The Flaming Forest Part 20

"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, blus.h.i.+ng like a red rose in August, and that she said no word, but flew like a bird into the white-birch ash.o.r.e!"

"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 gla.s.ses."

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?"

"Perhaps she thought Carmin Fanchet would do that, St. Pierre."

"And I am ashamed to go to Carmin--with this great lump over my eye, m'sieu. And on top of that disgrace--you insist that I pay the wager?"

"I do."

St. Pierre's face hardened.

"OUI, I am to pay. I am to tell you all I know about that BETE NOIR--Black Roger Audemard. Is it not so?"

"That is the wager."

"But after I have told you--what then? Do you recall that I gave you any other guarantee, M'sieu Carrigan? Did I say I would let you go? Did I promise I would not kill you and sink your body to the bottom of the river? If I did, I can not remember."

"Are you a beast, St. Pierre--a murderer as well as--"

"Stop! Do not tell me again what you saw through the window, for it has nothing to do with this. I am not a beast, but a man. Had I been a beast, I should have killed you the first day I saw you in this cabin.

I am not threatening to kill you, and yet it may be necessary if you insist that I pay the wager. You understand, m'sieu. To refuse to pay a wager is a greater crime among my people than the killing of a man, if there is a good reason for the killing. I am helpless. I must pay, if you insist. Before I pay it is fair that I give you warning."

"You mean?"

"I mean nothing, as yet. I can not say what it will be necessary for me to do, after you have heard what I know about Roger Audemard. I am quite settled on a plan just now, m'sieu, but the plan might change at any moment. I am only warning you that it is a great hazard, and that you are playing with a fire of which you know nothing, because it has not burned you yet."

Carrigan seated himself slowly in a chair opposite St. Pierre, with the table between them.

"You are wasting time in attempting to frighten me," he said. "I shall insist on the payment of the wager, St Pierre."

For a moment St. Pierre was clearly troubled. Then his lips tightened, and he smiled grimly over the table at David.

"I am sorry, M'sieu David. I like you. You are a fighting man and no coward, and I should like to travel shoulder to shoulder with you in many things. And such a thing might be, for you do not understand. I tell you it would have been many times better for you had I whipped you out there, and it had been you--and not me--to pay the wager!"

"It is Roger Audemard I am interested in, St. Pierre. Why do you hesitate?"

"I? Hesitate? I am not hesitating, m'sieu. I am giving you a chance."

He leaned forward, his great arms bent on the table. "And you insist, M'sieu David?"

"Yes, I insist."

Slowly the fingers of St. Pierre's hands closed into knotted fists, and he said in a low voice, "Then I will pay, m'sieu. _I_ AM ROGER AUDEMARD!"

XXIII

The astounding statement of the man who sat opposite him held David speechless. He had guessed at some mysterious relations.h.i.+p between St.

Pierre and the criminal he was after, but not this, and Roger Audemard, with his hands unclenching and a slow humor beginning to play about his mouth, waited coolly for him to recover from his amazement. In those moments, when his heart seemed to have stopped beating, Carrigan was staring at the other, but his mind had shot beyond him--to the woman who was his wife. Marie-Anne AUDEMARD--the wife of Black Roger! He wanted to cry out against the possibility of such a fact, yet he sat like one struck dumb, as the monstrous truth took possession of his brain and a whirlwind of understanding swept upon him. He was thinking quickly, and with a terrific lack of sentiment now. Opposite him sat Black Roger, the wholesale murderer. Marie-Anne was his wife. Carmin Fanchet, sister of a murderer, was simply one of his kind. And Bateese, the man-gorilla, and the Broken Man, and all the dark-skinned pack about them were of Black Roger's breed and kind. Love for a woman had blinded him to the facts which crowded upon him now. Like a lamb he had fallen among wolves, and he had tried to believe in them. No wonder Bateese and the man he had known as St. Pierre had betrayed such merriment at times!

A fighting coolness possessed him as he spoke to Black Roger.

"I will admit this is a surprise. And yet you have cleared up a number of things very quickly. It proves to me again that comedy is not very far removed from tragedy at times."

"I am glad you see the humor of it, M'sieu David." Black Roger was smiling as pleasantly as his swollen eye would permit. "We must not be too serious when we die. If I were to die a-hanging, I would sing as the rope choked me, just to show the world one need not be unhappy because his life is coming to an end."

"I suppose you understand that ultimately I am going to give you that opportunity," said David.

Almost eagerly Black Roger leaned toward him over the table. "You believe you are going to hang me?"

"I am sure of it."

"And you are willing to wager the point, M'sieu David?"

"It is impossible to gamble with a condemned man."

Black Roger chuckled, rubbing his big hands together until they made a rasping sound, and his one good eye glowed at Carrigan.

"Then I will make a wager with myself, M'sieu David. MA FOI, I swear that before the leaves fall from the trees, you will be pleading for the friends.h.i.+p of Black Roger Audemard, and you will be as much in love with Carmin Fanchet as I am! And as for Marie-Anne--"

He thrust back his chair and rose to his feet, the old note of subdued laughter rumbling in his chest. "And because I make this wager with myself, I cannot kill you, M'sieu David--though that might be the best thing to do. I am going to take you to the Chateau Boulain, which is in the forests of the Yellowknife, beyond the Great Slave. Nothing will happen to you if you make no effort to escape. If you do that, you will surely die. And that would hurt me, M'sieu David, because I love you like a brother, and in the end I know you are going to grip the hand of Black Roger Audemard, and get down on your knees to Carmin Fanchet. And as for Marie-Anne--" Again he interrupted himself, and went out of the cabin, laughing. And there was no mistake in the metallic click of the lock outside the door.

For a time David did not move from his seat near the table. He had not let Roger Audemard see how completely the confession had upset his inner balance, but he made no pretense of concealing the thing from himself now. He was in the power of a cut-throat, who in turn had an army of cut-throats at his back, and both Marie-Anne and Carmin Fanchet were a part of this ring. And he was not only a prisoner. It was probable, under the circ.u.mstances, that Black Roger would make an end of him when a convenient moment came. It was even more than a probability. It was a grim necessity. To let him live and escape would be fatal to Black Roger.

From back of these convictions, riding over them as if to demoralize any coherence and logic that might go with the evidence he was building up, came question after question, pounding at him one after the other, until his mind became more than ever a whirling chaos of uncertainty.

If St. Pierre was Black Roger, why would he confess to that fact simply to pay a wager? What reason could he have for letting him live at all?

Why had not Bateese killed him? Why had Marie-Anne nursed him back to life? His mind shot to the white strip of sand in which he had nearly died. That, at least, was convincing. Learning in some way that he was after Black Roger, they had attempted to do away with him there. But if that were so, why was it Bateese and Black Roger's wife and the Indian Nepapinas had risked so much to make him live, when if they had left him where he had fallen he would have died and caused them no trouble?

There was something exasperatingly uncertain and illogical about it all. Was it possible that St. Pierre Boulain was playing a huge joke on him? Even that was inconceivable. For there was Carmin Fanchet, a fitting companion for a man like Black Roger, and there was Marie-Anne, who, if it had been a joke, would not have played her part so well.

Suddenly his mind was filled only with her. Had she been his friend, using all her influence to protect him, because her heart was sick of the environment of which she was a part? His own heart jumped at the thought. It was easy to believe. In Marie-Anne he had faith, and that faith refused to be destroyed, but persisted--even clearer and stronger as he thought again of Carmin Fanchet and Black Roger. In his heart grew the conviction it was sacrilege to believe the kiss she had given him that morning was a lie. It was something else--a spontaneous gladness, a joyous exultation that he had returned unharmed, a thing unplanned in the soul of the woman, leaping from her before she could stop it. Then had come shame, and she had run away from him so swiftly he had not seen her face again after the touch of her lips. If it had been a subterfuge, a lie, she would not have done that.

He rose to his feet and paced restlessly back and forth as he tried to bring together a few tangled bits of the puzzle. He heard voices outside, and very soon felt the movement of the bateau under his feet, and through one of the sh.o.r.eward windows he saw trees and sandy beach slowly drifting away. On that sh.o.r.e, as far as his eyes could travel up and down, he saw no sign of Marie-Anne, but there remained a canoe, and near the canoe stood Black Roger Audemard, and beyond him, huddled like a charred stump in the sand, was Andre, the Broken Man. On the opposite sh.o.r.e the raft was getting under way.

During the next half-hour several things happened which told him there was no longer a sugar-coating to his imprisonment. On each side of the bateau two men worked at his windows, and when they had finished, no one of them could be opened more than a few inches. Then came the rattle of the lock at the door, the grating of a key, and somewhat to Carrigan's surprise it was Bateese who came in. The half-reed bore no facial evidence of the paralyzing blows which had knocked him out a short time before. His jaw, on which they had landed, was as aggressive as ever, yet in his face and his att.i.tude, as he stared curiously at Carrigan, there was no sign of resentment or unfriendliness. Nor did he seem to be ashamed. He merely stared, with the curious and rather puzzled eyes of a small boy gazing at an inexplicable oddity. Carrigan, standing before him, knew what was pa.s.sing in the other's mind, and the humor of it brought a smile to his lips.