Carrigan cut the picture there.  He turned his shoulder to the raft and snapped the binoculars in the case at his belt.  Some one was coming in his direction from the bateau.  It was the riverman who had brought to Marie-Anne the news of St. Pierre’s arrival.  David went down to meet him.  From the foot of the ridge he again turned his eyes in the direction of the raft.  St. Pierre and Marie-Anne were just about to enter the little cabin built in the center of the drifting mass of timber.

XV

It was easy for Carrigan to guess why the riverman had turned back for him.  Men were busy about the bateau, and Concombre Bateese stood in the stern, a long pole in his hands, giving commands to the others.  The bateau was beginning to swing out into the stream when he leaped aboard.  A wide grin spread over the half-breed’s face.  He eyed David keenly and laughed in his deep chest, an unmistakable suggestiveness in the note of it.

“You look seek, m’sieu,” he said in an undertone, for David’s ears alone, “You look ver’ unhappy, an’ pale lak leetle boy!  Wat happen w’en you look t’rough ze glass up there, eh?  Or ees it zat you grow frighten because ver’ soon you stan’ up an’ fight Concombre Bateese?  Eh, coq de bruyere?  Ees it zat?”

A quick thought came to David.  “Is it true that St. Pierre can not whip you, Bateese?”

Bateese threw out his chest with a mighty intake of breath.  Then he exploded:  “No man on all T’ree River can w’ip Concombre Bateese.”

“And St. Pierre is a powerful man,” mused David, letting his eyes travel slowly from the half-breed’s moccasined feet to the top of his head.  “I measured him well through the glasses, Bateese.  It will be a great fight.  But I shall whip you!”

He did not wait for the half-breed to reply, but went into the cabin and closed the door behind him.  He did not like the taunting note of suggestiveness in the other’s words.  Was it possible that Bateese suspected the true state of his mind, that he was in love with the wife of St. Pierre, and that his heart was sick because of what he had seen aboard the raft?  He flushed hotly.  It made him uncomfortable to feel that even the half-breed might have guessed his humiliation.

David looked through the window toward the raft.  The bateau was drifting downstream, possibly a hundred feet from the shore, but it was quite evident that Concombre Bateese was making no effort to bring it close to the floating mass of timber, which had made no change in its course down the river.  David’s mind painted swiftly what was happening in the cabin into which Marie-Anne and St. Pierre had disappeared.  At this moment Marie-Anne was telling of him, of the adventure in the hot patch of sand.  He fancied the suppressed excitement in her voice as she unburdened herself.  He saw St. Pierre’s face darken, his muscles tighten—­and crouching in silence, he seemed to see the misshapen hulk of Andre, the Broken Man, listening to what was passing between the other two.  And he heard again the mad monotone of Andre’s voice, crying plaintively, “Has any one seen black Roger Audemard?”