The two canoes were drawing near, and in one of them were two men, and in the other three, and David knew that—­like Joe Clamart—­ they were watchers set over him by St. Pierre.  Then a fourth canoe left the far shore, and when it had reached mid-stream, he recognized the figure in the stern as that of Andre, the Broken Man.  The other, he thought, must be St. Pierre.

He went back into the cabin and stood where Marie-Anne had stood—­ at the window.  Nepapinas had not taken away the basins of water, and the bandages were still there, and the pile of medicated cotton, and the suspiciously made-up bed.  After all, he was losing something by not occupying the bed—­and yet if St. Pierre or Bateese had messed him up badly, and a couple of fellows had lugged him in between them, it was probable that Marie-Anne would not have kissed him.  And that kiss of St. Pierre’s wife would remain with him until the day he died!

He was thinking of it, the swift, warm thrill of her velvety lips, red as strawberries and twice as sweet, when the door opened and St. Pierre came in.  The sight of him, in this richest moment of his life, gave David no sense of humiliation or shame.  Between him and St. Pierre rose swiftly what he had seen last night—­Carmin Fanchet in all the lure of her disheveled beauty, crushed close in the arms of the man whose wife only a moment before had pressed her lips close to his; and as the eyes of the two met, there came over him a desire to tell the other what had happened, that he might see him writhe with the sting of the two-edged thing with which he was playing.  Then he saw that even that would not hurt St. Pierre, for the chief of the Boulains, standing there with the big lump over his eye, had caught sight of the things on the table and the nicely turned down bed, and his one good eye lit up with sudden laughter, and his white teeth flashed in an understanding smile.

“Tonnerre, I said she would nurse you with gentle hands,” he rumbled.  “See what you have missed, M’sieu Carrigan!”

“I received something which I shall remember longer than a fine nursing,” retorted David.  “And yet right now I have a greater interest in knowing what you think of the fight, St. Pierre—­and if you have come to pay your wager.”

St. Pierre was chuckling mysteriously in his throat.  “It was splendid—­splendid,” he said, repeating Marie-Anne’s words.  “And Joe Clamart says she ran out, blushing like a red rose in August, and that she said no word, but flew like a bird into the white-birch ashore!”

“She was dismayed because I beat you, St. Pierre.”

“Non, non—­she was like a lark filled with joy.”

Suddenly his eyes rested on the binoculars.

David nodded.  “Yes, she saw it all through the glasses.”

St. Pierre seated himself at the table and heaved out a groan as he took one of the bandage strips between his fingers.  “She saw my disgrace.  And she didn’t wait to bandage me up, did she?”