ame 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