olster as Bateese bent over him. He
tried to smile at the woman to thank her for her solicitude--after
having nearly killed him. There was an increasing glow in the night,
and he began to see her more plainly. Out on the middle of the river
was a silvery bar of light. The moon was coming up, a little pale as
yet, but triumphant in the fact that clouds had blotted out the sun an
hour before his time. Between this bar of light and himself he saw the
head of Bateese. It was a wild, savage-looking head, bound
pirate-fashion round the forehead with a huge Hudson's Bay kerchief.
Bateese might have been old Jack Ketch himself bending over to give the
final twist to a victim's neck. His long arms slipped under David.
Gently and without effort he raised him to his feet. And then, as
easily as he might have lifted a child, he trundled him up in his arms
and walked off with him over the sand.

Carrigan had not expected this. He was a little shocked and felt also
the impropriety of the thing. The idea of being lugged off like a baby
was embarrassing, even in the presence of the one who had deliberately
put him in his present condition. Bateese did the thing with such
beastly ease. It was as if he was no more than a small boy, a runt with
no weight whatever, and Bateese was a man. He would have preferred to
stagger along on his own feet or creep on his hands and knees, and he
grunted as much to Bateese on the way to the canoe. He felt, at the
same time, that the situation owed him something more of discussion and
explanation. Even now, after half killing him, the woman was taking a
rather high-handed advantage of him. She might at least have assured
him that she had made a mistake and was sorry. But she did not speak to
him again. She said nothing more to Bateese, and when the half-breed
deposited him in the midship part of the canoe, facing the bow, she
stood back in silence. Then Bateese brought his pack and rifle, and
wedged the pack in behind him so that he could sit upright. After that,
without pausing to ask permission, he picked up the woman and carried
her through the shallow water to the bow, saving her the wetting of her
feet.

As she turned to find her paddle her face was toward David, and for a
moment she was looking at him.

"Do you mind telling me who you are, and where we are going?" he asked.

"I am Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain," she said. "My brigade is down the
river, M'sieu Carrigan."

He was amazed at the prom