David smiled back at him coldly.  He recognized the cleverness of the other’s play.  St. Pierre was a man who would smile like that even as he fought, and Carrigan loved a smiling fighter, even when he had to slip steel bracelets over his wrists.

“I am Sergeant Carrigan, of ‘N’ Division, Royal Northwest Mounted Police,” he said, repeating the formula of the law.  “Sit down, St. Pierre, and I will tell you a few things that have happened.  And then—­”

“Non, non, it is not necessary, m’sieu.  I have already listened for an hour, and I do not like to hear a story twice.  You are of the Police.  I love the Police.  They are brave men, and brave men are my brothers.  You are out after Roger Audemard, the rascal!  Is it not so?  And you were shot at behind the rock back there.  You were almost killed.  Ma foi, and it was my Jeanne who did the shooting!  Yes, she thought you were another man.”  The chuckling, drum-like note of laughter came again out of St. Pierre’s great chest.  “It was bad shooting.  I have taught her better, but the sun was blinding there in the hot, white sand.  And after that—­I know everything that has happened.  Bateese was wrong.  I shall scold him for wanting to put you at the bottom of the river—­perhaps.  Oui, ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut—­that is it.  A woman must have her way, and my Jeanne’s gentle heart was touched because you were a brave and handsome man, M’sieu Carrigan.  But I am not jealous.  Jealousy is a worm that does not make friendship!  And we shall be friends.  Only as a friend could I take you to the Chateau Boulain, far up on the Yellowknife.  And we are going there.”

In spite of what might have been the entirely proper thing to do at this particular moment, Carrigan’s face broke into a smile as he drew a second chair up close to the table.  He was swift to readjust himself.  It came suddenly back to him how he had grinned behind the rock, when death seemed close at hand.  And St. Pierre was like that now.  David measured him again as the chief of the Boulains sat down opposite him.  Such a man could not be afraid of anything on the face of the earth, even of the Law.  The gleam that lay in his eyes told David that as they met his own over the table.  “We are smiling now because it happens to please us,” David read in them.  “But in a moment, if it is necessary, we shall fight.”

Carrigan leaned a little over the table.  “You know we are not going to the Chateau Boulain, St. Pierre,” he said.  “We are going to stop at Fort McMurray, and there you and your wife must answer for a number of things that have happened.  There is one way out—­ possibly.  That is largely up to you.  Why did your wife try to kill me behind the rock?  And what did you know about Black Roger Audemard?”

St. Pierre’s eyes did not for an instant leave Carrigan’s face.  Slowly a change came into them; the smile faded, the blue went out, and up from behind seemed to come another pair of eyes that were hard as steel and cold as ice.  Yet they were not eyes that threatened, nor eyes that betrayed excitement or passion.  And St. Pierre’s voice, when he spoke, lacked the deep and vibrant note that had been in it.  It was as if he had placed upon it the force of a mighty will, chaining it back, just as something hidden and terrible lay chained behind his eyes.