'Bella, who did it?' And she say, 'Him, him, him. St. Vincha,
him do it.' And then"--La Flitche's head felt limply forward on his
chest, and came back naturally erect, as he finished, with a flash of
teeth, "Dead."

The warm-faced man, Bill Brown, put the quarter-breed through the
customary direct examination, which served to strengthen his testimony
and to bring out the fact that a terrible struggle must have taken
place in the killing of Borg. The heavy table was smashed, the stool
and the bunk-board splintered, and the stove over-thrown. "Never did I
see anything like it," La Flitche concluded his description of the
wreck. "No, never."

Brown turned him over to Frona with a bow, which a smile of hers paid
for in full. She did not deem it unwise to cultivate cordiality with
the lawyer. What she was working for was time--time for her father to
come, time to be closeted with St. Vincent and learn all the details of
what really had occurred. So she put questions, questions,
interminable questions, to La Flitche. Twice only did anything of
moment crop up.

"You spoke of the first shot, Mr. La Flitche. Now, the walls of a log
cabin are quite thick. Had your door been closed, do you think you
could have heard that first shot?"

He shook his head, though his dark eyes told her he divined the point
she was endeavoring to establish.

"And had the door of Borg's cabin been closed, would you have heard?"

Again he shook his head.

"Then, Mr. La Flitche, when you say the first shot, you do not mean
necessarily the first shot fired, but rather the first shot you heard
fired?"

He nodded, and though she had scored her point she could not see that
it had any material bearing after all.

Again she worked up craftily to another and stronger climax, though she
felt all the time that La Flitche fathomed her.

"You say it was very dark, Mr. La Flitche?"

"Ah, oui; quite dark."

"How dark? How did you know it was John you met?"

"John make much noise when he run. I know that kind of noise."

"Could you see him so as to know that it was he?"

"Ah, no."

"Then, Mr. La Flitche," she demanded, triumphantly, "will you please
state how you knew there was blood on the hands of Mr. St. Vincent?"

His lip lifted in a dazzling smile, and he paused a moment. "How? I
feel it warm on his hands. And my nose--ah, the smoke of the hunter
camp long way off, the hole where the rabbit hide, the track of the
moose whi