queline," I said.

"No can save him," he answered. "No can fight against Simon."

"What, in the devil's name, is his power, then?" I cried.

"_Le diable_," he replied. He may have misunderstood me, but the
answer was apt. "No use fight him," he said. "All finish now. Old
times, him finish, and my gal, too. Soon Pierre Caribou, him finish.
No can fight Simon. Perhaps old Pierre kill him, nobody else." He
looked steadily at me. "I poison him dogs," he added.

"What?" I exclaimed.

"Simon, him tell me long ago nobody come to _chateau_. So you finish,
too, maybe. What he tell you, you go?"

"Lacroix is going to take me to Pere Antoine's cabin to-morrow
morning," I answered.

The Indian grunted. "Simon no mean to let you go," he said. "He mean
kill you. You know too much. Sometime he kill me, too, or I kill him.
Once I live in old _chateau_ at St. Boniface with old M'sieur Duchaine.
Good days then, not like how. Hunt plenty game. Fine people come from
Quebec, not like Simon. M'sieur Charles small boy then. All finish
now."

"Pierre," I said, taking him by the arm, "what is the Old Angel--_le
Vieil Ange_?"

He stared stolidly at me.

"Why you ask that?" he said.

"Because Lacroix has been instructed to take me by that route," I
answered.

Pierre said not a word, but smoked in silence. I sat upon the couch
waiting. His face was quite impassive, but I knew that my question was
of tremendous import to me.

At last he shook the ashes out of his pipe and rose. "Come with me,"
he said. "I show you--because you frien' of Ma'm'selle Jacqueline.
Come."

I followed him out of the hut. A large moon was just rising out of the
east, but it was not yet high enough to cast much light.

Still Pierre seemed in deadly terror of Simon, for he motioned me to
creep, as he was creeping, out of the enclosure, bending low beside the
fence, so that a watcher from the _chateau_ might not detect our
silhouettes against the snow-covered lake.

When we were clear of the _chateau_, or, rather, the lit portion of it,
Pierre began to run swiftly, still in a crouching position, and in this
way we gained the tunnel entrance.

He took me by the arm, for it was too dark for me to follow him by
sight, and we traversed, perhaps, a mile of outer blackness. Then I
began to see a gleam of moonlight in front of me, and, though I had not
been conscious of making any turn, I discovered that we must have
retraced our cour