ou, 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 ther