of her name. He could feel her
+heart throbbing against him, and her hands tightened at his
+shoulders, and at last she raised her glorious face so near that
+the breath of it was on his lips. Then, seeing what was in his
+eyes, her soft mouth quivered in a little smile, and with a broken
+throb in her throat she whispered,
+
+"Has it all ended--right--David?"
+
+He drew the red mouth to his own, and with a glad cry which was no
+word in itself he buried his face in the lustrous tresses he
+loved. Afterward he could not remember all it was that he said,
+but at the end Marie-Anne had drawn a little away so that she was
+looking at him, her eyes shining gloriously and her cheeks
+beautiful as the petals of a wild rose. And he could see the
+throbbing in her white throat, like the beating of a tiny heart.
+
+"And you'll take me with you?" she whispered joyously.
+
+"Yes; and when I show you to the old man--Superintendent Me Vane,
+you know--and tell him you're my wife, he can't go back on his
+promise. He said if I settled this Roger Audemard affair, I could
+have anything I might ask for. And I'll ask for my discharge, I
+ought to have it in September, and that will give us time to
+return before the snow flies. You see--"
+
+He held out his arms again. "You see," he cried, his face
+smothered in her hair again, "I've found the place of my dreams up
+here, and I want to stay--always. Are you a little glad, Marie-
+Anne?"
+
+In a great room at the end of the hall, with windows opening in
+three directions upon the wilderness, St. Pierre waited in his
+wheel-chair, grunting uneasily now and then at the long time it
+was taking Carmin to discover certain things out in the hall.
+Finally he heard her coming, tiptoeing very quietly from the
+direction of David Carrigan's door, and St. Pierre chuckled and
+tried to rub his bandaged hands when she came in, her face pink
+and her eyes shining with the greatest thrill that can stir a
+feminine heart.
+
+"If we'd only known," he tried to whisper, "I would have had the
+keyhole made larger, Cherie! He deserves it for having spied on us
+at the cabin window. But--tell me!--Could you see? Did you hear?
+What--"
+
+Carmin's soft hand went over his mouth. "In another moment you'll
+be shouting," she warned. "Maybe I didn't see, and maybe I didn't
+hear, Big Bear--but I know there are four very happy people in
+Chateau Boulain. And now, if you want to guess who is the
+happiest--"
+
+"I am, chere-coeur."
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, then, if you insist--YOU are."
+
+"Yes. And the next?"
+
+St. Pierre chuckled. "David Carrigan," he said.
+
+"No, no, no! If you mean that--"
+
+"I mean--always--that I am second, unless you will ever let me be
+first," corrected St. Pierre, kissing the hand that was gently
+stroking his cheek.
+
+And then he leaned his great head back against her where she stood
+behind him, and Carmin's fingers ran where his hair was crisp with
+the singe of fire, and for a long time they said no other word,
+but let their eyes rest upon the dim length of the hall at the far
+end of which was David Carrigan's room.
+
+
+
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Flaming Forest, by James Oliver Curwood
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+End of Project Gutenberg's The Flaming Forest, by James Oliver Curwood
+
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