"You come here one, two year ago," Pierre continued. "You eat up home of M. Duchaine, my master. Old M. Duchaine my master, too. I belong here. You eat up all, come back, eat up some more. Then you sell Mlle. Jacqueline to Louis d'Epernay. You made her run 'way to New York. I ask your _diable_ when your time come. Your _diable_ he say wait. I wait. Mlle. Jacqueline come back. I ask your _diable_ again. He say wait some more. Now your _diable_ tell me he send you here to-night because your time come, and all finish now." The face that Simon turned on me was not in the least like his own. It was that of a hopeless man who knows that everything he had prized is lost. He had never cowered before anyone in his life, I think, but he cowered now before Pierre Caribou. "Hewlett!" he cried in a high-pitched, quavering voice, "help me throw this old fool out of the way." I spoke to Pierre. "Our quarrel is at an end," I said. "I am going away. You must go, too." Pierre Caribou did not relax an inch of ground. Then a roar burst from Leroux's lips, and he flung himself upon the Indian in the same desperate way as I had experienced, and in an instant the two men were struggling at the edge of the platform. It was impossible for me to intervene, and I could only stand by and stare in horror. And, as I stared, I saw the face of Lacroix among the rocks again, peering out, with an evil smile upon his lips. Whether they fought in silence or whether in sound I do not know, for the noise of the cataract rendered the battle a dumb pantomime. Pierre had pulled the Frenchman out to the middle of the ledge and was trying to force him over. But Leroux was clinging with one hand to the cliff and with the other he beat savagely upon his enemy's face, so that the blood covered both of them. But Pierre did not seem to feel the blows. Leroux, one-handed, was at a disadvantage. He grasped his antagonist again, and the death-grapple began. It was a marvel that they could engage in so terrific a fight upon the ice-coated ledge and hold their balance there. But I saw that they were in equipoise, for they were bending all the tension of each muscle to the fight, so that they remained almost motionless, and, thigh to thigh, arm to arm, breast to breast, each sought to break the other's strength. And I saw that, when one was broken, he would not yield slowly, but, having spent the last of his strength, would collapse like a crumpled cardboard figure and go down into the boiling lake. The cataract's half-sphere of crystal clearness framed them as though they formed some dreadful picture. They bent and swayed, and now Leroux was forcing Pierre's head and shoulders backward by the weight of his bull's body. But the Indian's sinews, toughened by years of toil to steel, held fast; and just as Leroux, confident of victory, shifted his feet and inclined forward, Pierre changed his grasp and caught him by the throat.