“Possibly you have, m’sieu.”

Her voice was exquisite, clear as the note of a bird, yet so soft and low that she seemed scarcely to have spoken.  And it was, Carrigan thought, criminally evasive—­under the circumstances.  He wanted her to turn round and say something.  He wanted, first of all, to ask her why she had tried to kill him.  It was his right to demand an explanation.  And it was his duty to get her back to the Landing, where the law would ask an accounting of her.  She must know that.  There was only one way in which she could have learned his name, and that was by prying into his identification papers while he was unconscious.  Therefore she not only knew his name, but also that he was Sergeant Carrigan of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police.  In spite of all this she was apparently not very deeply concerned.  She was not frightened, and she did not appear to be even slightly excited.

He leaned nearer to her, the movement sending a sharp pain between his eyes.  It almost drew a cry from him, but he forced himself to speak without betraying it.

“You tried to murder me—­and almost succeeded.  Haven’t you anything to say?”

“Not now, m’sieu—­except that it was a mistake. and I am sorry.  But you must not talk.  You must remain quiet.  I am afraid your skull is fractured.”

Afraid his skull was fractured!  And she expressed her fear in the casual way she might have spoken of a toothache.  He leaned back against his dunnage sack and closed his eyes.  Probably she was right.  These fits of dizziness and nausea were suspicious.  They made him top-heavy and filled him with a desire to crumple up somewhere.  He was clear-mindedly conscious of this and of his fight against the weakness.  But in those moments when he felt better and his head was clear of pain, he had not seriously thought of a fractured skull.  If she believed it, why did she not treat him a bit more considerately?  Bateese, with that strength of an ox in his arms, had no use for her assistance with the paddle.  She might at least have sat facing him, even if she refused to explain matters more definitely.

A mistake, she called it.  And she was sorry for him!  She had made those statements in a matter-of-fact way, but with a voice that was like music.  She had spoken perfect English, but in her words were the inflection and velvety softness of the French blood which must be running red in her veins.  And her name was Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain!

With eyes closed, Carrigan called himself an idiot for thinking of these things at the present time.  Primarily he was a man-hunter out on important duty, and here was duty right at hand, a thousand miles south of Black Roger Audemard, the wholesale murderer he was after.  He would have sworn on his life that Black Roger had never gone at a killing more deliberately than this same Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain had gone after him behind the rock!

Now that it was all over, and he was alive, she was taking him somewhere as coolly and as unexcitedly as though they were returning from a picnic.  Carrigan shut his eyes tighter and wondered if he was thinking straight.  He believed he was badly hurt, but he was as strongly convinced that his mind was clear.  And he lay quietly with his head against the pack, his eyes closed, waiting for the coolness of the river to drive his nausea away again.