p when he had anticipated an
entirely different sort of meeting. And St. Pierre was laughing at him!
There was no doubt of that. And he had the colossal nerve to tell him
that he had been unfortunate, as though being shot up by somebody's
wife was a fairly decent joke!

Carrigan's attitude did not change. He did not reach out a hand to meet
the other. There was no responsive glimmer of humor in his eyes or on
his lips. And seeing these things, St. Pierre turned his extended hand
to the open box of cigars, so that he stood for a moment with his back
toward him.

"It's funny," he said, as if speaking to himself, and with only a
drawling note of the French patois in his voice. "I come home, find my
Jeanne in a terrible mix-up, a stranger in her room--and the stranger
refuses to let me laugh or shake hands with him. Tonnerre, I say it is
funny! And my Jeanne saved his life, and made him muffins, and gave him
my own bed, and walked with him in the forest! Ah, the ungrateful
cochon!"

He turned, laughing openly, so that his deep voice filled the cabin.
"Vous aves de la corde de pendu, m'sieu--yes, you are a lucky dog! For
only one other man in the world would my Jeanne have done that. You are
lucky because you were not ended behind the rock; you are lucky because
you are not at the bottom of the river; you are lucky--"

He shrugged his big shoulders hopelessly. "And now, after all our
kindness and your good luck, you wait for me like an enemy, m'sieu.
Diable, I can not understand!"

For the life of him Carrigan could not, in these few moments, measure
up his man. He had said nothing. He had let St. Pierre talk. And now
St. Pierre stood there, one of the finest men he had ever looked upon,
as if honestly overcome by a great wonder. And yet behind that apparent
incredulity in his voice and manner David sensed the deep underflow of
another thing. St. Pierre was all that Marie-Anne had claimed for him,
and more. She had given him assurance of her unlimited confidence that
her husband could adjust any situation in the world, and Carrigan
conceded that St. Pierre measured up splendidly to that particular type
of man. The smile had not left his face; the good humor was still in
his eyes.

David smiled back at him coldly. He recognized the cleverness of the
other's play. St. Pierre was a man who would smile like that even as he
fought, and Carrigan loved a smiling fighter, even when he had to slip
steel bracelets over his wri