And now St. Pierre was smiling again, as Carrigan faced him, stripped to the waist.  He betrayed no sign of the tempest of passion that had swept him a few minutes before.  His cool, steely eyes had in them a look that was positively friendly, as Concombre Bateese marked in the hard sand the line of the circle within which no man might come.  And as he did this and St. Pierre’s people crowded close about it, St. Pierre himself spoke in a low voice to David.

“M’sieu, it seems a shame that we should fight.  I like you.  I have always loved a man who would fight to protect a woman, and I shall be careful not to hurt you more than is necessary to make you see reason—­and to win the wagers.  So you need not be afraid of my killing you, as Bateese might have done.  And I promise not to destroy your beauty, for the sake of—­the lady in the bateau.  My Carmin, if she knew you spied through her window last night, would say kill you with as little loss of time as possible, for as regards you her sweet disposition was spoiled when you hung her brother, m’sieu.  Yet to me she is an angel!”

Contempt for the man who spoke of his wife and the infamous Carmin Fanchet in the same breath drew a sneer to Carrigan’s lips.  He nodded toward the waiting circle of men.

“They are ready for the show, St. Pierre.  You talk big.  Now let us see if you can fight.”

For another moment St. Pierre hesitated.  “I am so sorry, m’sieu—­

“Are you ready, St. Pierre?”

“It is not fair, and she will never forgive me.  You are no match for me.  I am half again as heavy.”

“And as big a coward as you are a scoundrel, St. Pierre.”

“It is like a man fighting a boy.”

“Yet it is less dishonorable than betraying the woman who is your wife for another who should have been hanged along with her brother, St. Pierre.”

Boulain’s face darkened.  He drew back half a dozen steps and cried out a word to Bateese.  Instantly the circle of waiting men grew tense as the half-breed jerked the big handkerchief from his head and held it out at arm’s length.  Yet, with that eagerness for the fight there was something else which Carrigan was swift to sense.  The attitude of the watchers was not one of uncertainty or of very great expectation, in spite of the staring faces and the muscular tightening of the line.  He knew what was passing in their minds and in the low whispers from lip to lip.  They were pitying him.  Now that he stood stripped, with only a few paces between him and the giant figure of St. Pierre, the unfairness of the fight struck home even to Concombre Bateese.  Only Carrigan himself knew how like tempered steel the sinews of his body were built.  But to the eye, in size alone, he stood like a boy before St. Pierre.  And St. Pierre’s people, their voices stilled by the deadly inequality of it, were waiting for a slaughter and not a fight.

A smile came to Carrigan’s lips as he saw Bateese hesitating to drop the handkerchief, and with the swiftness of the trained fighter he made his first plan for the battle before the cloth fell from the half-breed’s fingers, As the handkerchief fluttered to the ground, he faced St. Pierre, the smile gone.