There was no responsive glimmer of humor in his
eyes or on his lips. And seeing these things, St. Pierre turned
his extended hand to the open box of cigars, so that he stood for
a moment with his back toward him.
"It's funny," he said, as if speaking to himself, and with only a
drawling note of the French patois in his voice. "I come home,
find my Jeanne in a terrible mix-up, a stranger in her room--and
the stranger refuses to let me laugh or shake hands with him.
Tonnerre, I say it is funny! And my Jeanne saved his life, and
made him muffins, and gave him my own bed, and walked with him in
the forest! Ah, the ungrateful cochon!"
He turned, laughing openly, so that his deep voice filled the
cabin. "Vous aves de la corde de pendu, m'sieu--yes, you are a
lucky dog! For only one other man in the world would my Jeanne
have done that. You are lucky because you were not ended behind
the rock; you are lucky because you are not at the bottom of the
river; you are lucky--"
He shrugged his big shoulders hopelessly. "And now, after all our
kindness and your good luck, you wait for me like an enemy,
m'sieu. Diable, I can not understand!"
For the life of him Carrigan could not, in these few moments,
measure up his man.
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