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Updated: June 26, 2025
And then slowly he moved on and was swallowed up in the mellow glow of the night. "It is at night that he seeks," said St. Pierre's wife, for it was as if David had spoken the thought that was in his mind. David, for a moment, was silent. And then he said, "You asked me to tell you about Black Roger Audemard. I will, if you care to have me. Do you?"
The giant wedge of the forest was not burning yet, and Audemard was hurrying like mad toward the tip of that wedge, crying out now and then the name of the Broken Man. And always he kept ahead, until at last a mile from the ridge David came to the edge of a wide stream and saw what it was that made the wedge of forest.
That hour ago his one great purpose had been to bring in Black Roger Audemard, alive or dead Black Roger, the forest fiend who had destroyed half a dozen lives in a blind passion of vengeance nearly fifteen years ago. For ten of those fifteen years it had been thought that Black Roger was dead. But mysterious rumors had lately come out of the North. He was alive. People had seen him.
As he went he saw again that Carmin Fanchet was very beautiful as she stood there, and that her lips were very red but her face was white, whiter than he had ever seen the face of a woman before. As they went up a winding stair to the second floor, Roger Audemard said, "I am proud of my Carmin, M'sieu David.
A strange dawning was coming to him, thrilling him to his finger-tips. He listened. A new sound was approaching from the hall. His door was opened, and a wheel-chair was rolled in by old Nepapinas. In the chair was St. Pierre Audemard. Feet and hands and arms were wrapped in bandages, but his face was uncovered and wreathed in smiling happiness when he saw David propped up against his pillows.
He described Hatchet River Post, where the tragedy had happened; then told of the fight that came about one day between Roger Audemard and the factor of the post and his two sons. It was an unfair fight; he conceded that three to one was cowardly in a fight. But it could not excuse what happened afterward. Audemard was beaten. He crept off into the forest, almost dead.
Had some one told him then that soon he would meet the broken and twisted hulk of a man who had known Black Roger Audemard, every nerve in him would have thrilled in anticipation of that hour. He realized this as he paced back and forth over the thick rugs of the bateau floor. And he knew, even as he struggled to bring them back, that the old thrill and the old desire were gone.
He thrust out his head and found no one within the range of his vision. Then he worked his way through the window, feet first, and hanging the length of arms and body from the lower sill, dropped to the ground. Instantly he faced the direction taken by Roger Audemard, it was HIS turn now, and he felt a savage thrill in his blood.
And he heard again the mad monotone of Andre's voice, crying plaintively, "HAS ANY ONE SEEN BLACK ROGER AUDEMARD?" His blood ran a little faster, and his old craft was a dominantly living thing within him once more. Love had dulled both his ingenuity and his desire.
Those facts would have convinced Superintendent McVane, and they now convinced David. He had set out to get Black Roger Audemard, alive or dead. And Black Roger, wholesale murderer, a monster who had painted the blackest page of crime known in the history of Canadian law, was closely and vitally associated with Marie-Anne and St. Pierre Boulain!
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