rigan! 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 lo