David drew a deep breath, and there came an unconscious tightening at his heart as he turned his glasses upon Marie-Anne.  She was still standing in the bow of the York boat, and her back was toward him.  He could see the glisten of the sun in her hair.  She was waving her handkerchief, and the poise of her slim body told him that in her eagerness she would have darted from the bow of the boat had she possessed wings.

Again he looked at St. Pierre.  And this was the man who was no match for Concombre Bateese!  It was inconceivable.  Yet he heard Marie-Anne’s voice repeating those very words in his ear.  But she had surely been joking with him.  She had been storing up this little surprise for him.  She had wanted him to discover with his own eyes what a splendid man was this chief of the Boulains.  And yet, as David stared, there came to him an unpleasant thought of the incongruity of this thing he was looking upon.  It struck upon him like a clashing discord, the fact of matehood between these two—­a condition inconsistent and out of tune with the beautiful things he had built up in his mind about the woman.  In his soul he had enshrined her as a lovely wildflower, easily crushed, easily destroyed, a sweet treasure to be guarded from all that was rough and savage, a little violet-goddess as fragile as she was brave and loyal.  And St. Pierre, standing there at the edge of his raft, looked as if he had come up out of the caves of a million years ago!  There was something barbaric about him.  He needed only a club and a shield and the skin of a beast about his loins to transform him into prehistoric man.  At least these were his first impressions—­impressions roused by thought of Marie-Anne’s slim, beautiful body crushed close in the embrace of that laughing, powerful-lunged giant.  Then the reaction swept over him.  St. Pierre was not a monster, even though his disturbed mind unconsciously made an effort to conceive him as such.  There were gladness and laughter in his face.  There was the contagion of joy and good cheer in the voice that boomed over the water.  Laughter and shouts answered it from the shore.  The rowers in Marie-Anne’s York boat burst into a wild and exultant snatch of song and made their oars fairly crack.  There came a solitary yell from Andre, the Broken Man, who was close to the head of the raft now.  And from the raft itself came a slowly swelling volume of sound, the urge and voice and exultation of red-blooded men a-thrill with the glory of this day and the wild freedom of their world.  The truth came to David.  St. Pierre Boulain was the beloved Big Brother of his people.

He waited, his muscles tense, his jaws set tight.  Good medicine, he called it again, a righteous sort of punishment set upon him for the moral cowardice he had betrayed in falling down in worship at the feet of another man’s wife.  The York boat was very close to the head of the raft now.  He saw Marie-Anne herself fling a rope to St. Pierre.  Then the boat swung alongside.  In another moment St. Pierre had leaned over, and Marie-Anne was with him on the raft.  For a space everything else in the world was obliterated for David.  He saw St. Pierre’s arms gather the slim form into their embrace.  He saw Marie-Anne’s hands go up fondly to the bearded face.  And then—­