t 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 Car