hat pennon
was known. Yet it was not common. Seldom was it seen, and never had it
come south of Chipewyan. Many things came to Carrigan now, things that
he had heard at the Landing and up and down the rivers. Once he had
read the tail-end of a report the Superintendent of "N" Division had
sent in to headquarters.

"We do not know this St. Pierre. Few men have seen him out of his own
country, the far headwaters of the Yellowknife, where he rules like a
great overlord. Both the Yellowknives and the Dog Ribs call him KICHEOO
KIMOW, or King, and the same rumors say there is never starvation or
plague in his regions; and it is fact that neither the Hudson's Bay nor
Revillon Brothers in their cleverest generalship and trade have been
able to uproot his almost dynastic jurisdiction. The Police have had no
reason to investigate or interfere."

At least that was the gist of what Carrigan had read in McVane's
report. But he had never associated it with the name of Boulain. It was
of St. Pierre that he had heard stories, St. Pierre and his black
pennon with its white bear and fighting wolves. And so--it was St.
Pierre BOULAIN!

He closed his eyes and thought of the long winter weeks he had passed
at Hay River Post, watching for Fanchet, the mail robber. It was there
he had heard most about this St. Pierre, and yet no one he had talked
with had ever seen him; no one knew whether he was old or young, a
pigmy or a giant. Some stories said that he was strong, that he could
twist a gun-barrel double in his hands; others said that he was old,
very old, so that he never set forth with his brigades that brought
down each year a treasure of furs to be exchanged for freight. And
never did a Dog Rib or a Yellowknife open his mouth about KICHEOO KIMOW
St. Pierre, the master of their unmapped domains. In that great country
north and west of the Great Slave he remained an enigma and a sphinx.
If he ever came out with his brigades, he did not disclose his
identity, so that if one saw a fleet of boats or canoes with the St.
Pierre pennon, one had to make his own guess whether St. Pierre himself
was there or not. But these things were known--that the keenest,
quickest, and strongest men in the northland ran the St. Pierre
brigades, that they brought out the richest cargoes of furs, and that
they carried back with them into the secret fastnesses of their
wilderness the greatest cargoes of freight that treasure could buy. So
much the name St. Pi