-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