for beauty.  It was the worship which St. Pierre himself must have for this woman who was his wife.  And the shock of it was like a conflagration sweeping through him, leaving him dead and shriven, like the crucified trees standing in the wake of a fire.  A breath that was almost a cry came from him, and his fists knotted until they were purple.  She was St. Pierre’s wife!  And he, David Carrigan, proud of his honor, proud of the strength that made him man, had dared covet her in this hour when her husband was gone!  He stared at the closed door, beginning to cry out against himself, and over him there swept slowly and terribly another thing—­the shame of his weakness, the hopelessness of the thing that for a space had eaten into him and consumed him.

And as he stared, the door opened, and Nepapinas came in.

XII

During the next quarter of an hour David was as silent as the old Indian doctor.  He was conscious of no pain when Nepapinas took off his bandage and bathed his head in the lotion he had brought.  Before a fresh bandage was put on, he looked at himself for a moment in the mirror.  It was the first time he had seen his wound, and he expected to find himself marked with a disfiguring scar.  To his surprise there was no sign of his hurt except a slightly inflamed spot above his temple.  He stared at Nepapinas, and there was no need of the question that was in his mind.

The old Indian understood, and his dried-up face cracked and crinkled in a grin.  “Bullet hit a piece of rock, an’ rock, not bullet, hit um head,” he explained.  “Make skull almost break—­bend um in—­but Nepapinas straighten again with fingers, so-so.”  He shrugged his thin shoulders with a cackling laugh of pride as he worked his claw-like fingers to show how the operation had been done.

David shook hands with him in silence; then Nepapinas put on the fresh bandage, and after that went out, chuckling again in his weird way, as though he had played a great joke on the white man whom his wizardry had snatched out of the jaws of death.

For some time there had been a subdued activity outside.  The singing of the boatmen had ceased, a low voice was giving commands, and looking through the window, David saw that the bateau was slowly swinging away from the shore.  He turned from the window to the table and lighted the cigar St. Pierre’s wife had given him.

In spite of the mental struggle he had made during the presence of Nepapinas, he had failed to get a grip on himself.  For a time he had ceased to be David Carrigan, the man-hunter.  A few days ago his blood had run to that almost savage thrill of the great game of one against one, the game in which Law sat on one side of the board and Lawlessness on the other, with the cards between.  It was the great gamble.  The cards meant life or death; there was never a checkmate—­one or the other had to lose.  Had some one told him then