THE
WOLF PACK
By RIDGWELL CULLUM
Author of
“Child of the North,” “The Forfeit,” “The Golden
Woman,” “The Heart of Unaga,” “In the Brooding
Wild,” “The Law Breakers,” “The Luck of the
Kid,” “The Night Riders,” “The One-Way Trail,”
“The Riddle of Three Way Creek,” “The
Triumph of John Kars,” “The Twins of
Suffering Creek,” etc.
THE WOLF PACK
CHAPTER I
THE RUNAWAY
THE ancient train was laboring heavily. It was climbing, and stated the fact vociferously to the wilderness of echoing hills. Its speed was little better than that of a weary team of horses on an outward journey.
It was passing through a broken, tattered world of wind-swept, stunted northern forest. There were bald crags, and open, water-logged flats. There was snow, too; melting snow, for the Canadian spring was hungrily devouring the last remnants of a fierce winter. The sun was brilliant. The cloud-flecked sky was a steely blue. And the crisp, mountain air even contrived to refresh the superheated atmosphere within the passenger coaches.
Luana’s dark eyes were without concern for the natural beauties beyond the windows of the fantastic old observation car. The small boy-child, who was her charge, occupied her whole attention.
The infant was sturdily clinging to a brass stanchion. He was peering out at the wonders of the endless panorama passing before his baby eyes. But his chubby hand was unequal to its task. He had spent much time and energy in falling down and scrambling again to his feet as the train lumbered drearily over its uneven track. However, he was quite undismayed. In fact,[10] he seemed to consider every struggling effort to be an essential joy of his infant life.
He was only a few brief months beyond his second birthday. But he was wonderfully grown and sturdy. Perhaps it was his warm, woolly suit that helped the impression. But it certainly had nothing to do with the full, rosy cheeks, and the bright intelligence of his smiling black eyes.
In response to a fierce jolt of the train, Luana dropped her sewing in her lap and spoke warning in a deep voice of almost mannish quality.
“Hold fast, boy-man,” she cried. “Bimeby, you get hurt. Then your moma get mad with Luana. Maybe she send her right away. Then boy-man see her no more. And you not happy again. Yes?”
The boy smiled. Then he turned to the window and pressed the palm of his disengaged hand against the window-pane. He spread out his little fingers, and presently pointed at the slowly passing hill-crests as though counting them. Then, all in a moment, he squatted on the floor of the car with a bump.
A gurgle of laughter broke from him.
“Up-ee!” he crowed. And he scrambled again to his feet, and came with a rush to his nurse’s knee.
“Hurt, boy-man?”
The nurse was smiling happily as she put the unnecessary question.
“Bad ole puffer!” came the laughing reply, as two chubby hands clapped themselves on the dark-skinned hand that was held out to caress.
Luana fondled one of the little hands. She drew a deep breath.
[11]“Bimeby we mak home on the big lake,” she said. “No more holiday. No more big city. No more old bad puffer. Boy-man see big lake. He see all the dogs. Nap. Ketch. Susan. An’ the Indian papooses at the mission. And all the mans. Yes? And Luana play the forest game with boy-man. She run an’ hide. Yes? Oh, yes. Maybe to-morrow—after boy-man sleep.”
“Why us jump like anything?” the child asked, as the train crashed its way over some uneven points.
Luana laughed.
“Cos it’s—bad ole puffer, eh?”
“Ess.”
The child nodded his dark tuque-enveloped head in solemn agreement. Then he turned away and grabbed again at his stanchion. Finally he lurched to his window in comparative safety and gazed out of it.
Luana watched him, a hungry light in her smiling eyes. The half-breed in her was passionately stirring. A creature of almost volcanic impulse and hot emotion, there was something lawless in her mentality. It was her heritage from savage forbears.
The long journey was nearing its end. More than half the continent had passed under train wheels since the Reverend Arthur Steele and his little family had set out to return from the cities of the East to his mission on Lake Mataba. Vacation came to him once in three years, and this was the end of his first holiday since taking up his appointment.
Luana was glad it was over. Civilization had no appeal for her. She was of the outlands. Bred in the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains, she had no love[12] for the crowded streets of the city. She felt that only in the hills, in the twilit forests, on the wind-swept waterways, was it possible to breathe. It was only where Indians dwelt could she feel that she was at home.
No, she did not want the white folks’ cities, with their dazzling life and their paved roads, and where white women eyed her askance. She wanted the great lake, and the mission that was full of those whose blood she shared. She wanted that, and the knowledge that little Ivan Steele looked to her for everything necessary to his small life.
Luana loved the white child with all her woman’s soul. Hers had been the first arms to caress, to nurse him. Helen Steele was too deeply immersed in the work of her husband’s mission to fulfill all the natural demands of motherhood. She was one of those whose sense of duty would never allow her to be wholly satisfied with the simple felicities of her humanity. The domestic claims of home and wifehood came under the ban of her distorted view of all that which she looked upon as selfishness. So her boy-child, from the earliest moment of his small life, was relegated to the only too willing care of his half-Indian nurse.
In a woman of Luana’s temperament the result was inevitable. She looked upon Ivan as something of her very own. She even believed that the boy looked to her as his mother. And she rejoiced in the thought. She was consumed with jealousy when Helen Steele found time to notice the infant; and a frenzy possessed her at the sight of the white woman’s caresses. It was at such moments that she hated the white woman with all the savage in her. But she bore these trials without[13] outward sign or protest, and consoled herself that the boy’s love was wholly hers.
Away from the mission, and on vacation, Luana’s emotional trials had been profoundly increased. During the four months of respite from the routine at the mission, Helen Steele, in a measure, had discovered her child. The mother in her had found opportunity to assert itself. The result to the half-breed had been almost unendurable. And so it came that within a dozen hours of the end of their homeward journey a certain sense of content and easement was already settling down upon the nurse’s passionate soul.
To-morrow! Yes, to-morrow the mother and father would have forgotten Ivan in the engrossing claims of return to their spiritual work. They would have forgotten the merry life gazing up at them out of the infant’s happy eyes. They would have forgotten the wonderful caress of his soft, white arms. But she, Luana, would remember.
The Reverend Arthur Steele looked up from the book on the table in front of him. His dark eyes scanned the broken mountain scene through which the train was passing. There was still a white skin of snow on the hilltops. But it was a moist, dank, dripping world, in spite of the brilliant spring sunshine pouring down out of a cloudless sky.
He was a tall, ascetic creature, who lived for his missionary work at Lake Mataba. He was desperately in earnest, and impatient of everything that interfered with his spiritual labors. His long vacation had been forced upon him. It had not occurred to him as a[14] holiday. His mission needed money. And he had used his vacation for the purposes of raising it.
“We’re about at the divide,” he said to his wife beside him.
Helen Steele did not even look up from her book.
“I’m glad,” she said without interest. “It won’t take long to run down the gradient to the river.”
“No. And home to-morrow morning. We’re only about eight hours late.” The missionary laughed. “I should call it something like a record at this time of year. We’re in luck.”
He turned and glanced down the queer, little old-fashioned restaurant car in which the evening meal had just been served. There were only about ten other passengers, most of whom were well known to him. They included, in a remote corner, an Indian huddled in his parti-colored blanket, and two commercial men who were making the journey in the vain hope of selling farming machinery in a territory given up to fur-trading.
The missionary’s comment was not without justification. There was no time in the year when the hardy human freight which found itself compelled to use the Sisselu Northern Railroad but did so in a spirit of complete resignation. The road was the offshoot of a great line which bridged the Canadian Dominion from ocean to ocean. Its three hundred miles of ill-laid track, from Fort Sura in the south, to the shores of Lake Mataba, was one of those grudging concessions to a prosperous fur-trading industry.
The result was inevitable. The whole organization suffered from managerial unwillingness. There was[15] only one train in each direction in each week, and the rolling stock was the decaying cast-off of the greater road. In winter, without regard to schedule, the train groaned and clanked its way to its home depot, provided always a snowstorm had not chanced to bury it on the way. In spring the hazard of its journey was added to by the chances of “washouts,” and the devastating ice jams on the rivers which crossed its track. Summer, of course, was its best season. But even in summer forest fires became a source of perilous interference.
The missionary’s comment was more than warranted. And his claim to luck was well enough founded. So he had eaten the uninteresting supper provided, with an appetite that was inspired by ease of spirit.
Now he was waiting for his bill and the next stop. Then he would make his way back to the end of the train, behind a dozen or more freight cars. There he would join his tiny son and the nurse, Luana.
The man closed his book as the waiter staggered towards him. The uniformed trainman stood at the table swaying to the merciless jolting of the car. And he scrawled a bill, and made change to the note which the missionary handed him.
“We’re doing well, Jim,” Steele ventured hopefully, as the waiter accepted his proffered tip. “If we pass the Sisselu down below without interference, we ought to make the lake by noon to-morrow.”
Optimism, however, was not the trainman’s strong point. He had been too long on the road.
“You just can’t say,” he doubted, with a shake of[16] his gray head. “You folks have got Sisselu Ford bad. ’Tain’t that way with us. The ford ain’t a circumstance to the ‘washouts’ we ken hit on the flats. A ‘washout’ ken easy hold us up twenty-four hours. It’s true it don’t worry. We ken sit around dry, and I got food aboard fer a week. I just got to have it. The Sisselu gradient’s a dead straight run to the bottom and no water can worry. There ain’t a bend till you hit the river bank, and the timbers of the trestle’ll stand up to any old river ice. No. It’s the ‘washouts’ on the flats this time o’ year that holds us up.”
“Any news of them?” There was anxiety in Steele’s tone, and the pretty eyes of his wife were raised waiting for the trainman’s reply.
The waiter grinned sardonically.
“We don’t need noos,” he observed lugubriously. “You see,” he added, as he prepared to move on to the next table, “they happen along when the notion takes the flood water. Then you just got to set around.”
Helen Steele laughed outright and closed her book as the waiter passed on.
“He would hate to afford us comfort,” she commented, and glanced out of the window.
At that instant three prolonged blasts on the locomotive siren came back to them.
“Wait for the answer,” the missionary said listening. “We’ll see how right is our dismal friend.”
They waited in silence. And presently, faint and far off, came an answering single hoot from the signal station down on the river.
“All clear. Jim’s right, and our fears are groundless,”[17] sighed Helen. “I do hope the flats will be all right, too. It’s good to be getting home.”
“Good?” Again came the man’s ready laugh. “Think of it, dear. From Montreal to Fort Sura we ran to transcontinental schedule. It’s taken us thirty-six hours already on the run home, and we aren’t there yet by more than twelve hours. It’s enough to depress a saint.”
The grinding of brakes under them added to their confidence.
“The descent,” the missionary commented, preparing to return to his reading.
But Helen wanted to talk. She was no less earnest in her work than her husband. And the journey home had been a time of profound yearning.
“I’ve been thinking, Arthur,” she said seriously, her pretty dark brows drawn in concentration. “Four thousand dollars! It isn’t much with which to found and build our church. You know our Society asks a lot of us. In a way they’re right. We should give all there is in us. But—but—it’s a pity money has to come into our lives at all.” She sighed. “Still, so it is. Beyond the barest necessities I don’t want us to touch that money they’ve given us for the actual building. I want to stir up the right spirit in our Indians, and the white folks on the lake. Surely the lumber can be felled, and hauled, and the whole church can be carpentered voluntarily? Can’t we stir up a spiritual pride that will rise above mere—— What’s that?”
The woman broke off and a quick apprehension lit her questioning eyes. Arthur Steele turned instinctively[18] to the window beside him. The hold of the brakes under the car had suddenly been taken off. There had been a queer jarring and clanking under them. Then the train seemed to leap forward at great speed down the steep gradient.
Steele was gazing at the wooded slope which lined the track. In a moment it seemed the dark green of the trees had started to race by and become a mere continuous verdant smudge.
There was a restless stirring throughout the car. Every eye contained a look of sharp inquiry. A few passengers had risen from their seats the better to gaze out of windows. Then, too, a sound of urgent voices had risen above the rattle of the speeding train.
A railroader flung open a door. He hurried down the aisle of the rocking car and passed out at the other end. The door slammed behind the man’s overall-clad figure.
“Something’s—wrong!”
Helen spoke in a low tone, and her eyes searched the face of her man.
“We’re running—free,” the missionary replied. “It’s a gradient of one in forty.”
“And there’s a bend at the river bank.”
“It’s nearly two miles to the river. And by—I wonder?”
“You don’t think the brakes have gone wrong, Arthur?”
Helen’s voice was low. Her anxiety had leaped to something like panic.
The man shook his head, but without conviction.[19] He knew well enough the quality of the rolling stock on the Sisselu Northern.
“If they have——”
He gestured hopelessly.
“And we can’t get back there to Ivan and Luana.”
“No, dear. We can’t do anything. Oh! Here’s Jim,” Steele cried in a tone of relief, as the waiter reëntered the car. “Maybe——”
In those brief moments the speed of the rocking train had become terrific, and the trainman staggered down the car with the greatest difficulty. The uneven track, combined with inadequate springing, set the wheels jumping perilously.
The man was grinning as he came. But, to the missionary, his grin was unreal, and wholly extravagant. His raucous voice made itself heard above the deafening clatter of the train as he replied to an urgent inquiry from one of the commercial men.
“No,” he shouted. “Guess ther’ ain’t nothin’ amiss. They’re lettin’ her rip some. Makin’ up time. We’re late,” he warned, as though it were something unusual. “You see, this gradient’s dead straight till you get to the bottom. There ain’t no chances. Jest kep your seats, folks. They’ll brake her at the right moment. Ther’ ain’t no worry.”
The man paused at the missionary’s table, and clutched it to steady himself. He bent over it, and anxious eyes looked into those of Arthur Steele.
“They’ve broke away, Mister Steele,” he said, in a tone intended for the missionary’s ears alone. “She’s doing sixty. And she’ll be doing a hundred and twenty[20] when we hit the river. Ther’ ain’t a thing to be done but keep the folks from jumpin’. That way they’ll be killed sure. Ther’s a chance they’ll hold her up in time by reversing the ‘loco.’ I’m going forrard to the handbrakes. Will you kep ’em quiet? It’s the only chance. The vacuum’s petered plumb. We’ve got the boys on the freight brakes. It’s our best hope.”
The conductor hurried away. The panic he feared in the passengers was certainly looking out of his own eyes. Steele’s hand suddenly sought that of his wife as the man passed on with his sickly grin.
“Keep calm,” he said. “I must lie to them.”
Helen gave no outward sign of any fear beyond the anxiety in the eyes which clung to her husband’s face. The missionary stood up and turned to the panic-stricken passengers.
It was evident to him at once how desperately charged was the human atmosphere of the car. Scarcely restrained panic was in every face. And it was tugging at his own heart as he thought of the little son at the far end of the train, and of the helpless woman beside him. But he resolutely smothered his fears and lied in a voice that rang out above the din of the speeding train. He lied far beyond anything the trainman had attempted. And he had his reward.
Every passenger had resumed his seat when the missionary sat down.
“The bend can’t be far off.”
Helen’s voice was barely audible in the din.
“We shall jump the track if——”
The woman suddenly gestured.
“Oh, I wish I could get to the boy.”
[21]“You can’t. Sit still.” Steele’s voice was harsh. The mention of his son had driven him almost beyond endurance. Then he said more quietly, “They’ll get the locomotive——”
But that which he would have said remained unspoken. There was a terrible crash ahead. There was a fierce rending. The train lurched, and Helen was flung from her seat and sprawled across the car. The floor rose up. A wild shriek rang out above the din. And in a moment pandemonium reigned.
The forward end of the car rose sheer. Then it flung over sideways and every window shattered. Then came hideous descent. The car was falling, falling.
It was all over in seconds. The restaurant car had fulfilled its last service. It was lying deep buried in fathoms of the ice-cold bosom of the Sisselu River.
Inspector Landan of the Mounted Police was standing on the rear platform of the caboose of the waiting “breakdown” train. He was weary with many hours of hopeless, depressing labor. The pipe in his mouth had burned itself out, and he had not troubled to refill it. Truth to tell, as he gazed out on the flare-lit scene of wreckage which was piled about the track where it approached the river, he was without inclination even to smoke. He was yearning to get away. For twenty-four hours he and his detachment had prosecuted their indefatigable search of succor, and he knew that the work remaining to be done was the ordinary routine for the breakdown gang.
For all his weariness, however, his mind and feelings were very active. He was contemplating the report[22] he would have to send in to his headquarters. He had studied the disaster in its every aspect and had bitterly realized its cause. Then, too, he had obtained much information from the man at the flag station on the river bank.
From all he could discover the railroad company was criminally responsible. It was no case of “washout” or natural disaster. It was, according to the flag-station operator, a sheer case of old rolling stock and defective brakes. The operator, in horrified accents, had told him all he needed to know in a few poignant words.
“Ther’ ain’t a guess in my mind, sir,” he had said. “She came thundering down that gradient at a hundred miles. An’ that after I’d signalled ‘brakes’ to her, and got her answer. She was a ‘runaway’ and quit the metals at the bend, as she was bound to do at that pace.”
Well, the railroad management would hear something. Two injured, unconscious bodies, and ten corpses! That was the tally of human salvage. For the rest? A full-laden train completely wrecked. And as the inspector’s weary gaze searched the moonlit scene, he wondered shudderingly at the despairing horror of those who had found a grave beneath the frigid waters of the river.
Several figures were moving up beside the track, towards the waiting train. The inspector saw them, and breathed his relief. They were his four men returning. And they came empty-handed.
Three of the men passed on up the train, but the[23] corporal in charge of them swung himself up onto the platform of the caboose.
The man saluted.
“There’s nothing more we can do down there, sir,” he said. “There isn’t an inch we haven’t explored. We’ve searched the woods along the track. And, beyond the locomotive man and his fireman we’ve already got aboard here, no one seems to have had time or nerve to make a jump for it. The rest of ’em are down there in the cars in the river, I guess. And we shan’t get them till the company salves the cars. It’s pretty sickening, sir,” he added with a sight of feeling.
“Sickening? It’s damnable, Perrin,” the officer cried. “By God! There’s going to be a red-hot report on this!”
“I’m glad, sir. I think I can hand you some stuff for it. I’m a bit of an engineer myself, and I’ve gone over all the running gear of the cars at the rear of the train. It’s all ‘scrap’ stuff. Has the doc pulled round that poor woman with her little kid?”
The inspector nodded.
“Yes. She’s come to, and the kid doesn’t seem to have had worse than a bumping. You see, she seems to have held him hugged tightly to her bosom when the crash came. Her body kind of acted as a buffer. She got all that was coming and saved her kid. And she’s only a poor half-breed.”
Corporal Perrin gazed out over the moonlit scene where the busy railroaders were indefatigably laboring.
“It’s pretty fine, sir, when you think of it. There’s nothing to beat a mother when her kid’s threatened. Took it all herself, eh? I’m glad for that woman. Is[24] she going to come back all right, sir? Did the doc say?”
“He thinks so. You see, the observation car only went over on its side. It wasn’t wrecked. The mother was badly crushed about the head. Yes. The doctor thinks she’ll be right in a week or so. We’ll pull out seeing there’s nothing more for us.”
“Shall I go forward and give the trainman the order, sir?”
“Yes. I’m sick to death. Tell him right away.”
“Very good, sir.”
The corporal saluted and dropped off the car.
A few moments later the clang of the locomotive bell rang out on the night air, and the couplings of the train jolted taut. Then came movement. And the train labored heavily up the steep ascent.
CHAPTER II
THE WOLF PACK
IT was a baby girl. And she was sprawling in a sort of wallow in the dust-dry ground at the man’s feet. She was on her back, and her tiny legs were vigorously kicking the air. Her small hands were aimlessly clawing the loose soil on either side of her, and the while her solemn eyes were gazing darkly up at the sunlit sky without blinking.
Her dirt was deplorable. Her garments were negligible rags. Her round chubby face was stuck up with the dirt which she had somehow contrived to moisten into the consistency of mud. It was in her mouth, her ears. It was caked in the soft down of her dark hair. Nor had her eyes escaped contamination. But she was crowing and gurgling with the sheer infantile joy of well-being, and the sight of her held fast the thoughtful stare of the man’s black eyes. He was unsmiling.
Pideau Estevan was a half-breed and tough. He was anything and everything which made him a prospective inmate of the penitentiary, or even worse. But then Pideau sprang from stock that never failed to breed his kind, and the hallmark of his vices was deeply stamped on his cold, dusky face, and in the snapping black eyes which peered alertly from beneath shaggy brows.
Humanly speaking he had nothing to recommend him but a nimble wit and monumental industry. There was nothing unintelligent about him, and none of the[26] usual half-breed laziness. But he was thoroughly bad, and utterly callous. And, as he sat on his upturned box, gazing down on his motherless infant, his black-bearded face was coldly considering.
For once in his life the man was seriously troubled. He was also fiercely resentful. And, deep in his heart, he knew he was helpless.
Crisis had leaped at him almost without warning. He saw ahead a position that threatened to overwhelm him. And such was his nature that he gave way to vengeful anger and fierce impatience. Sitting there before his dugout home on the hillside, he surveyed, without any enthusiasm, the ridiculous antics of his offspring wallowing in the loamy dust.
The tragedy had come so swiftly that it was only now in the moment of its accomplishment that Pideau realized its full measure. Three weeks ago there had been no cloud to mar his doubtful horizon. Three weeks ago he had lived in what he considered a smiling world. Spring had been breaking and his activities, like those of the rest of the world about him, were breaking into renewed life. His woman was there to minister to his comfort. Down in the valley below him his herd of stolen cattle was fattening and breeding satisfactorily. Then his hidden store of crisp currency was growing to proportions which satisfied even his avaricious soul. It was then that the swing of the pendulum of Fate moved against him.
Mountain fever!
It was always the dread lying at the back of his busy mind. It came subtly. It killed quickly. And it had stolen upon the mother of his child, a young[27] woman of his own heart, and mind, and breed, and had slain her in those three swiftly passing weeks.
Only that morning had he completed the labor of her burial down in the valley below. Less than an hour ago he had returned, having shovelled the last of the soil into the deep grave that was to keep the woman’s cold body safe from the hungry activities of the scavenging timber wolves. He had returned to his noon meal, and the little life his woman had left behind her.
He was not mourning his loss with any spiritual sense. It was not in him to regard his woman as anything but a chattel. It was the material consideration of his position that stirred him to an unreasoning resentment against the dead Annette whose going had brought it about.
Alone with his babe, what was he to do? What must he do?
The great heart of the Rocky Mountains afforded him a safe enough hiding from the ubiquitous red-coats, but it also involved him in prolonged journeys and long absences from his home, in the prosecution of his nefarious traffic as a cattle thief. How could he carry on with a miserable brat of a child to be kept alive in his absence? There was not a living soul within three days’ journey of him.
Pideau’s fiercest savagery was apparent. Without shrinking or hesitancy he considered the alternative that naturally leaped to his callous mind. The little Annette. Why should he permit himself the burden she imposed? She was only a year old. She was fat, and happy, and knew nothing. Why should he let her[28] grow to knowledge, and learn the harshnesses that life must ultimately show her?
It would be so easy. And she would never know. He could hold her to him and caress her. She would gurgle, and crow, and pull his whisker. And his hand could very gently feel her soft neck. And then—and then his grip could tighten swiftly. She would be dead, like her foolish mother, without a single cry. It would really be merciful to her. And to himself——?
That, in his position, he pointed out, was surely the sense of things. It certainly was the sense of things. He thrust up a yellow hand and pushed back the cloth-visored cap he was wearing.
The baby squirmed in the dust and rolled over on her little stomach. She gurgled out fresh sounds of delight. He eyed the rolls of healthy fat. He saw the scraping, dimpled hands picking at the dirt and conveying it to her moist baby lips. And the latter sight gave him a feeling of amusement in spite of his mood, while the inarticulate sounds that fell upon his ears were not unpleasing.
With the little life destroyed, and no tie holding him, Pideau considered further. He would be freer than ever before. He would be free to make his long journeys after cattle. He would not always have to hurry back. Then, too, he could go farther afield for his trade. Oh, yes. It would give him much wider scope and freedom. And then——
He glanced about him at the valley which had become his home.
His gaze took in the far woods across the valley. It shifted restlessly to the jagged uprising of snow-clad[29] peaks which cupped the valley in every direction. Down below him lay a parkland of new-born grass and budding trees lit by flashes of sunlight that found reflection in the shining surface of the waters of a swift-flowing mountain river.
He glanced away over the great lake to his right that was the source of the river, and which spread out far as the eye could see till its confines became lost in the haze of the southern distance. He turned in the opposite direction, where the river and valley lost themselves in a maze of forest-robed hills, beyond which, many leagues on, lay the open sea of prairie land that was his great hunting ground. And then his quick eyes came back to the child who was the pivot of his thought.
No. The freedom he had it in his power to achieve for himself was not the freedom he sought. He would be alone, and he did not want to be alone. Solitude was something he abhorred. With his woman alive he had had the sort of partner with whom he could deal satisfactorily. He had been glad of her. She had been very useful. Somehow he felt the babe she had left behind her would also be some sort of companion. She would be a grievous burden. But——
The sea of woods claimed him again. They were limitless. They were forbidding. The mountains ... they were desperately lonesome. The winter, which had only just given way before the warmth of the new season, was one long nightmare of struggle for comfort, to keep the cold from his marrow, even to save life itself.
Yes. That crazy babe made for companionship.[30] Besides, he liked the sound of her ridiculous crowing.
Pideau had no real understanding of the thing that was happening. Absorbed in a cold review of his own desires, he was without understanding of the subtle power with which Nature endows the weakness, the appealing helplessness of childhood. He had no realization that that dirty, dusky little life, from the very moment of its beginning, had been burrowing its way into the only really human spot which his savage soul possessed.
The half-breed kicked a stone with impotent impatience. He delved into a pocket in his rough tweed coat for his pipe. But he left it there. Then of a sudden he leaned down and lifted little Annette to his lap.
He would not destroy that life. He would keep his motherless babe. And queerly he found satisfaction that he would no longer have to share her with another—even her mother. She would be his—just his. And he would raise her somehow. But, in God’s name, how?
The tiny fingers seized his thick beard and tugged at it ruthlessly. The infant chuckled and made happy, inarticulate sounds. And Pideau laughed. He laughed outright.
The noon meal was over. The camp fire had been allowed to die down to smouldering ashes. The litter of Pideau’s activities lay scattered about. A plate had been flung aside unwashed. So, too, with a tin pannikin, and the cooking pot with its contents, sufficient to provide another meal or two. Then, near by, was an[31] iron boiler half filled with soapy water, and beside it a little pile of the rags which had been removed from Annette’s body.
Pideau had spent a busy noon. Under his new-born resolve he had discovered new duties, which he had tackled in his naturally energetic way. He had eaten. And, having ministered to the comfort of his own stomach, he had done his best for the babe. New milk; rich, fat, creamy milk from his herd of stolen beasts. His understanding considered that milk was indicated. So forthwith he poured Annette’s rapidly expanding body as full of the creamy liquid as was conveniently possible.
Then came a burst of real inspiration. He heated water, and sought out the soap he never used on himself. Then he washed the infant all over from the downy crown of her head to the soles of her pretty feet. After that he raided the child’s scant wardrobe, and arrayed her small body in those clean garments which the dead mother had so jealously hoarded.
It had not been easy. No. But somehow the work had afforded Pideau a measure of amusement, and Annette seemed to regard it as an entirely new game. So it was, with the babe smelling reminiscently of powerful soap, that the man returned to his doorway, and, with a deep sense of satisfaction, prepared to attack once more the problems confronting him.
Annette fell asleep on his lap, and Pideau filled and lit his pipe.
The half-breed was a creature who believed in a carefully planned and well considered future. There was nothing that was haphazard about him. His[32] desire for wealth knew no limits. And every dollar added to his store of currency was a further step on the road he designed to travel. It was money, money, money, all the time with him. He believed that money could satisfy every desire of his life. So every beast he could lay hands on, every beast he could sell safely across the southern border, was a step in the right direction. There was a bunch of ten Polled Angus cows he deeply desired to acquire. It would take some ten days to get them. How could——?
Pideau’s thought came to an abrupt termination. It broke off with a sharp sound like a sudden intake of breath whistling through the dense whisker obscuring his mouth. His eyes widened to their fullest extent. Then they narrowed. He leaned forward in his seat peering.
He remained unmoving, and the child slept on. He was peering down at a wide woodland bluff where it gave on to the open grass of the river bank. He had discovered movement at the edge of the bluff. And it was the movement of something or someone lurking, and, to his mind, spying. That at least was his inevitable conclusion.
For some moments there was no fresh development. Pideau’s searching eyes relaxed. He even thought of one of his own stray cows. Then, without warning, or thought for the slumbering Annette, he leaped to his feet, and the screaming infant lay kicking in the dust where she had fallen. A human figure had broken from the sheltering bluff. It was making its way uphill towards the dugout. Pideau had vanished into his hut.
When he reappeared it was with a Winchester sporting[33] rifle, with telescope sights and a hair trigger. And he held it against his shoulder levelled at the intruder upon his hiding. His intent was plain. It was there in the fierce black eye that searched the sights, and in the lean, brown forefinger within a fraction of releasing the trigger. His purpose was death. And he had no intention of wasting a shot.
Moments passed, however, and the shot was withheld. Then of a sudden Pideau raised his head and lowered his weapon. The intruder was a woman. She was heavily burdened. And she was breasting the ascent to the dugout at a gait that told of the last stages of exhaustion.
Pideau Estevan was unimaginative. Romance, the miraculous, were things without a shadow of appeal for him. Yet the thing that had happened had stirred him to a queer, incredulous amazement.
While he set his cooking pot back on his fire, and laid fresh fuel under it, he flung backward glances at the figure of his sister, Luana, sitting wearily huddled in his doorway. Then from her he gazed at the two children squatting on the ground confronting each other with a calm stare of voiceless, infantile interest.
Pideau felt the whole thing was as crazily remarkable as it well could be. Only that morning had he buried his wife. Only a brief half-hour ago had he been planning the difficulties resulting from his loss. And now—now Luana had appeared from nowhere. And every difficulty seemed to have melted into thin air.
It was amazing.
Exhausted as she was, Luana had told him in brief[34] outline the story of the disaster that had befallen on the Sisselu Northern Railroad.
She had told of the death of the missionary and his wife, for whom she had been working. She had told him how she and the boy-child she had brought with her were the only survivors of the disaster. And she had told him of the thing she had determined, and now, at last, had finally accomplished.
Pideau hurried again to the tired woman when the leaping flame assured him that her food would soon be ready for her.
“An’ so you steal him?” he said, gazing down at the weary figure of the girl as she leaned against the door-casing.
Pideau was thinking hard. And his manner had in it a sort of playful cunning.
Luana stirred into full mental activity. Her dark eyes lit with sudden passion. Her whole body seemed to thrill with emotion.
“Oh, it is the miracle, Pideau,” she cried. “Mine the eyes he look into first. Mine the arms that first hold him. His mother no. His father—tcha! They nothing. He knows me. He loves me. Always I make him love me. They both are dead. So I steal him. Yes. Why not?”
“This missionary. His folks? The police?”
Pideau was deeply considering. Luana laughed voicelessly in spite of her weariness.
“There are folks way east,” she said. “They hear of the death of them, an’ they think my boy-man killed, too. The police know nothing. How should they know? They find me. They say, ‘this woman[35] an’ her child.’ When I wake they ask me. I tell ’em quick. I am a breed woman who goes on a visit to folk at Lake Mataba. Oh, yes. My boy. He’s dark like the half-breed mother. I say my man way south, at Calford. I ask ’em quick send me to Calford. They say ‘yes.’”
Luana shrugged her drooping shoulders contemptuously, and her gaze turned to the magnet that always held her. The children were stirring. Annette was reaching out towards the little bare feet of the boy. It was a gesture of infantile friendliness.
“An’ they bring you to Calford? They ask no more?”
Pideau wanted to be very sure. He must know it all before taking his final decision.
“I go before the inspector. He ask much,” Luana went on easily. “But I all ready. I think my story good. I tell him I go to High Creek, where is my man. I think they ask on the telephone. So I say quick he works on a farm ’way out on the foothills. The inspector, the fat inspector, says he send me in police wagon. I say, ‘Yes—you are so good to poor woman. When?’ He say, ‘to-morrow.’ I say, ‘yes.’ I go. I think hard. I buy food in the stores. I set it in a sack across my shoulders. Then I make the sling for my back, so boy-man ride easy. An’ I go quick. I walk. I walk far. One hundred—two hundred mile. I don’t know. Twice I nearly die in the muskeg in the hills. I’m scared of the timber wolves. I light plenty fires. I follow quick on the trail I know. And I say, ‘Pideau in the hills.’ I come to him. So I keep my boy-man.”
[36]Luana drew a deep breath, and closed her tired eyes. Pideau watched her. Suddenly he looked away down into the valley below.
“I bury Annette this morning,” he said.
Luana’s eyes were wide open, and she sat up.
“Annette—dead?” Then she gazed at the child Annette. “I think she maybe at work somewhere. Dead?”
Pideau shook his head without a sign of emotion.
“The mountain fever kill her,” was all he said. “She go, an’ leave me with little—Annette.”
Both were gazing at the two children. And the silence between them prolonged.
At last the woman’s gaze was withdrawn, and she sought the man’s dark face with a question.
“It good,” she said at last. “Then I raise your Annette with my boy-man. Yes?”
Pideau eyed the two infants who had now approached each other more nearly. They were mixed up in the aimless way of babyhood. There were sounds coming from them. Gurgles from Annette. And leaping words from the boy. Pideau’s face had no smile, but he suddenly laughed with his voice.
“Yes,” he said. “You stop here while I mak good trade. You cook. An’ I teach you the work of the cattle. I go now. I get ten cows. It’s a farm ’way out on the prairie. Then I come back with them. You raise Annette with your boy-man. I am glad. The wolf pack grows!”
He moved off to the fire where Luana’s food was cooking. And as he went he laughed at his own humor.
CHAPTER III
ELEVEN YEARS LATER
ANNETTE was standing on the river bank. She was intensely preoccupied. Her willow rod swung up. It whistled through the hot summer air. Then her homemade fly struck the calm surface of the shady pool with a lightness, a dexterity, that displayed her child’s skill.
Her dark eyes were alight. There was eagerness in the pose of her tall, angular body. Her pretty lips were parted, and her breath came quickly. She was very happy.
The boy was watching from beneath the visor of the old cloth cap he had inherited from Pideau. He, too, had all the enthusiasm of a keen fisherman. But he was not fishing. He was squatting on the sun-dried grass of the river bank cleaning his rifle, the breech of which was dismantled, with its parts spread out on a grease rag on the ground beside him.
Two lean husky dogs were at the water’s edge near by. They were great creatures of the trail. But they were also hunting dogs, trained to an efficiency which only the limitless patience of the boy could have achieved. They were searching the distance with eager eyes. Their long muzzles were pointing at a far distant forest line beyond the river. And their bodies were a-quiver with that canine excitement which finds expression so readily.
[38]Farther back from the river, where the haylike grass was abundant, a pinto pony was tethered, grazing. He was without saddle or bridle. He wore only an old rope head collar and the tether by which he was secured.
The valley was bathed in blazing sunshine which told of the summer’s height. Forest, grass, and shrub were ripe with the maturity of the season. The silence and solitude of the mountain world were profound.
The girl cast, and recast again. Then of a sudden her whole body stiffened. And a sharp little ejaculation broke from her. The boy watched the play. And as he waited, the whimper of his dogs broke into a howl that sounded full of mourning in the silence of the valley.
Annette struck sharply. In a moment there was a flash of wriggling silver in the sunshine. Then a large fish lay flapping on the grass, and the girl was on her knees with her strong, brown fingers busy salving her precious fly.
“Say, you!” she cried, flinging the words back over her angular shoulder. “Send your crazy dogs to home. They’re spoilin’ things. I hate ’em.”
The boy smiled. He made no attempt to obey. He turned to gaze at the creatures that had angered Annette.
They were standing in an attitude of savage threat. Their manes were bristling. The howl had given way to ferocious deep-throated snarls at a direction where the river lost itself in the dark forests to the northeast.
Annette stood up from her task of readjusting her fly. She had flung her capture amongst the round dozen[39] of already stiffening fish that were lying on the grass. Her angry eyes watched the offending dogs.
She was tall for her twelve years; tall and lathlike. Her limbs were thin, and brown, and shapeless. Clad in a brief skirt that barely covered her bony knees, and in a dark worsted jersey, that seemed to flatten her body the more surely, there was little enough of the beauty of figure that might develop later.
It was different, however, with her dusky face, and the mass of raven-black hair that fell below her shoulders. Her hair was wonderful in its untrained profusion. And her face was already showing signs of a beauty that was almost classical. Her eyes were profoundly expressive of emotions that rarely knew discipline. Her whole expression was full of infinite possibilities. Certainly the half-breed was dominant in her, with all its potentialities for mischief.
The eleven years that had passed since an exhausted Luana had arrived at the door of Pideau Estevan’s dugout had brought little outward change in the half-breed’s mountain hiding, except for the development of Annette, and the boy the woman had brought with her.
The dugout showed no signs of the passage of years, or of the devastating mountain storms. For the rest the valley still served its purpose. The hills, the forests, the rivers, they were all as unchanging as the glacial fields and eternal snows that crowned the lofty summits where earth and sky met.
The unseen changes, however, were in the progress of Pideau’s fortunes. His illicit trade had gone on without interruption. He had bled the harassed settlers on the far eastern plains without mercy or scruple.[40] And it was the smallness of his thefts which had assured his long success.
He never stole cattle in bulk. His thefts looked mean and small. But by a process of raiding in twos and threes, and never more than six head of cattle at a time, he had built up a herd which yielded him ample profit across the United States border to the south of him.
Pideau’s avaricious soul was comparatively satisfied. His fortune was growing and had already opened out pleasing visions of the future. But his astute mind was never resting, and he realized that his immunity from consequences could not continue indefinitely.
From across the southern border something more than rumor had reached him. The Americans down south were talking Prohibition. They were not only talking of it, they were moving on towards it in that thorough fashion in which they did most things. Well, Prohibition had served him more than well at different times in the Western Territories of Canada. It would be a poor bet if he could not turn this new trend of American politics to good account for himself. So, as he saw the end of his present traffic approaching, he was well enough satisfied.
His sister Luana had served her purpose. She had raised Annette for him with the boy he had long since dubbed “the Wolf.” She had done her best. She had taught them both to read, and write, and to figure simple sums, to the limit of her own stock of education. Then she had taught them to work, which was what Pideau most desired. The only thing that had offended him had been her partiality for the Wolf. But even[41] that, he had been able to counter-balance in his own cruel way.
But the boy was approaching manhood now. He had outgrown Luana’s care, while Annette was still of an age to come under her controlling hand, which was often enough unsparing.
These things, however, were of no real concern to the boy and girl. They were inseparable playmates and had little enough thought for Pideau’s affairs. Besides Pideau was away on his trade. And Luana was sick—very sick with mountain fever.
Annette turned at last from the dogs to the boy.
“I said you’re to send ’em to home—you Wolf!” she cried, with that imperiousness which her sex and age seemed to justify. Then she became more vehement and her voice shrilled. “They’re curs, anyway. They ain’t dogs. Only curs.” Then as the boy’s eyes smiled with deeper derision she became still more furious. She stamped her bare brown foot on the grass. “So’re you!” she screamed at him. “Send ’em right back, or—or I’ll tell Pideau when he gets back to home, an’—an’ he’ll rawhide you for not letting me fish right.”
The Wolf glanced unconcernedly at the whimpering dogs.
“You got plenty fish. Wot’s worryin’ you?”
He snapped the breech of his rifle into place, and gathered up his tools and crammed them into the pockets of his breeches and stood up.
He was tall. The Wolf had developed far beyond his fourteen years. He was already taller than Pideau. But that which was far less usual was the fact that his[42] physical strength had more than kept pace with his growth. He was lean, rawboned, and possessed of the activity of a wildcat. He was keen of mind and nimble-witted, and he possessed that which was denied to all his half-breed companions. His humor was the happiest thing imaginable.
For all that, however, he was as full of the spirit of the wilderness as the mountain world could breed him.
The Wolf’s indifference maddened Annette. But suddenly she smiled in a manner that should have warned him. Her whole attitude changed with her sly smile, and her tone was full of guile.
“You know why they howl—those curs?” she asked quietly.
“Wolves.”
Annette shook her head.
“No. Luana. She’s dyin’. Anyone knows curs howl when folks are dyin’. Pideau says so.”
The reality of the Wolf’s smile fell from him. But Nature had designed something like a perpetual smile in the fashioning of his eyes. He was staring at his playmate with trouble grievously shadowing his happy face.
“I tell you it’s wolves,” he cried, with sudden vehemence. “They’re yonder. They’re in the woods. I know. Luana ain’t dyin’. She’s—she’s getting better, sure. She said so. You’re talkin’ foolish. Guess maybe you want her to die.”
Annette wanted to hurt, and knew she had succeeded. She loved to hurt the Wolf at any time. It was her way to plague the boy. She was as ready to torment as to fight him with hands and teeth.
[43]Usually the Wolf was satisfied and only laughed at her. Annette was Annette, the whole joy of his budding manhood. He worshipped the little whirlwind fury. But now, under the girl’s lash, he was only a boy, and one who loved the woman who had raised him with a boundless affection.
“Maybe I do,” Annette admitted. “I hate her. She beats me when Pideau’s not around. When he’s away she makes me work while she sits around with you, an’ acts foolish. It’s all you—you! I’ll be glad when she’s dead. She’s got mountain fever. Pideau said so. Same as my mother did. An’ she’s goin’ to die, too. What’ll you do when she’s buried so the wolves can’t eat her fool body? Guess Pideau’ll fix you.”
But the Wolf’s bad moment had passed. He understood. It was just Annette. So he grinned.
“I’m not scared any,” he said, making a sound with his lips that brought the dogs to his caressing hand. “I’m as big as Pideau, an’ he can’t rawhide me. He wouldn’t anyway. Maybe he daren’t. I can shoot as quick as Pideau. He can’t worry me a thing—now.”
Annette stared. To her childish mind the boy’s spoken defiance of her father was something almost terrible. She knew Pideau’s temper. She knew something of his cruelty. She knew he had no love for her white playmate, and had often seen him lay the rawhide on his bare shoulders.
She glanced back up at the dugout as though she feared Pideau might be there to hear the boy’s defiance. Then she pointed at the youth with a thin, brown finger.
[44]“You’re crazy,” she said, in a low tone. “Pideau could just—kill you.”
The Wolf only shook his head and smiled.
“Maybe it’s you that’s crazy. Who hunts pelts for Pideau? Who gets meat fer him to eat? Who rebrands his stolen cows, an’ herds ’em? Pideau’s no fool, kid. He hates me. But he needs me. An’ he knows I can shoot quick an’ straight. Soon I’ll be a man. Then you’ll see.”
The dogs had gone back to the river bank, and Annette was watching them again. She felt that the Wolf had got the best of the talk, and her wicked mind was searching for fresh mischief.
“He said Luana’d die,” she declared, returning to the thing she knew was a sure hurt.
But the Wolf refused to be drawn again. He shrugged.
“I don’t care what Pideau says. He’s a liar, anyway. And a thief, too! He’s thinkin’ of quittin’.”
Annette forgot the dogs. She forgot her fishing. She dropped the line she was holding, and, with it, the fly she treasured. She eyed the boy for a thoughtful moment. Then:
“Who’s the liar now?” she cried, but with a quick look of doubt flashing in her big eyes.
“Only Pideau,” the Wolf grinned.
Annette turned away to the distance. She was disturbed. Her child’s mind knew only the mountains. They were her whole world. She was part of them. And the thought of quitting her beloved playground was devastating.
“Pideau wouldn’t quit,” she argued. “He’s safe[45] here. He’s doing swell. He said so. Why’d he quit, anyway?”
“Cos he’s scairt. He reckons the p’lice’ll get him soon. They’re hot on his trail. He figgers they’ll get his tracks in a while, an’ then——”
The Wolf broke off with a look of profound meaning, and the girl was impressed. But her fear passed as she considered the source of her information. Her scorn leaped again.
“Guess you like to think Pideau’ll get trailed by the p’lice,” she sneered. “Maybe you’d set them wise. It was a bad day Luana brought you. You’d be dead, starved, if it wasn’t for Pideau. Yet you hate him. You’re a skunk. A cur like—like them,” she flung at him, nodding at his howling dogs. “You ken shoot quicker than Pideau! Psha! I tell you Pideau’ll beat the life out of you when he comes, an’ I tell him the things you said.”
“He won’t.”
The Wolf shook his head.
“You can tell him all you want,” he went on. “I don’t care. Pideau’s quittin’. He’ll make you quit with him. If I fancy I’ll stop around. I ken make as good as Pideau right here. Maybe you’ll have to go live in some dirty town, where you can’t fish, an’ you ain’t got a pony to ride. Maybe——”
“I won’t go!”
The girl’s voice had something in it that was not all anger. There were tears of real grief behind her hot denial.
“You’ll have to—’less——”
“’Less what?”
The Wolf had become seriously thoughtful.
[46]“Pideau reckons the furs I took last winter gave him more’n five hundred dollars,” he said meaningly. “That’s a deal of money. It ’ud have been more—a lot more—only I cached haf my catch. I got ’em ’way off in the forest. I ken make big money. An’ I don’t need to steal.”
“You hid ’em from Pideau? That’s talk. Fool talk,” Annette cried.
“’Tain’t. I’m a swell hunter. I ken get foxes all the time. That’s why I don’t worry with Pideau. You want to stop around when Pideau quits?”
Annette’s eyes widened. And the Wolf saw the thing he desired as she mutely nodded her answer.
The boy straightened himself up. His fine eyes were shining.
“You ken if you feel that way. An’ I’d be glad to have you around. I’ll be a man soon. An’ you’ll be a grown woman. When Pideau quits we can make a big getaway into the forests so he can’t locate us. We can marry then. An’ I’ll hunt pelts, an’ make big money, an’ you can stop around an’ fish trout. It ’ud be swell. An’ we’d be quit of Pideau, who’s a thief.”
The boy was serious. Deadly serious. And Annette eyed him curiously. Then of a sudden she began to laugh. The boy’s cheeks flamed with sudden anger.
“Oh, you great, big, swell hunter!” Annette cried maddeningly. “Oh, you brave fool man! You! You! Say, Wolf, you beat it an’ hunt gophers, an’ leave me to my fishing. You take your curs with you, and the gun you can shoot so good with. Marry you? Why, I hate you, you fool kid.”
[47]She turned and picked up her rod, and the Wolf heard it whistle through the air. Then, out of his hot anger, he did the thing she had ordered. He shouldered his rifle and flung his answer back at her as he went.
“Hate all you reckon to, Annette,” he cried, as he made towards the tethered pony, with his dogs leaping about his moccasined heels. “It won’t help you. You’ll marry me, sure. I fixed that. See?”
He grinned back at her, his anger swept away by that humor that was never long at fault. Then he added:
“Guess I’ll get after them wolves so you’ll know it ain’t Luana dyin’.”
Annette forgot her fly, and the trout rising at it. She craned round, her face flaming.
“Look at him. Great big hunter!” she jeered after him, as he vaulted to the bare back of his pinto and set off at a run.
Left alone, however, Annette found no further interest in her fishing. Her sport only appealed as long as it was shared with the Wolf. It was the same with everything in her life. She would not have admitted it even to herself. On the contrary, she told herself fiercely that she hated her playmate worse, much worse than she hated the dying Luana. She never wanted to see him again. She hoped his pinto would fall in a gopher hole and kill the Wolf. She wished him every harm her vicious mind could think of. And she swore to herself that she would tell Pideau everything he had said.
For all that, however, it was with a quick sigh she[48] quit her fishing, and reeled in her line, and detached her precious fly and stuck it in the worsted of her clothing. Then, after bending over her fish, and gathering them up, and stringing them together, it was with a desperate inclination to tears that she faced the hill for her dugout home and her dying foster mother.
She told herself again and again of the hate with which the Wolf inspired her. But long before the door of the dingy dugout was reached she was thrilling with the vision of the mountain life in the woods, alone with the boy, as the Wolf had promised it to her.
CHAPTER IV
THE “KILL”
WITH the picket line half-hitched in its mouth the pinto dashed off at the distance-devouring gait of the pacer.
The Wolf had boasted his prowess to a derisive Annette, and the girl’s jeer was still pursuing him. But his boast was no idle one. And the girl who had derided knew well enough that was so. The Wolf, like his namesake, was a hunter, and brimful of the elemental life that was his.
He rode like an Indian on his splash-coated pinto. The Indian was there in his makeshift equipment. It was in the loosely dangling, moccasined feet; in the half-hitched, single rawhide line; in the close seat on a razor-like back. Then it was in his old buckskin suit, inherited from Pideau’s decaying wardrobe. It was in his acute, sunburned features, and in the all-seeing keenness of his fine, dark eyes.
Vanity helped to foster the likeness. The boy was proud of it. Nevertheless it was by no means artificial. It went deep. There were the long years of association with half-breeds to account for it. There was the wild life of the mountains, with their dour solitudes and vicious storms, and their everlasting call to the primitive. Then there were those pastimes, savage pastimes, which in early years, make so deep an impression. Without doubt the boy’s white-man heritage was deeply submerged.
[50]The dogs had set off at their long-gaited, wolfish lope. They lived only for the chase, and the rare caresses of their youthful master. They were obeying now. For their movements were inspired by the inarticulate command which had fallen from the Wolf’s lips as he vaulted to the back of his pony.
The boy went without even a glance in the direction of his playmate. His whole interest had become absorbed in the two fierce creatures who had done their best to wreck the girl’s fishing, and create discord between their human companions. His mood was the enthusiasm of the hunter. For the chase of the timber wolf never failed in its vivid appeal.
But that which he had foreseen failed to mature. He had looked for a swift heading for the ford, a few hundred yards farther down the river. He had expected a crossing to the distant woods beyond, on the eastern slopes of the valley. That had clearly been the direction of the dogs’ concern.
Nothing of the sort happened. Rene, the bitch, had, as always, taken the lead. The less responsible Pete had boisterously attempted to head her. But the lady would have none of him. She slashed at him with vicious teeth, and flung him savagely back to her shoulder. She passed the river ford as though she had no knowledge of its existence, and headed down the valley in the determined manner of one whose mind is clearly made up, and refuses to be deflected from her purpose.
The boy speculated. Why? His mind was acutely questioning. Why this sudden and unaccountable abandonment of the direction which had stirred the dogs to such profound disquiet? Had Annette been wiser[51] than he? Had the dogs been concerned for something which had nothing to do with wolves? He was inclined to doubt his own first judgment.
The chase carried him on down the valley along the course of the meandering river. And it was a run that appealed to all that was primitive in him.
The day was brilliant, and the world about him was vividly gracious. The still, hot air was full of that tang which only ten thousand feet of elevation could give it. And the limitless spreads of forest on the valley slopes, and the dense woodland bluffs, which dotted the park-like bosom of the vast hollow, were a ripe monotony of green.
It was a panorama of wild beauty. And from the snowy glaciers on the mountain tops, which shone in the summer sun, to the verdant delights of the valley’s heart it was a world the Wolf claimed for his own.
They raced over the open. They searched their way down the leafless aisles of shadowed pine woods. Sometimes they were hugging the river bank. And again they were often a mile and more away on the higher ground, avoiding swamps of perilous muskeg. There were times when the hunting dogs were quite lost to view, and only an occasional whimper afforded a clue to their whereabouts. There were others when the pinto was close on their heels sharing the enthusiasm of the chase despite the sweat streaming into its lean flanks.
On, on they went towards the goal which the wise old Rene had so determinedly selected for the run.
In the Wolf’s mind there was no longer any doubt. The husky was heading for the decoy shelter which the[52] cunning mind of Pideau had designed, and his hands had set up years before.
It lay beyond the muskeg defences of the valley, and was at once a resting place for the spoils of Pideau’s cattle raids, and a carefully designed bluff to fool any chance pursuer to whom ill luck might have revealed his trail.
Why had the dog chosen such a destination, and run for it till she was ready to drop from sheer exhaustion?
Stiff and sore from the lean back of his pony, the Wolf had dismounted. He had tethered the weary beast, and now stood gazing down upon the dogs crouching at his feet.
It was the bitch, Rene, that held his attention. She had sprawled herself on the rotting underlay of the forest, and her slavering jaws were resting on outstretched forepaws. Her fierce eyes were searching the cover in the direction of the clearing which lay ahead.
The boy’s dark eyes wore an indulgent smile. To his mind there was something almost humorous in the dog’s attitude. Her whole pose seemed to be saying:
“Well, here I am, and I go not a step farther. I brought you here, and now it’s up to you.”
For some moments he stood considering. Then of a sudden he stooped.
Rene remained unresponsive. But Pete, with the male dog’s greater demonstrativeness, drew himself nearer to the hand whose caress he sought. The Wolf, however, gave him no heed. His hand fell gently on[53] the narrow head of the bitch, and he talked to her in a fashion she seemed to understand.
Once she raised her head and licked the caressing hand. And her narrow eyes told plainly she was doing her best to interpret his every spoken word.
At last the boy stood up again and turned away. The dogs would obey him. They would remain just where they were until they received his fresh commands.
The Wolf was carrying his rifle ready for immediate use. What he expected to discover as he moved towards the edge of the clearing he did not know. Speculation, wonder; these things had passed from him. And in their place had come a feeling of profound disquiet.
It was just a little queer, that sense of apprehension. It was quite foreign to him. Young as he was, the Wolf’s nerves were tuned to the worst the mountain wilderness could show him. Never in his life had he known real fear. Not even in his earliest days, when Pideau’s savage hand had fallen heavily upon him.
He moved on, a shadow amongst the leafless trunks, and, like a ghost, he glided over the intervening quarter of a mile which brought him to the tangle of undergrowth in the midst of which lay the clearing.
He paused and considered. Ordinarily he would have thrust his way through it without any hesitation. It would have been the simplest, most direct method of approach to his goal. But the thought of Rene still clung, and its influence refused to be dispelled.
He considered deeply and searched with all his eyes. Then he took his decision. There were two openings[54] into the clearing. The one which Pideau had cut to the eastward, and the other, a natural, obscure pathway, on the westward side, not easy of discovery by the uninformed. He decided upon the latter.
It was at the moment of turning to move on that he became motionless. A terrific hubbub crashed through the silence. Grasping his rifle in both hands ready, he stood with eyes fearfully wide. Then he smiled a boyish grin at his own absurdity. It was only cattle. The sudden lowing of driven beasts. It was not a solitary bellow either. But a booming chorus. And it came from the heart of the bush in front of him.
Then his smile passed. Oh, he understood. Pideau had returned with a full bag from his raid. He was there in his hiding with his spoils. He was resting the beasts, and probably feeding them hay in the corrals from the stack that was kept stored for that purpose. Again he considered. And considering, he remembered his dog.
Then he thought of Pideau himself. He knew Pideau would resent intrusion; his intrusion more than anyone’s. His life in the doubtful shelter of Pideau’s home had taught him so much of the man. The half-breed’s veneer of tolerance was very thin. The man was desperately suspicious, too. He was suspicious of his own sister, Luana, and certainly contemptuously suspicious of himself. The only person who enjoyed his trust was Annette.
The Wolf was under no illusion. He knew well enough his sudden confronting of Pideau in his hiding would most certainly bring down an outburst of the man’s savagery upon his head.
[55]So he set out for the pathway upon which he had decided.
From behind a leafy screen the Wolf surveyed the scene of the clearing. He was spying now, and he knew it. For the first time in his life he was using his hunter’s skill to discover Pideau’s secrets.
The clearing was small. It was just that area which had been sufficient to supply the necessary building materials for the small hut and the corrals which occupied it. The hut with its gaping doorway occupied the northern side. And facing it, in the centre stood three small corrals. Beyond these, at the southern extremity, stood the remains of a half-consumed stack of hay.
For the rest there was the smoulder of a dying camp fire before the doorway of the hut. And littered about it were the cooking chattels which had served their purpose. A saddled pony, streaked with sweat, and with its flanks badly tuckered, was hungrily feeding hay near by.
But the Wolf, in his hiding, had eyes for none of these details. It was the corrals, and the cattle they contained, and the hurried movements of the man who was feeding them, that held his interest.
The number of cattle staggered the boy. From where he stood it was impossible to estimate their numbers accurately as they surged and crowded for the hay that was being flung to them. Roughly, he thought there must be at least fifty. Pideau had stolen and driven fifty head of steers and milch cows from the plains single-handed! The fact was almost unbelievable. Never in his life had the Wolf known Pideau to attempt so large a haul.
[56]From the cattle the Wolf turned to the half-breed himself. And if the former had inspired amazement, the latter startled him even more.
Pideau’s every movement told of haste and something else. He almost ran on his journeys between the hay and the corrals. Every now and then his dusky, bearded face was turned, and the Wolf could see its expression. Anxiety was written in every line of it.
But there was something about his doings of far deeper significance to the boy’s quick mind. Pideau’s work took him past the eastern entrance to the clearing on every journey. And every time he went to the stack empty-handed, he paused, searching the distance with eyes and ears.
Pursuit! The Wolf read the answer. Pideau was looking for pursuit, and pursuit meant either the red-coated police, or those who were far less to be feared, the settlers whose cattle Pideau had stolen. The half-breed was clearly in the grip of real fear.
The Wolf had no love for Pideau. But loyalty to him was almost as strong a bond. He realized instantly the thing he must do. If Pideau needed assistance it was for him to afford it.
In those moments an extravagant sense of his own manhood came to the boy. His soul was uplifted with a great joy, a superlative pride. He felt that his days of boyhood were over. He would be fighting beside Pideau on an equal footing.
The police? The Wolf knew what it meant to war with the police. Outlawry! Penitentiary! Even, possibly, hanging, if his weapon chanced to slay. Well,[57] so be it. He grinned in complete disregard of all consequence.
Pideau was at the head of the eastern cutting. He had been standing there for many moments. He was listening. He was searching, too, with every faculty alert. Of a sudden he moved. The Wolf saw him make for his horse, snatch his rifle, which was slung on the horn of his saddle, and hastily mount.
The next moment horse and rider crashed their way through the undergrowth behind the hay store.
The Wolf made no movement. He, too, was watching and listening with every faculty alert. The sounds of Pideau’s hasty retreat died out abruptly. The boy was under no misapprehension. Pideau had not fled. He was not the man to abandon fifty head of cattle without a desperate fight. What next?
Fresh sounds came swiftly. They came out of the opposite distance. It was a low, soft hammering of hoofs over sun-baked soil, and the sound of it grew in volume, almost at the moment the Wolf first discovered it.
He was given no time for conjecture. In a moment, it seemed, the flash of red came to him a few yards down the forest cutting. In another, two red-coated horsemen raced into the clearing, and almost flung their horses on their haunches as they reined them up.
The Wolf’s rifle was pressed hard against his shoulder. His finger was on the trigger, that deadly hair trigger that needed little more than a breath of wind to release.
[58]But his finger remained unmoving, and a wave of panic swept over him. His stomach nauseated as he realized the thing that had so nearly been accomplished. Death! Another instant and his rifle would have spat death at one of those red-coats. And he knew it would have been murder. Cold, deliberate murder without the extenuation of a battle in self-defence.
He lowered his rifle as one of the men flung recklessly out of the saddle. Then it happened.
The crack of a rifle broke the stillness, and the Wolf knew whence it came. The policeman in the saddle pitched headlong, and his horse reared and flung its dead rider to the ground.
The Wolf gasped. His breath whistled in his throat. A queer horror looked out of his eyes.
The man who had dismounted ran. He had drawn a revolver and was charging in the direction of the hay store. His revolver rang out. Then came two shots in swift succession. And the sound of them was identical with that of the shot which had emptied the other policeman’s saddle.
The Wolf saw the second man crumple. He pitched headlong on the sweet-scented grass, clutching at it as he fell. Then, face downwards, he lay quite still.
CHAPTER V
THE WISDOM OF THE WOLF
THE Wolf was still in hiding with the screen of foliage sheltering him. There was not a movement in him beyond the tumultuous beating of his heart. He was thinking with all the rapidity of a mind driven to feverish activity. And the speed of his thought left his subconscious mind free to become aware of the glowing sunlight out there in the open, and the cloud of flies and mosquitoes besetting the restless cattle in the corrals.
He turned at last to the horses grazing with their mouths full of cumbersome bits, and their forelegs entangled in trailing reins. Then the red coat of the second policeman obtruded itself, and he considered the murdered man. It was at that moment he became aware of movement in the bush behind the hay. And he turned to discover Pideau’s dark face thrust beyond it, peering.
It was the cue which brought the boy to sharp decision. This time, with a jerk, he flung the breech of his rifle open and emptied its magazine of cartridges. Then, his tall body erect he moved out from his cover, and advanced towards the man to whom his loyalty, if not his affection, was bound.
Pideau was gazing down at the dead man on the hay. His brutish face expressed no emotion whatever, not even satisfaction. His gimlet eyes were fiercely[60] bright and evil. That was all. He stooped, caught the body in his strong arms, and flung it over in the same rough fashion which he might have used in handling a heavy sack.
Lying face upwards the body revealed the thing the slayer sought. There it was. A minute puncture in the red jacket, with the dark ooze of blood staining the scarlet cloth. Pideau sucked in a breath of extreme satisfaction. It was a shot of which he felt he could be reasonably proud.
“A swell shot, Pideau.”
The half-breed straightened up with a jerk. He swung about to look into the smiling eyes of the Wolf. He stared, startled beyond words. Then, in a moment, fury leaped.
“You?” he cried fiercely. Then, with malevolent savagery: “You—you spyin’ swine! I’ll kill you!”
Pideau’s rifle came up with his threat. Murder, more murder, was in his gimlet eyes. The dusky flush of his cheeks further added to his threat.
The Wolf remained unmoved. He simply shook his head.
“You’d be crazy to make a third killing, Pideau,” he said, ignoring the gun, but remaining watchful. “You need help. My help—now. You’ve killed two red-coats, an’—more’ll come.”
Pideau’s gun lowered. It was a hardly perceptible movement. But the quick eyes of the boy saw it, and he snatched his advantage.
“I ain’t spyin’,” he went on quietly. “I don’t have to spy on you, Pideau. I’ve no need. I came right here because my crazy dogs led me this way. They hit[61] a trail. I guessed it to be a wolf trail. But it wasn’t. It was Rene. Maybe she figgered you’d need my help.”
“You’re lyin’!”
Pideau’s snarl was ugly enough. But his anger was abating, and the Wolf realized it.
“No,” he said. “I haven’t need to lie, either.” He glanced significantly down at the body of the dead policeman. Then he looked at the corrals behind him. And farther on at the grazing horses, and the other of Pideau’s victims. “Not till more police get around, anyway.”
Pideau’s gun had come to rest with its butt on the ground.
“What d’you mean?” he cried roughly. “Ther’ ain’t more red-coats to come. Ther’s only them two on Maple Coulee post. An’,” he laughed harshly, “they’re both mutton dead.”
“Sure.” The Wolf’s gaze came back to the gloating face of the man who was the father of Annette. “They’re dead. That’s the reason more’ll come. The red-coats don’t let up. That’s how you always say. We got to make it so ther’s no trail for them to hunt. We got to make it so they think these boys have just quit. Maybe lit out across the border. An’ we can do it.”
The half-breed’s face was a study. As the boy talked, his smiling eyes containing nothing but seeming good humor, the man’s eyes lost their cruel sparkle. The flush of fury completely faded from his cheeks. Surprise, and then amazed incredulity took possession of him. In the end there was the dawning of satisfaction on his unsmiling face.
[62]“How?” he asked, with a contempt that could not conceal his curiosity.
“We’ll need to strip ’em first,” the Wolf said, eyeing the body on the hay. “Then we’ll need to bury ’em—deep.” A little frown of concentration drew his finely marked brows together. “Then we’ll have to burn their clothes—all of ’em.”
“An’ their cayuses?”
“We can turn ’em loose. The wolves’ll get ’em before sunup to-morrow.”
“An’ the saddles?”
“Burn ’em, too. We ken sink the iron trees in the muskeg ’way back. An’ their guns. An’ everything else that won’t burn. We ken just cover your tracks right up so an Injun couldn’t smell it out.”
“Gee!”
The half-breed’s exclamation was an involuntary expression of admiration. If the Wolf understood it he made no sign. He simply gazed at the father of Annette with unfathomable eyes.
“We best get to it before—— You see, Pideau,” he went on, in his quick way, “you just can’t tell what message these boys left behind ’em. I’ve heard you say you haven’t any sort of use for ’em, but you’ve always allowed they’re slick. Maybe they sent word to their headquarters. Maybe they’d hit your trail. Maybe they passed word for folks to foller right along. See?”
Pideau nodded. And the boy watching him saw at last that which lay beneath the surface. The narrowed eyes had lost their confidence. There was fear in the swift movement of the furtive glance[63] that swept over the clearing and finally came to rest at the entrance to it.
And as the Wolf realized the truth, boy as he was, he would have been less than human had he not experienced a thrill of contempt. Pideau! Pideau, the ruthless tyrant who had never more than tolerated his presence in their mountain hiding, was afraid! He was scared! Scared like a pitiful gopher!
Rene had done him good service that day in bringing him there. Never again would he submit to the bully. Never again would he tolerate even the man’s authority. Pideau was just a murderer. Something of which he had no personal fear.
No. In future they would be equals. Equals in council and in the traffic that gave them livelihood. Partners. Yes. He would even be a partner if it suited him. But——
He suddenly dropped on his knees and began to strip the body of the dead policeman.
The half-breed was still watching the entrance to the clearing with thoughts of pursuit troubling him. But at last he became aware of the boy, and the work he was engaged upon.
The Wolf looked up as a harsh laugh jarred the quiet of the summer day.
“You got hell beat a mile, kid,” Pideau cried, as their eyes met. “You certainly have. Of all the cool—— Say, you surely are the Wolf! Gee!”
The boy went on with his work.
“Sure,” he replied indifferently. “That’s how you always said.”
CHAPTER VI
PARTNERSHIP
THE Wolf had eyes only for the distance. He had a profound revolting for his companion, and all that in which he had found himself so amazingly involved. The cleanness of his boyish innocence had been badly fouled, and he would have given all he possessed to be able to forget.
Pideau was riding beside him, morose, silent. His expression was brooding. His eyes were narrowed to mere slits as though striving to conceal the evil of the mind behind them. He, too, was gazing far ahead, but he was concerned with nothing he beheld.
Every now and again a quick sidelong glance took in the youth at his side. And apparently the Wolf remained unconscious of the attention, which was without a shadow of friendliness or good will.
But, in fact, the boy was acutely alive to his companion’s glances. And, moreover, he possessed full understanding of the reason and purpose lying behind them. Years of bitter experience had taught him so much of Pideau. He understood the mire of evil that filled the man’s soul. Well enough he knew that the name with which he had himself been dubbed rightly should have been bestowed on the father of Annette. For there was no attribute of the fierce marauder of the forest that Pideau did not possess. Right down to the queer, haunting cowardice which is a fundamental of it.
[65]The Wolf knew that dire threat was overshadowing him. And in Pideau the nature of such a threat could only possess one interpretation.
The cattle were moving ahead, herded with the skill of trained sheep dogs by Rene and Pete. It was the boy who controlled their work. Pideau took no hand. It was the boy, in fact, who had controlled everything from his first confronting of Pideau in the act of his crime, to the ghastly work which had occupied the long hours of night.
It was little wonder that the boy longed for forgetfulness. Clean, wholesome, imbued with a frank delight in the simple fact of existence, and the exercise of a keen, natural intelligence, he had found himself wallowing in a sink of horror, driven to it by circumstances which had been beyond his power of escape. He had realized that Pideau, for the sake of Annette, must be saved from the consequences of his own savage, blundering crime. And, with a generosity he could not deny, he had hurled himself to the man’s support.
The reaction of the horror of the night still crowded down upon him. It was all utterly unforgettable. The two murdered policemen. Their two horses. Then the ghastly task to which his hunter’s training and instinct had been put.
He had seen the fire devouring equipment and clothing till not a single recognizable shred remained to betray. He had seen the stiffened human bodies hurled to the hungry maw of the bottomless mire of the muskeg. Then there had been that worst of all necessity. Two fine-mettled bronchos, full of life and equine[66] beauty, had been turned adrift in the forests with the reasonable certainty that they would hardly survive more than a few days.
And all the while there had not been one moment when he had dared relax his vigilance for his own personal safety. Pideau was a coward. And the boy’s woodcraft, hunting the timber wolf, had long since taught him the treachery of which the coward is capable.
The Wolf had learned so much since he had parted from Annette the morning before. In a few short hours he had learned his own strength. And he knew that what he had done had placed Annette’s father in the position of a trapped fox. He had a shrewd understanding. And the sum of possible consequences came to him easily. He was, metaphorically, watching the snapping jaws of the trapped fox, and knew that his own safety lay in his wit in avoiding them.
Pideau’s mood as he rode beside the Wolf on the homeward journey was full of ugly possibilities. His thought was searching. It was the guilty, fearful searching of a mind poisoned by terror and hate.
The Wolf—knew!
That was the man’s dominating thought. It had leaped to that fact in its panic. And it overshadowed every other consideration.
The boy—knew!
Pideau summoned the wit that had always served him. What did it mean? What could he do? And he found answers to those questions swimming through his brain like noxious vapors rising from the bowels of evil which were his. The meaning was deadly,[67] and there was only one thing to do. Now was his opportunity. Annette and Luana were still unaware that the Wolf and he had met at the corrals. They were utterly unaware of the boy’s whereabouts. He had carefully ascertained that fact. Well? The boy must never reach the homeward journey’s end.
The Wolf—knew!
He would become a lifelong scourge, a deadly threat. He would become more. The lash of power would remain in the Wolf’s hand to use at any moment he desired to impose his will in any matter.
It was an unthinkable position. It was a thought that maddened. Pideau’s forehead sweated under his cap, and stark red almost blinded him. It should not be. His mind was made up.
He glanced at the youth from the tail of his eye. And as he did so the Wolf’s voice grated in the queer fashion which comes in youth’s approach to manhood.
“Guess you killed enough, Pideau,” he said. “You murdered them p’lice boys. You killed their hosses. Leastways you passed ’em to the wolves. You best finish right ther’. It ain’t any sort o’ use wantin’ to kill me. An’ you can’t anyway.”
The Wolf’s eyes were smiling as he gazed at the man he read like an open book. There was no fear in him. But there was something in his smiling gaze that Pideau could not face.
The half-breed’s eyes fell away and sought refuge in the cattle ahead of them.
The boy permitted his pony to drop back slightly, to a position of advantage. The beast’s nose was abreast of the withers of Pideau’s horse.
[68]“I guess we need to square things up,” the Wolf went on, as Pideau attempted no verbal response. “Just cut murder right out till we’re through talkin’. Maybe you’ll see sense then. Since ever we quit back there you bin worried thinkin’ I knew the thing you’ve done. You bin guessin’ you couldn’t stand for it. You’re scared I’ll hold you up—when it suits me.”
Pideau still remained watching the cattle.
“I’m not out to hold you up, Pideau,” the boy went on quietly. “We ain’t friendly. We never bin. Maybe it’ll always be that way. It don’t matter. You gave me shelter when I couldn’t find it for myself. You handed me food, too, when there wasn’t a deal lying around for me. Well, I haven’t learned a deal. But ther’s jest one thing I have got back of my head. I’d hate worse than death to hurt the feller that did those things for me when I couldn’t do ’em for myself. If you get that you’ll see it’s crazy to kill the feller that can help you now, and is willing to. Just as crazy as killing those two police boys.”
Pideau experienced a soothing of his murderous spirit as he listened to the raucous, confident tones. His hate was unabated. But his fear knew a relief that had seemed well-nigh impossible. A curious calm spread through his senses and eased his tension.
“I had to kill ’em,” he growled morosely. “It was that or the penitentiary. A fool ’ud see it.”
“Was it?” The boy’s smile was full of shrewdness. “They’d trailed you, but they hadn’t got you. They’d never have got you in these hills. They’d have got the cattle. But that wouldn’t have hurt a thing. No. It was foolish to kill. Now you’ll get no more[69] cattle. There’ll be a thousand police to say so. They’ll watch for you day an’ night. They’ll never quit your trail. There’s a big bunch of cattle stole from boys who know they’ve lost ’em. And the police know that two men on that station are missing. You’ve got to quit cattle now, because you killed those boys. It was foolish.”
There was no offence in the Wolf’s manner. Only argument. And somehow the argument took hold of the cattle thief, and made him want to hear more.
“Ther’s less chance trailin’ me—now,” he said sharply.
“An’ less chance getting cattle,” the Wolf retorted. “You’re safe—dead safe—if you quit cattle right away.”
“I was reckonin’ to—soon,” Pideau admitted, his gaze wandering southwards in the direction of the United States border.
“Well, it’s got to be right away, if you aren’t yearnin’ for penitentiary an’ a hangin’. We best git farther back into the hills for awhile. The police search is dead sure to come. It won’t be good if chance should show ’em our outfit. So it’s best not killin’ me, Pideau, as you were reckonin’. You’ll need me farther up in the hills. We got to trap, an’ hunt pelts to get our food. Then later——”
The fear and hate in Pideau had receded still further. A grin lit his fierce eyes as he interrupted.
“The Yanks are goin’ dry,” he said, meaningly, with a swift reaction to the needs of the new position. “Last time I was across I heard tell. The border folk[70] are gettin’ busy. They figger it’ll not be for a year or so yet, but when they do——”
“When they do?”
The Wolf was frankly intrigued.
“Why, liquor’ll fetch all sorts of dollars.”
The boy was gazing out ahead over the familiar scene of the valley. His eyes were thoughtful.
“It ’ud be a swell trade,” he agreed at last. “An’ honest.”
“From this side the border.”
Pideau had forgotten the murder he had contemplated. He had forgotten everything in the prospections it contained for him.
“I got the dollars, too,” he went on eagerly. “I could set up a still, an’ brew rotgut fer big money.”
“An’ it would need the two of us to handle it.”
“Yes.”
“As partners.”
“Ye-es.”
The Wolf laughed. He read the meaning of the hesitation.
“We need to be partners—now, Pideau,” he said firmly.
The half-breed turned and frowningly contemplated the boy’s smiling face. All the old murderous feelings had leaped out of the background again. And for some moments he looked into the fearless eyes that challenged him. Then he shrugged and inclined his head in submission.
CHAPTER VII
THE HEART OF THE WOLF
THE noon sun was right overhead, a molten globe of merciless fury. The heat of the valley was fierce. Flies and mosquitoes swarmed in the still air. The cattle were munching wearily, indifferent to the dogs harrying them, indifferent to the luxurious knee-deep grass through which they were ploughing their somnolent way.
The Wolf’s eyes were anxious. There was no smile in them now. The child in him was uppermost. His whole thought was for that home on the hillside which had just come into view, and the human associations it contained for him.
Annette was there. Annette, and his sick mother, Luana. It was of Luana he was thinking most. And his thought was pregnant with grave anxiety. Mountain fever. It was fierce, and deadly, and very swift. Would he find her better, or worse? Would he——?
He wished the smoke from the fire were showing. Surely it should be, with noon at hand. Had Annette forgotten? She might have forgotten. Then perhaps Luana had no need of food.
He glanced at the figure of Pideau, who had uttered no word since his earlier submission. The morose creature displayed no interest whatsoever in the home that was now so very near. He displayed no interest in anything. Not even in the cattle which would ultimately[72] make him a handsome return for the trouble in which they had involved him. The man saw nothing but the visions of his busy brain.
The Wolf understood. And it turned him from his own natural anxieties to the big thing that had taken possession of his life. He knew where he stood with Pideau now. From now on, until full manhood came to his rescue, a chasm of disaster would always be gaping at his feet. He had nothing to save him from it but his own wit and courage. So he watched, for the time, the thing lying back of the half-breed’s eyes and revelled in the thought of the battle in which they had joined issue.
It was an amazing transformation that twenty-four hours had wrought in him. Outwardly he was just the same, lank, muscular, developed out of all proportion to his years. The simple directness which had always characterized him had undergone no change. The wilderness with its battle for survival was deep in his soul. He feared nothing. He feared no human creature. And least of all, he feared Pideau.
Spiritually his development had been in the nature of the miraculous. He had leaped from childhood to real manhood in one amazing stride. A few short hours ago he had talked to Annette of marriage, and of a primitive life lost in the hills he loved. Now he knew that all that had been the talk of a child’s mind.
Annette? Yes. Annette was still the centre of everything for him. But the setting in which she stood was changed. He had tasted of real life, human life, in the past few hours, and he wanted more. He wanted it all. He wanted to measure his strength in the world[73] of men, where every grain of success must be fought for and won over the fallen body of some human adversary. For the moment his adversary was the man riding beside him. That was all right. It was good to try his ’prentice hand on such easy material. Later would come the real thrill, the real battle.
At the foot of the slope, on which the dugout stood, Pideau drew rein. He indicated the cattle about which the dogs circled, a needless guard.
“You best set ’em in the corrals,” he grated harshly. “Feed ’em hay. Later we’ll fix the brands. When you’re through we ken eat.”
Pideau spoke with the confidence of authority. He spoke as though nothing had changed their relations, as though nothing could change them.
The Wolf never hesitated. There was no sign in him of any rebellion. There was nothing provocative in his manner. He turned his pinto towards the hillside and replied over his shoulder.
“I must go to Luana—first,” he cried, and breasted the hill.
Pideau gazed after him. His eyes were calculating, and one brown hand was gripping the small of his rifle, and his fingers felt the trigger.
He saw the slim body swaying to the eager gait of the pinto as it raced up the sharp incline. He saw the boy’s hand, which, like his own, was grasping his rifle. And for several furious moments he was yearning. Then he, too, began the ascent of the hill.
The Wolf was standing at the side of the rough bed in the inner room of the dugout. It was the same[74] rawhide-strung bed built of spruce saplings from which years ago Pideau had carried his dead wife to her grave far down in the valley.
It was a poor enough room. It had one natural earth wall formed by the hill into which it was dug, and the rest of the walls were of laterally set green logs that were stripped of their bark in years of habitation. There was no light except that which was admitted through the doorway communicating with one of the two front rooms. But it was all sufficient to reveal the squalor in which those mountain folk lived. The floor was dust-dry earth, and the furnishings were the makeshift of barest necessity. It was sheer half-breed squalor of the poorest type, suffering under the indifference of those who lived in it.
The Wolf saw none of the poverty. He knew it. He had never known better. So it failed to offend. He had eyes only for the bed, with its worn, colored blankets, and the still ominous ridge that centred it. The blankets had been drawn up till that which lay beneath was completely hidden.
The silence was profound. It was a stillness different from any other the boy had ever known. And its effect on him was a sort of paralysis, from which he had neither power nor will to release himself.
He knew. There was no need for him to look. There was no need for him to raise even a corner of those blankets. The mountain fever had claimed its victim as he had been warned it would. The mother he had always known and loved, the one creature in all his young life who had never spoken a word of blame to him, whose whole thought had been always for his[75] well-being and happiness, had gone. She was dead—dead. She had died alone. Utterly alone. And he would have given all the world to have been there to comfort her, and tell her of his boy’s love.
The stun of it held him helpless. He could only gaze. He could only eye that grim outline under the blanket and wonder like a child.
The sound of voices penetrated the silence. What they said the Wolf cared not. His ears were dead to all but a confusion of sound. But they had an effect of which he was wholly unaware. He moved. He reached out in an uncertain gesture. His fingers closed on the blanket cover near the head of the bed. And as they did so, thought bestirred. Some one must have drawn that blanket so. Who? Annette? Yes, it was Annette. And a new warmth crept into his heart.
The Wolf drew the blanket hesitatingly. His hand was shaking. He saw the black of the dead Luana’s hair. It was still shining as it had shone in life. Then came the waxen features without a blemishing line or wrinkle. Yes, they were like carved marble, a sort of soft-tinted marble that was very beautiful in his eyes. The whole of the dead face lay revealed. And the shaking hand steadied and held the blanket still.
The sound of the voices beyond went on. He gave them no heed. The boy’s whole soul was held by that upon which he was gazing—Luana—his mother. And she was dead—dead. Suddenly he took a step nearer to the bed. He leaned over it. He lowered his head and gently pressed his young lips against the marble-cold forehead. It was his farewell.
The blanket was back in its place as Annette had[76] set it. The Wolf breathed a deep sigh. Then he turned away and moved out to join those, the sound of whose voices had reached him.
The Wolf appeared in the doorway of the dugout.
The fire was lit, and smoke was rising sheer on the still air. Pideau was at the fire, crouching down feeding it, and making ready for the noon food. The Wolf’s pinto was precisely where he had left it, its rawhide picket rope trailing but unsecured.
Annette was there. She was standing apart, and her bold, beautiful eyes were fixed on the youth the moment he appeared. There was no disguise; no pretense. Woman’s curiosity dominated her expression and hid any sign of feeling that may have been lurking.
The Wolf looked her way at once. His look told nothing. It told nothing of the shock he had endured. It told nothing of the passionate grief ravaging his boy’s soul. It was full of a calmness that must have disappointed the impish spirit of the girl.
“You covered her up, Annette,” he said, without a tremor of that which he felt. “You sure did that for—me?”
The girl stirred uneasily. Her gaze averted to Pideau at the fire, who had not looked up.
“She was dead,” she said in a low voice.
“You covered her up for—me?” the Wolf persisted.
“No!”
Pideau looked up from the fire at the sound of Annette’s fierce denial.
[77]The Wolf smiled. Even in his grief Annette was still the little fiend he loved.
“You did it for me, though,” he said, with that maddening assurance which drove the girl.
“She died last night,” Annette cried. Then her eyes lit fiercely. “I did it so the flies ’ud keep from her.”
Pideau grinned. The Wolf saw the grin. He understood the malice of it. He ignored the man and his grin. He turned to the girl for whom his love had never been greater than at that moment. His eyes were smiling.
“I’m kind o’ glad you kept the flies off’n her,” he said. “I can’t ferget you did it, Annette. You see, you didn’t love her, and she didn’t love you. I’ll need to bury her.”
Pideau stood up from his fire abruptly. For one unsmiling moment he looked from the girl to the boy. Then he moved from his cooking pot and came across to them. The Wolf watched him while he seemed only to be looking at the girl.
Annette saw Pideau’s movement but continued to eye the boy. Then came the half-breed’s harsh voice.
“You ken fix them beasts down along in the corrals,” he said in his domineering way. “I’ll bury her when we’re through eatin’.”
The quiet of the boy’s eyes became suddenly disturbed. They lit with passion.
“No,” he said in a tone of finality. “I bury her. She’s my mother.”
A little sound broke from the girl. The boy’s eyes flashed in her direction. But for once Annette’s[78] eyes contained no taunt. For once there was something in them that told of feeling other than of her habitual antagonism.
Pideau’s voice came again. Its tone further maddened the Wolf.
“Mother? She’s no mother o’ yours,” the man sneered. “She never was an’ couldn’t be. She never had a man. She stole you. She stole you from your folks. You’re a white spawn. An’ you’ll never know your folks now she’s dead.”
The Wolf remained in the doorway. He stood without a movement. His long rifle was still in his hand beside him. And in that moment his longing was almost beyond restraint.
The girl watched him. She missed nothing. She read the frantic passion to which her father had goaded the boy. And suddenly she forgot her own love of tormenting. Suddenly all desire to hurt him left her. The woman in her found its natural expression. Her prerogative had been usurped. He had been smote by another. Her father.
She moved. She came to the doorway where the Wolf was standing wild-eyed, gazing on the man who had so brutally hurt him. She laid a slim brown hand on his arm. And a half-tamed softness was in the beautiful boldness of her eyes as she looked up into his face.
“We’ll bury her, Wolf—you an’ me,” she said, in a low voice that was full of something the boy had never heard in it before. “She loved you. She beat me. It don’t matter. She was a mother to you, whatever he says. And you got the right. I—I just want[79] to help you. Father ken see to the beasts himself. They’re his, anyway. Luana belonged to you. An’ I guess you belong to—me.”
A heavy mattock and a digging fork lay on the ground near by, and the child picked the former up and stood with it across her shoulder. Again she laid a brown hand on the boy’s arm.
“We don’t need food till we’re through with—her. Let’s go get her an’ carry her down.”
The Wolf bestirred. He took possession of the appealing hand and crushed it fiercely in his while his glance held the man who had goaded him. Quite suddenly he spoke. He spoke coldly in spite of his passion.
“She wasn’t my mother, Pideau?” he said, and somehow his teeth seemed to clip over each word he spoke. “Then I don’t owe you no blood duty. Ther’ ain’t blood of yours in my body, an’ I’m glad. I won’t say the thing I might, with Annette right here. She’s your kid. You’re her father. But I’ll say this—she’s right; dead right. We’re goin’ to bury Luana, who was a good woman who served you a sight better than you’d a right to. An’ your hands ain’t goin’ to touch her. They ain’t fit. An’ my gun here says that’s so. Them beasts you stole down there are yours to see to. You can go to it. There’s bad blood in you for me when you only need to hand me thanks. An’ while that’s so you ken play your own dirty game. I ain’t scared a thing, Pideau. You want to kill me. You’ve wanted that way ever since last night. Just get it good, if there’s to be a killin’ ther’s two of us in the game.”
Pideau moved as though to rush in on the lank figure whose reckless fury had flung so desperate a[80] challenge. But as he did so the boy’s gun leaped to his shoulder, and his eye fell to the sights.
Pideau made no further movement. Only his narrowed eyes looked yearningly on his own rifle propped against the dugout wall close beside the Wolf.
Then it was that Annette took a great decision. Her untamed spirit flared up. She remembered the Wolf’s boast down on the river bank. Here she was witness to its truth and reality. In that moment the Wolf had grown to the proportions of the hero of her woman’s worship.
“Lay a hand on him, father, an’ I will help him beat you,” she cried, with all the violence she was accustomed to fling at the boy. “You’re just my father. But he’s my—Wolf.”
The Wolf’s gun had held the man. But the girl had achieved something more. Her violence had no part in it. It was something deeper, something of which she was all unaware.
Whatever Pideau’s crimes, whatever his evil, Annette was the child of his body and blood. She was the child whose appeal had saved him from his greatest crime years before. And now the nature between them went for nothing. She had flung herself into the arms of the boy against him.
Pideau was alone; outcast; and he felt that the world of mankind was now completely arrayed against him.
The overwhelmingness of it was too much for his hardihood. He could not face it. His bluff failed him. Without a word he turned away. He moved off. And passing down the hillside on his way to the cattle a[81] sound came back to the two who stood watching him. It was the sound of a bitter, jarring laugh.
They were inside the outer room of the dugout. The Wolf had possessed himself of the old six-chambered revolver which Pideau kept hanging on the wall. He had just finished loading its chambers from the cartridge belt hanging beside it. The spare cartridges he had already stuffed into his hip pocket. His rifle was laid aside with its breech-block removed.
“He won’t do a thing, Wolf.”
Annette’s tone was almost one of humility as she addressed the boy who had suddenly become her hero.
“I’m takin’ no chances.”
The Wolf spoke roughly. There was only the outline of his smile left.
“That why you slipped the pin from his rifle?”
“Sure.”
The girl sighed. Her eyes were gazing at the inner room of death.
“Then we ken carry her down?” she suggested.
“I’ll carry her, kid,” the Wolf said gently. “You don’t need. You haul that mattock an’ fork. She was good to me, an’ I loved her. She didn’t act so good to you. You’ll jest help—me—that’s all.”
Annette nodded. Her big eyes were shining. She wanted to help the Wolf now. That was all.
The Wolf took both her hands in his. They were small and smooth for all their strength.
“Say, kid, you do want to help me?”
Suddenly Annette snatched her hands free and flung her arms about the Wolf’s neck. She clung to him.
[82]“Yes, yes,” she cried. “Anythin’ for you, Wolf. Anythin’—anythin’ at all.”
The boy stooped and kissed the face so near to his. Then as the girl still clung to him he released himself from her embrace.
“We got to be quick, kid,” he said without urgency. “It ain’t Pideau worryin’. It’s the police. They’ll get along. Pideau’s played a fool game, an’ we can’t stop around here. We got to beat it farther into the hills. An’ we aren’t going to get more cattle. We’ll need to hustle for pelts in the future, till—till—— Say——?”
He turned sharply to the inner room.
Annette followed him through the open doorway.
Minutes later Pideau at work amongst his cattle saw the queer little procession. The tall youth was staggering under the burden of death. And behind him came Annette carrying the necessary tools for a burial.
He watched them till they reached the river bank. He saw the Wolf gently set his burden down. Then he turned back to his cattle and morosely continued his work of feeding.
PART II
[84]
CHAPTER I
TEN YEARS OF PROSPERITY
PIDEAU ESTEVAN had spent a busy morning in his long, low, iron-roofed store at Buffalo Coulee, which for ten years had become the home of his partnership with the Wolf.
It was the time of year when the prairie winter was the most uncertain. Christmas and New Year’s had been left behind, but as yet there was little easing of conditions and no sign of coming spring. There was a momentary respite in the depths of cold, but that was all. The temperature had been relaxed by a softening wind and the threat of snow.
Pideau’s busy morning had nothing to do with custom. Buffalo Coulee was not buying. It was the time of year when local trade was practically stagnated to the purchase of the barest necessities of life. He had been distributing about his shelves a large shipment of new season’s goods.
He hated the work of his store. Ten years of weighing, and measuring, and endeavoring to retain his customers’ good will had inspired him with an utter detestation of the work which bored his ruthless temperament to extinction. He only submitted to it because it was his share in a carefully considered plan[86] which the Wolf and he had evolved in their pursuit of fortune.
Now he was standing warming his body at the central stove, gazing at the result of his work without a shadow of enthusiasm.
At last he moved away and passed down towards his open doorway, through which no customer had passed since it had first been unfastened that morning. His purpose was part of years of habit. He would lounge there lazing until the cold or an arriving customer drove him back to his counter.
There was nothing in the outlook to attract. Buffalo Coulee was a primitive prairie township that had grown up as a whim of a handful of settlers seeking some sort of companionship, and a community upon which to centre their lives. Just now it consisted of an open space buried under snow that was churned by sled-runners and the wheels of a few decayed automobiles, fringed about by a straggling of mean habitations heavily encrusted with snow. There were no trees in view. The woods lay somewhere behind the store where the solidly frozen river was wrapped in its winter slumber. There were, however, the tattered crests of the distant mountains beyond the houses. And over all the gray dour of a leaden sky.
Pideau concerned himself with none of these things as he approached his doorway. His gaze became focussed on the instant upon two figures standing at[87] the gateway in the lateral log fence surrounding the police quarters on the far side of the town. A man and a girl were there talking together.
For a moment Pideau remained in full view. Then he drew back and partially closed the door. For some reason he had become desirous of remaining unseen. The sight had stirred him to the profoundest anger. It was Annette, now grown to full womanhood, and Constable Ernest Sinclair of the Mounted Police.
In the ten years since Pideau had abandoned the mountains for the open life of the prairie the change in his fortunes was considerable. The man himself was incapable of change, except possibly in his outward appearance. In that he had done his best to disguise the hill tough and cattle thief, and not without a measure of success. But there were so many features that admitted of no disguise and would dog him to the end of his days.
His color—nothing could alter that, even though he had introduced himself to the luxury of a daily application of horse soap and water. Then his eyes—those beady, snapping eyes, which never really smiled, whatever his mood. They would remain a permanent indication of the man behind them.
Prosperity, however, had made some outward impression. It had forced on him a limited concern for at least some of the decencies of life. His lank hair was no longer a greasy mat. His beard was[88] trimmed close to his brutish face and looked clean. Then his greasy buckskin had given place to store tweeds. And a weekly, clean, variegated shirt produced a striking contrast against the dark skin where its rolled sleeves left his dusky forearms bare.
The man was consumed with greed for money. It had always been so. And it was his money hunger that had made him grudgingly yield to a show of uplift. He had forced himself, in the prosecution of his schemes, to avoid outraging the community in which he had pitched his camp. He had for ten years contrived to fling dust in the eyes of those with whom he contacted in Buffalo Coulee. And even the watchful eyes of the police, in the person of Constable Ernest Sinclair, had failed to discover the full depths of his iniquities.
A storm was raging behind the man’s eyes as he watched the two figures at the police quarters. Annette was a beautiful woman, and the only spark of humanity in Pideau made him glad of her. Those two were philandering. He knew. It had been going on for months. His girl was philandering with a red-coat! To Pideau the thought was simply maddening. Anyone else, no matter who, amongst his civilian neighbors, would have given him no concern whatever. But a red-coat!
But then Annette had developed as she had been bound to do. The beauty of her mother had come to her, just as she had inherited through those channels[89] which had created Pideau, himself. The result was no easy blending. She was alive with headlong, passionate impulse; she possessed a spirit of unthinking recklessness; all the sex in her was a demonstration of her mixed blood. She knew no authority but her own will and dismissed the father, who had once purposed to destroy her, from her consideration. She went her own headlong way and only served the plans of her menfolk in so far as they did not clash with her own.
Suddenly Pideau spat and turned from the sight that infuriated him. And as he did so a man approached his door, and a cheerful voice greeted him.
“It’s thirst, Pideau. The thirst of a desert! I’m going right across to hew old Amos Smith. Give me support. The biggest, yellowest schooner of lager your capacious, if reprehensible cellar, can provide. Thank the good Lord we Canadians aren’t quite dry yet. Thank the good Lord for a disreputable Pideau.”
Doctor Alec Fraser was tall, and fair, and new to the prairie. He was not long from the hospitals and unmarried. He was more than welcome in Buffalo Coulee for other reasons than his medical skill. The township had never before had a doctor of its own, and Fraser came as something of a luxury.
With the collar of his fur coat flung back, and the heavy garment itself unfastened, Doctor Fraser was eyeing Pideau behind his counter, over the rim of the schooner pouring its cool amber liquid down his throat.
“That’s good stuff, Pideau,” he said with a sigh[90] of content, as he set his glass down on the counter. “It’s better than—‘homebrew,’” he added slyly.
Pideau shot a suspicious glance at his visitor who vaulted to a seat on the counter.
“Ther’s worse’n ‘homebrew’ under Prohibition,” he growled.
“Is there?”
Fraser laughed and shook his head.
“Never on your life!” he went on. “There’s nothing out of hell worse. ‘Homebrew’s’ sending half the States crazy.”
Pideau shrugged. He leaned back against his newly arranged shelves.
“That don’t need to worry us across here,” he retorted. “They’ll pay big money for all they can get of it. They lap it up same as if they was weaned on it. You can’t blame folks makin’ it to sell ’em. Blame the crazy guys who threw a hand fer Prohibition. I’d drink the salt of the sea if you made it I mustn’t. ’Tain’t our worry. I’d feed ’em prussic acid if they’d pay me fer it.”
The doctor’s eyes hardened.
“I believe you would.”
“Would? Sure! It’s their funeral.”
“Yes.”
Fraser glanced down the store. It was not really any matter of drink that had brought him there.
“I’m wondering about that bright police boy across[91] the way,” he said abruptly. “When’s he going to pull you and your Wolf partner?”
Pideau looked up. He shot a swift glance into the serious eyes watching him.
“Never,” he growled shortly.
“No? You’re wrong,” Fraser went on contemplatively. “He’ll pull your Wolf anyway. He’s hot on the work. He’s looking for quick promotion. And he sees it in your Wolf, and his ‘homebrew.’ That boy’s yearning.”
Fraser eyed the unlovely creature behind his counter. He had no liking for the half-breed. He understood him too well. But he was not thinking of Pideau. He was not even thinking of the Wolf. He was thinking of the girl he had seen talking out there in the cold, dallying with the man, Sinclair, over the fence. And she was the sole cause of his visit to the store.
“Let him yearn,” Pideau cried roughly. “I don’t care a curse.” He shook his ugly bullet head. “Here, doc,” he went on bestirring, “I know you. We ken talk like men. That boy’s welcome. He’ll never locate our cache. We folk, the Wolf Pack, as you around here call us, came to Buffalo Coulee ten years back fer jest one thing. We’re needin’ good American dollars, an’ we know how to get ’em. We ain’t crooks agin our law. We’re jest here to feed them crazy Prohibitioners all the booze they’re yearnin’ to pay for. And[92] they’re payin’ good. We’re goin’ right on doin’ it. Ther’s no law yet agin it. Let him yearn.”
“But there’s ‘homebrew.’”
“You mean the makin’?”
“Yes. There’s a pretty severe penalty for making that dope, or any other poison, up in the hills—if they get you in the act. If you boys shipped in bonded liquor, the right stuff that didn’t do more than make a feller glad, and sold it at a swell profit down south, there’d be no kick beyond that the Prohibition officers could pass you. But a poison still, ’way up in the hills, is different. If they get you making ‘homebrew’ it’s right up against good Canadian law. And one day you’ll all be sitting around in penitentiary wishing you hadn’t. The police aren’t Prohibition officers. There’s no graft to them. They’re right out after their jobs, and there’s no human bunch I know can do it better. One day your play will end suddenly. And I think I’ll be sorry.”
“Why?” Pideau laughed unsmilingly.
Fraser gestured.
“Why ’ud you feel that way?” Pideau asked, a little eagerly, thinking of Annette and estimating this white doctor who was unmarried.
Fraser’s gaze turned on the far door of the store.
“Because I’ll be sorry when that girl of yours hasn’t her menfolk around to see she don’t skid.”
“You mean—Sinclair?”
[93]“Certain, sure. That feller’s a good policeman but that’s all. He’s tough on dames. Doesn’t it worry you seeing a girl kid of yours standing over a fence, on a cold winter day, dallying with him? If I was a father, with a girl of mine falling for that boy, I’d get the best shotgun dollars could buy, and all the shells belonging to it. You’re taking a big chance. A hell of a chance. I just hate to see it. She’s a kid. She’s a babe—in a way.”
Fraser paused, and thrust his cap back from his brow. He saw the fierce smoulder in Pideau’s eyes.
“Say,” he went on, “I said Sinclair was tough on dames. It’s not enough. There was Molly Gros. You remember. I had to bring her kid into the world for her. She was a half-breed and a goodlooker. But nothing to your swell girl. Poor little devil, she never opened her mouth. She quit without giving him away. I did my best to make her talk. I’d have had him up to Calford and seen he got his promotion in the neck. The swine! But she wouldn’t say. She was all for him. And now she’s traipsing the world with his kid, deserted, alone. Tcha! It sets me crazy thinking. If Annette belonged me I’d see he didn’t get within ten miles of her.”
Pideau leaned over his counter. His eyes were hot as they looked up into the doctor’s face.
“If she belonged you, doc, you’d jest have to stand around cursin’ the p’lice the same as me, an’[94] leavin’ it there,” he snarled. “Without that shotgun a fool father don’t cut ice. Annette? When that kid’s on the jump ther’ ain’t the man born who could hold her.”
“Not even the Wolf, if he stopped around instead of making poison up in the hills?”
Pideau’s gaze broke away.
“The Wolf might keep her clear of Sinclair,” Fraser persisted.
“You think so?” Pideau shook his head decidedly. “I’d be glad for someone else to do it tho’.” Then his manner became eager. “You see, I ken fix her good—dollars.”
There was no mistaking his meaning. The doctor suddenly slid himself from the counter and hastily began to fasten his coat. Pideau watched him for a moment or two, and the eagerness died out of him. He turned to his shelves, and the back of his bullet head, with its coarse black hair growing low on the nape of his neck, came under the other’s consideration.
Then came a sound. It was the padding of moccasins down the store. Pideau turned an ear.
“The Wolf,” he said.
“From the hills?”
The doctor was smiling.
“I didn’t say,” snapped Pideau.
“No. Well, I guess I’ll get right over to Amos Smith.”
[95]Pideau watched him go. And friendliness gave place to something else in his look as he gazed after him.
Pideau and the Wolf were standing with the counter between them.
“Wal?”
The half-breed’s question came in a tone that conveyed no welcome.
The Wolf looked up from the granulated tobacco he was rolling into a cigarette.
“Five hundred gallons,” he said.
He spoke quietly, and his eyes wore their unmeaning smile as he twisted the ends of his paper and set his cigarette between his lips.
Pideau breathed deeply. In a flash his whole expression had transformed. Greed, incredulity, even satisfaction, had replaced the look he had worn at Fraser’s going.
“Fi’ hundred gallons!” he echoed. Then came the inevitable. “You’re lyin’! You couldn’t make it in the time!”
The Wolf moved away. He stood himself over against the stove, and lit his cigarette.
The Wolf was good to look at. His hard, rough clothing and well-worn, fur-lined pea-jacket gave him an air. He looked capacity, energy, resolve, in every line of figure and feature.
[96]He had fulfilled his early promise. In manhood he was superbly grown. He was big. He was large of bone and muscle, yet of a slim grace that suggested almost feline activity. His face was clean-cut without great beauty. His nose was too Indian in its sharp aquilinity. His cheek bones were a shade too prominent. But his expression more than compensated. His dark eyes contained the wonderful smile which Nature had fixed there when she moulded them.
He stood regarding his partner behind the counter. And Pideau returned his look with eyes that shone inscrutably. The Wolf’s announcement was incredible to him because of his desire that it should be true.
He searched the youth’s face while he waited. And strangely enough his profoundest dislike and distrust of his partner was uppermost in his mind. He should have been glad. He should have warmed to the man. He should have been grateful. For it was the genius of the Wolf that had brought him prosperity and poured the dollars he loved into his greedy hands.
But in ten years of association Pideau had known no peace of mind, no content. Unease was the keynote of his life with the Wolf. He had never been able to rid himself of his original suspicions. And now they had become an obsession. From the beginning the Wolf had been a threatening shadow brooding over his life. Now he gazed at him with the desperate feeling[97] with which a devastating storm about to break might have inspired him. He never looked at the Wolf without the memory that his partner held over him the power of life and death.
The half-breed’s weakness had grown with the years. Violent, inhuman, ready murderer as he was, cowardice had completely undermined such manhood as he had originally possessed. In years of association with the fearlessness and confidence of the Wolf it had fallen away like a hill mist before a rising sun. There was not a single day that had passed, since the Wolf had set his authority at defiance, that Pideau had not regretted his failure to defy the merciless gun which the boy had levelled at him while he claimed his right to bury the dead Luana.
Even now, as the man calmly smoked beside the wood stove, with every sign of their prosperity surrounding him, Pideau remembered more poignantly than ever that the Wolf knew!
But never was a spectre more surely a figment of distorted imagination. The Wolf had neither desire nor intent to take advantage of his knowledge of Pideau’s early crimes. Pideau to him was just a necessary evil in his life. He was an unlovely cross which he must bear. He was Annette’s father. Then, of lesser importance, the Wolf could never forget that shelter had been afforded him, however hatefully, in the[98] days when he could not help himself. It was Pideau who had made possible his early childhood.
The Wolf spread his hands to the warmth.
“I shut her down at that,” he said. “It’s ther’, kegged. The liquor. It’s ready fer the teams right away. An’ we need to act quick.”
He sucked his cigarette and inhaled. Then a faint cloud of smoke escaped his nostrils.
“Teams?”
Pideau’s question was sharp. The Wolf nodded.
“It’ll mean two trips else,” he said. “The folks down ther’ are shoutin’ fer it. Their dollars are good. You got to make the trade this time—alone.”
“Alone? What’s the play?”
“Ther’s no play.” The Wolf shook his head.
Pideau licked his lips. The other’s cool manner of authority maddened him.
“Quick, ain’t you?” he growled. “Why not you, too, same as we always fix it? Five hundred ain’t a one-man play. Are you startin’—another five hundred?”
“No, I’m not.”
The Wolf turned. With a fierce gesture he flung his cigarette away and trod it underfoot. Then he came to the counter, and Pideau saw the transformation. The eyes he was looking into were the eyes that had once faced him over the sights of a rifle.
“You’ll run those cargoes,” the Wolf said, but[99] without any change of tone. “I stop right here in town.”
“Why?”
Pideau leaned over the counter, his folded arms supporting him. The Wolf’s control came back to him and he sought his tobacco.
“She’s there with Sinclair,” he said frigidly. “I’ve just seen her. She’s still with him. I’m goin’ to stop it.”
“How?”
The Wolf shrugged. But his movement carried no conviction.
“That’s for me,” he said. “It’s enough to say it’s goin’ to stop. You’re her father. You know Sinclair. Yet you just stand around. Well, I know Sinclair, too. Maybe I’ll stop around. But I’ll fix things—the way you haven’t.”
Pideau’s eyes blazed.
“An’ what ken you do?” he snarled. “Ken you jump in? Ken you set a man an’ a gal actin’ diff’rent when life looks good to ’em? Who’re you to do it, anyway? Hev you right? Is Annette your woman? Is she the sort to set around an’ say ‘Yes’? Not on your fool life.” Pideau held up a clenching hand. “She’s got you right there, an’ she’ll squeeze till you gasp for your man’s crazy life. Get busy. See an’ try to stop her. She’ll beat you like a kid, an’ set you with your face to the wall.”
[100]The man’s harsh scorn was withering. But the Wolf smiled maddeningly into his face.
“You’re forgettin’ Sinclair,” he said soberly.
Pideau’s eyes bored.
“He’s a p’liceman,” he snapped.
“It don’t matter the way he’s dressed.”
Pideau sucked in a whistling breath.
“You daresn’t!”
The half-breed’s challenge came in a hoarse whisper. The thing in his mind seemed to him to be too good to be true—the Wolf—Sinclair—Annette. Fierce glee had replaced every other emotion. If the Wolf took a hand——
He breathed deeply and waited.
“You don’t get it, Pideau,” the Wolf said quietly. “I’m your pardner, and you’ve to play your hand right now. You’ve got to run those cargoes while I stop around here. I’m goin’ to marry Annette. Get that firm in your mind. She belongs me. She’s always belonged me, right from the days we scratched dirt together ’way back in the hills. Do you think that scum Sinclair’s goin’ to take her from me? Do you? I’d think you knew better. Just make your mind up, Annette’s fer me. Annette’s my little play-girl, an’ she’s goin’ to be my wife. Ther’s nothin’ out o’ hell to stop it.”
The Wolf refastened his coat, stuck his cigarette into the corner of his mouth, and lit it. Then his smile[101] became a laugh, and he turned and moved off swiftly in the direction of the door of the store.
Pideau watched him go. His mood was jubilant. But before the other had reached the door his joy had departed.
His suspicious mind was at work again. Suddenly he beheld everything in a different light. The Wolf’s threat. It was not only against the man, Sinclair. What did his last words mean? It was plain, quite plain. They could only have one meaning. The youth had delivered an ultimatum. It was an ultimatum to him, Annette’s father. He had demanded that Annette should be his wife. And he, Pideau, must do his share in achieving that end.
CHAPTER II
SINCLAIR MEETS THE ACCOUNT
PIDEAU was hard on the heels of the Wolf. Instinct warned him that the youth must not be allowed to depart without further word.
The Wolf was standing in the open doorway when the other reached him. And together, for a moment, they stood peering out over the snowy waste in the direction of the police quarters.
They were still together—Annette and the fur-clad figure of the policeman. They were in just the same position on either side of the rough gate. There were other fur-clad figures moving over the snow in various directions. But the gray bitterness of the winter day offered small enough inducement to any but those answering the call of their day’s work.
Pideau was slightly behind the Wolf.
“It don’t need a heap of guessin’,” he said in a considered tone. “You reckon to do the thing her father ain’t. I kind o’ wonder the thing you reckon a father could do. You’re goin’ to stop it? An’ I ast you how? It ain’t fer me to know, eh? You’re just goin’ to wait around an’ stop it.”
Pideau was jeering. He was determined to provoke.[103] He was looking for angry retort. But as none was forthcoming he went on.
“She’s to be your wife, eh?” he said, in a low, harsh tone. “Ther’s nothin’ out of hell to stop it? Maybe ther’s something deep down in hell that will. We know Sinclair. But ther’s no man can know the stuff that lies back of Annette’s pretty head. Will you marry Annette when Sinclair’s through with her?”
The Wolf turned. The half-breed’s goading had achieved its purpose. Pideau saw the fierce light in the eyes that sought his. He saw the sudden distention of the veins on his forehead and at his temples.
When the Wolf spoke, however, it was still in his cold, even tone.
“Cut that stuff right out, Pideau,” he said. “You’re her father, and the last man with the right to talk that way. You haven’t the manhood to get it right. If you had you’d have fixed Sinclair before this. I told you I’d marry Annette. Whatever happens that goes. But if hurts come to my little play-girl through him, I’ll—kill Sinclair.”
Pideau’s eyes narrowed till the triumph in them was hidden.
“Does that go, too?” he asked. Then came a hoarse laugh. “If it does then you need to get after him right away. The hurt’s done. If you’d the eyes of a blind mule you’d have seen it in her, weeks back. It’s been in her dandy eyes. It’s been in everything[104] about her. Maybe my manhood don’t leave me understandin’. But I’m her father, and I guess I know Annette. ’Tain’t me that don’t understand, boy. It’s you. You’re late by weeks. That’s why I haven’t jumped. I’m waitin’. I’m waitin’ because she’s playin’ her hand, and ain’t thro’ yet. Well, if your stuff goes, get right out after Sinclair an’ kill him. He’s robbed you. But it ain’t nothin’ to the way he’s robbed her.”
Pideau’s eyes were wide enough now. He had nothing now to conceal. There was neither taunt nor goad in his words. He was just sheer feeling. The father in him had risen above everything else. Bad as he was he still had the humanity of the father. In his crude fashion he loved Annette with all that was in him.
They stood looking at each other. Then, at last, the Wolf gestured. Pideau saw the clenching hands, so strong, so merciless in their movement. Then as the Wolf moved away without a word, he looked after him.
With the Wolf’s going Pideau’s manner underwent complete transformation. The father in him faded out giving place to all the evil that was more than nine-tenths of the man’s being. His eyes narrowed again. And the gleam in then was one of unholy triumph.
The Wolf’s purpose was plain to him. Pideau knew he had sent him off a potential killer. It was what he desired. It was the realization of his fondest[105] hope. He meant the Wolf to stand on the same plane as himself. Then, at last, he would know that peace of mind which for ten years had been denied him.
The gray of the winter day was without any impression upon the man and the girl lingering at the gateway of the police inclosure. The cold was penetrating. But was not the winter cold at Buffalo Coulee always penetrating? Sinclair and Annette were young and vigorous, and completely absorbed in that which lay between them. So they gave heed to nothing so unimportant as weather conditions.
Annette was clad in a knee-length fur coat. It was of Persian Lamb, a recent birthday gift from the Wolf, who had been at pains to purchase it in one of the big cities of the East. Her round cap, low-pressed over her pretty ears, was of similar fur. Then her small feet were hidden within the ugly proportions of Arctic overshoes, which reached knee-high over warm stockings.
She was very attractive as she peered out from between the enveloping folds of her high storm collar. The dusk of her face was lost against the black fur. Her black eyes were alight and flashing between their long curling lashes. And her ripe, parted lips were intensely alluring.
She was gazing up into the full, youthful face of[106] the policeman with an intentness that robbed her eyes of any softness.
Sinclair was unsmiling, too. Sensible of the girl’s beauty, at that moment he was without any appreciation of it. He was not even looking at her. His blue eyes were on the iron-roofed store on the far side of the township, and he was thinking hard.
The policeman knew that the moment had come when life was presenting him with one of those ugly bills which it never fails to produce for settlement after the indulgence of youthful follies which have crossed the borderline of crime. And in that moment the last thing capable of making appeal to him was this woman’s charm, which, for weeks and months now, had so badly inflamed his unbridled soul.
He was a largish man and good-looking enough, until close study revealed certain physical imperfections which can betray so much. He was of the fair, florid type. He was by no means unimposing under his regulation fur cap, and in his black sheepskin fur with the yellow stripe of his breeches showing below its lower edge.
But his eyes had that queer glisten in them which so curiously denotes the sensual. His nether lip was too full, and even loose. Then he had an ugly, short laugh that betrayed no good will, and a way of gazing afar while he talked.
Just now he had much to conceal. He was concerned[107] as he listened to the low rich tones that were somehow so different from that which he knew they could be when the mood behind them was soft and yielding. And his concern was twofold.
He was searching to discover the easiest means of meeting and countering the bill which was being presented through the lips of the beautiful half-breed, and, at the same time, wondering how best it could be used to further his official plans.
“Do we need to worry, kid?” he asked, in reply to her spoken fear of her father and the Wolf when they finally discovered the truth of the thing lying between them. “I don’t guess so. You’re not a child. You’re a woman with the right to love where you feel like it. Pideau’s your father all right. But fathers don’t count with a grown woman. As for Mister Wolf, where does he come in anyway? He’s not even a brother.”
Annette turned away. She stood with one arm spread out on the top rail of the fence gazing across at the store.
“That’s the worry of it,” she sighed, and her brows drew in a thoughtful pucker.
There was an intake of breath. The man watched the heave of a bosom that fascinated him. He was wondering what still lay waiting for him behind those eyes, that studied quiet, which was so unlike the girl as he knew her.
[108]Annette’s purpose was quite definite. She knew her mind on every subject that concerned herself. She saw that opportunity was looming, the opportunity she had deliberately sought. And she meant to grab it, and hold it, and hug it to herself.
For ten years she had been dragged in the wake of the machine which her father and the Wolf operated. For ten years she had been compelled by Pideau to do her share in the work that was pouring dollars into the coffers of a partnership in which she had no place. She knew she was a mere chattel in the life of her parent. And she believed she was no better than a property, to be cared for, cajoled, and teased, and fought, where the Wolf, her old playmate, was concerned. She told herself she was forced to live and act as her menfolk dictated. And it was her life to work without pay or interest and to content herself with such dole as might come her way.
The girl’s volcanic temper frantically rebelled. For her father she possessed no regard whatsoever. She knew him and read him like an open book. He sickened her, not for his crimes, but for the brutishness that rendered him so unlovely. Hitherto the bond of simple relationship had been strong enough to hold her. Hitherto she had yielded to her serfdom. But with the coming of Ernest Sinclair into her life the Rubicon had been crossed. She was a child no longer.
Now she was alive with flaming passions. The[109] irresistible laws of Nature had proclaimed themselves in no uncertain fashion. Like the offspring of the beasts of the forest, whence she hailed, her life was her own. She was as ready as they to turn and slash with gleaming teeth the parent who had given her being.
The Wolf occupied a wholly different plane from the father. The Wolf had always been Annette’s playmate. He had been more—much more. Only the girl refused to realize it. He had been the most intimate participant in her life. He was part of it. There was no moment in it, whether of joy, or sorrow, or anger, that had not in some way been associated with the Wolf. He was as much a part of her being as the warm breath that passed her pretty lips. But because that was so, because he was the Wolf, because she could think of nothing in her life without him, she the more surely resented him.
The whole position was one of warfare between conflicting wills, active on her part, and on his confident, smiling passivity. The battle had begun far back in their earliest childhood. It had gone on ever since. Its fundamental was without hate. On the contrary a wealth of affection and loyalty lay lost under the débris of conflict they had succeeded in piling upon it. They had always been inseparable. They were verily twin in soul. And for that very reason the war between them had always been the more bitter.
[110]It was strange. Neither seemed to be capable of penetrating the fog that blinded them. And so the bitter antagonism went on and would continue to go on to its logical, human conclusion.
And with conditions prevailing, with Annette’s reckless impulse always driving her, a man like Ernest Sinclair was bound to find a part in the play of it all. He was a policeman, and so in direct opposition to Pideau and the Wolf. He was white and personable in a passionate, impulsive woman’s eyes. The Wolf resented him and said so. Then what more was needed? It infuriated the Wolf to know of Annette’s friendliness with Sinclair. So Annette had seen to it that she was very, very friendly.
The result was foredoomed. Annette was beautiful. She was superb in her youth, and full of the sexual potentialities of her race. And the man? Well, Sinclair was what he was without pretense. And so the Nemesis. Annette believed she loved. Sinclair only needed to raise a beckoning finger for the girl to follow him to the world’s end.
“They’ll kill us when they know.”
Annette spoke with a little catch of breath that was something feigned. The man responded with derisive laughter. He leaned down with his arms folded on the rail, and one hand fondled the slim fingers of the girl.
“They’ll kill us, will they?” he said, in a low, amused, but wholly watchful manner. He shook his[111] head. “Not on your life. Pideau can hate all he pleases, but he’s not figgering to quit his play for the end of a rope fixed around his dirty neck. And he’ll see to it the Wolf don’t cut off the tide of dollars pouring into his bank roll. No, kid. Beat that stuff out of your pretty head. How’re they to know, anyway? Guess we aren’t shouting things.”
For some moments Annette submitted to the caress of the man’s fleshy hand. She was thinking hard. She was calculating. But more than all, she was battling with the woman she was powerless to deny.
At last she turned. Her big bold eyes were hidden. She drew a sharp breath which had no pretense in it. She had finally made up her mind. It was a tremendous moment, and she would willingly have escaped it. But reckless purpose was all too strong.
“They’ll know—come fall. Everybody’ll know.”
The man’s caresses ceased. But the girl’s clinging hand retained his. Sinclair had straightened up with a jolt. The low-spoken confession had startled him. For want of other attraction his gaze sought again the trader’s store, and derision had faded out of his eyes. The bill was bigger than he had believed possible.
Annette released his hand. Her movement was quick. It was almost rough. She turned her face up and her black eyes were no longer hidden. They were wide and alight with the fire of passion.
“Oh, Ernie,” she cried, her small hands clenching.[112] “I never thought. I just loved you to death. You said there’d be no harm, an’—an’ I believed you, an’—an’ anyway I didn’t care so you loved me. Now I know. Now I can see. An’—an’ I’m scared. Oh, they’ll know before next winter. All the folks’ll know. You don’t know Pideau. You don’t know the Wolf. They’ll kill you. Maybe they’ll kill me, too. If they don’t shoot me to death they’ll turn me out into the snow to herd with the wolves, with—with—our baby. It’s no use. You needn’t shake your head. Say, I know the Wolf.”
“Ernie,” she urged with increasing vehemence, her hands unclenching and grasping the fur covering of the man’s powerful arm, “ther’s just one way. You got to fix it so they can’t. Don’t hand ’em a chance. D’you see? Married, with our baby thing born right, they can’t do a thing. Ther’ ain’t a man or woman in Buffalo Coulee but’ll be right on our side. An’ your folks, your superintendent, all the police. They’ll be for us, sure. It’s——”
Sinclair released his arm without gentleness. There was a queer look in the glassy eyes that looked down into the girl’s.
“You’re rattled, kid, plumb rattled!” he cried.
Then of a sudden his whole manner underwent a change. He knew now the full extent of the bill he had to meet, and in one revealing flash he had discovered the means whereby he could settle it.
[113]“It’s not as easy as it sounds, little kid,” he said, as he again took possession of the only too willing hands. “Oh, I can marry you all right. I’ll be crazy glad to. But—but you’ve got to help me.”
The girl’s eyes reflected the effect of his ready assent. They were shining with a great light. She was thrilled.
A time-worn phrase flashed through her mind.
“You’ll marry me, sure!”
Not once but many, many times she had been forced to listen to it. It was the Wolf’s unfailing retort to her fiercest challenge.
Her sense of triumph now became supreme. It was triumph in her everlasting battle with the Wolf. Married to Sinclair, her baby born in wedlock, she felt that at long last she was to wrest the victory her fiercest impishness had failed so far to yield her. Help? Help? It was her lover’s without the asking.
“Tell me?” she cried eagerly in the uplift of the moment.
But Sinclair hesitated. It was necessary for her to urge him a second time.
“Well?” she demanded, with a flash of swift impatience.
Annette missed the meaning of Sinclair’s hesitation. She missed the cunning that grew in the man’s smile. She failed to realize that his gaze had wandered and was searching the distance. She saw nothing in that[114] moment but her own triumph, and her own desire for him to go on.
“You know, kid, I’ve wanted all along to have you marry me,” the man said. “I’ve wanted that since ever I saw your dandy eyes that couldn’t help telling me all a feller yearns for in life. I bin crazy for you. I’ll go right on being crazy for you all my life. But—but I haven’t a thing but my p’lice pay. And that wouldn’t buy a right feedin’ bottle for our swell kiddie. Then there’s regulations. Oh, I don’t mean they forbid a constable getting married. They don’t. But the government makes it hard as hell for that to happen. And when it does it’s queer how quick the married boy finds himself quitting the Force. You got to be a corporal at least. Then the Superintendent, the Inspector, the Sergeant-major, they’ll all hand you all they know, so you can fix yourself and your wife right. I’m not a corporal. I’m only a constable. But I’m going to be a corporal. Later, I’m going to be a sergeant-major. And maybe, even, in a while, an inspector. I’ll get to be all those things later, if—you’ll help me right now.”
The girl’s expression changed with every phase of her feelings as she listened to the man’s carefully considered words. And as he ceased speaking her eagerness was beyond her control.
“Say, Ernie! How? You only need to say how. Help you? Why, ther’ ain’t a thing I wouldn’t do.”
“Isn’t there?”
[115]Sinclair came close up to the rail. He bent down so that his face was on a level with Annette’s. He looked squarely into the eyes which peered out from her storm collar, and he used all the force of will he possessed.
The girl gestured eloquently.
“Not a thing.”
“It’s easy—if you’ve the grit?” he warned, noting the unease that crept into the girl’s eyes in response.
“The grit?”
“Grit, little kid. Something that don’t rightly belong to a girl’s ordinary make-up.”
Annette’s eyes flashed dangerously.
“I got grit—plenty. Try me,” she snapped.
Again came Sinclair’s laugh.
“You got no use for Pideau,” he said. “And the Wolf sets you crazy mad. You’ve said so. You guess you hate the Wolf, who reckons to force you to marry him whether you like it or not. That’s so, isn’t it? That’s how you’ve said.”
He waited for Annette’s responsive nod.
“They bulldoze you between ’em,” he went on. “They set you working to hand ’em dollars. They hold you to a play that stands you in reach of penitentiary. That’s so. You’re as deep in as them. Well, in one play you can cut it all out. In one play you can make it so I can marry you right off. And it’s a play that’ll bring those two boys up with a round turn[116] before they reach for the rope they’re surely heading for. Sooner or later there’ll be a shoot-up. And that means the rope. Well, you can help me. You can fix things. And when we’re married, and your little kid, our little kid’s born right, you’ll be glad for what you’ve done. And you’ll see your man with swell gold chevrons on his arm, and the pay that hands you the sort of stuff you need from life. You can do it, kid. You surely can.”
The man was watching. His eyes never left the girl’s.
“How?” Annette asked in a whisper.
The man spoke on the instant. His whole manner was sharp and compelling.
“Show me the location of that darn still! That’s all. Just show me.”
Annette started back as though he had struck her in the face. Her lips sucked in the cold air, and the color faded out of her cheeks.
“Me hand them—penitentiary? Me?” she gasped.
“Do you want to herd with the wolves in snow-time? Say, there’ll be no marrying talk when the Wolf knows. The Wolf, who reckons you’re marked down his chattel. The Wolf, who you can’t ever hope to stand up to.”
The manner of it was wanton in its ruthlessness.
“The still? Tell you? God! No, Ernie! I just can’t do it!”
[117]The girl stood off, staggered by the enormity of the thing he had demanded of her. Horror and a fierce reaction were surging.
But Sinclair had played his card to take the trick. The values lay on the table for the girl to see. He could afford to wait while she studied them, before the cards were turned and shut away.
His manner softened. But he did not look in her direction. He was watching a quick-moving figure in a pea-jacket that had just left the store across the township.
“Say, little kid, don’t worry a thing,” he soothed her. “Forget it,” he went on, with a short laugh. “Don’t try to say a thing now. I wouldn’t have you to. You see, I just love you to death. I’m crazy to have you my wife. If I don’t get that promotion, why, we’ll just have to wait around till I do. See? Maybe that’ll mean a year or so. Still I just want you, kid, and I’ll wait sure. Now beat it. It’s time I fixed my plugs back in the barn. And anyway, I’ve just seen that darn skulking Wolf slide out of the store. Beat it, kid, and think things out in your own cute way.”
CHAPTER III
THE MARCH OF EVENTS
ANNETTE returned to the home of the wolf pack in a desperate mood. She was terrified.
It was a small frame house on one floor only, standing in the shadow of the iron-roofed store. It contained three sleeping rooms, a living-room, and adjoining the main building was a lean-to kitchen place.
It was an abode without any refinement. It had all the makeshift of those whose culture belongs to the primitive. It was the only sort of home which Pideau understood. And his had been the provision of it and its designing, on their first arrival in Buffalo Coulee.
It had been improved not one iota since that time, in spite of an abounding prosperity. Its whole furnishing was of the crudest. And its decorations were a survival through years of rough use and comparative disregard for cleanliness. It possessed, too, that unclean atmosphere which no half-breed habitation ever escapes.
Annette flung the door closed behind her to cut off the stream of cold that might well have had good effect upon the stale human atmosphere of the place. It was the careless, violent act of a mind distraught. She crossed the living-room, which was littered with[119] the evidence of her menfolk. And, passing a second door, she slammed that behind her as well, and sighed relief as she gazed about her at the familiar surroundings of her own sleeping room.
A moment or two later her fur cap was lying on the patchwork coverlet of her bed, and her coat was tumbled beside it.
She moved across to the makeshift dressing chest which was still the same piece of furniture which had served her in childhood. Its only development since that time was its litter of toilet articles, which from time to time had been bestowed upon her by the Wolf. It was truly a litter, in which was displayed none of that pride and refinement of taste usually associated with a woman of youth and real beauty. Everything remained just where its user had chanced to set it down.
The girl gazed at her reflection in the cheap swing mirror. It was no act of vanity, it was in no sense a desire to admire the wonderful dark-haired reflection she discovered there. It was a simple expression of her mood; an involuntary impulse which had no other meaning than to supply her with an object upon which to concentrate while she thought.
Annette was breathing quickly as she stood there. She made no effort to conceal her agitation here in the privacy of her own room. Her brain was almost reeling.
She knew she was face to face with a real crisis.[120] And she knew the magnitude of it. In whatever direction she looked, from whatever angle, the position was always the same. Motherhood was hers. Only was it a question of time before it was physically accomplished. The future—her future—the whole of everything that counts in a woman’s life was trembling in the balance.
She wanted to think. She told herself she must think with all her might, but coldly, calmly. She must leave all feeling out. She must beat down all emotion.
In practice, however, none of these things were possible to her. It was not real thought that came to her. Only a headlong tumbling of feeling and emotion which urged her blindly and without reason.
Then came the Wolf.
It was a sound in the living-room. It was the padding of moccasined feet on a boarded floor. And, in a moment, Annette found herself back in the living-room with her slim back turned to the comforting wood stove and confronting the smiling creature whose undesired presence spurred her further to hasty impulse.
The Wolf’s eyes were frigid.
“Say,” Annette greeted him, “Pideau didn’t reckon you’d be along back for days yet. What’s brought you?”
The ungraciousness was more than usually accentuated. Annette had no thought for their years of[121] childhood together. Only she remembered her bitter antagonism and her present need. Her lips closed tightly over her words, giving them the sharpness to which the Wolf was accustomed.
The only sign in the man was a deep intake of breath.
He saw the girlhood he worshipped under its simple covering of silk, and a brief, knee-length cloth skirt that revealed flesh-hued stockings below it, and he was satisfied. It was all sufficient. Annette’s moods were her own. They were of no serious matter. He knew them all. He had known them in her as a babe. He knew them no less in the grown woman. He accepted her now as he would have accepted the wayward child of years ago. It was only the man with whom he had seen her who would learn the measure of the devil that was driving him.
“I’m through,” he said. He unbuttoned his coat and began to roll himself a cigarette. “There’s five hundred gallons standin’ ready for the teams. It goes across to-morrow night.”
Annette was startled. But she watched the moving fingers, missing nothing of the Wolf’s expression.
Her mind had leaped back to her lover, and the thing he had said to her. It was almost like Fate. Five hundred gallons, the Wolf had said. And it was to be passed across the border to-morrow night.
“Five hundred gallons?”
[122]Her echo of the Wolf’s announcement was much in the manner of Pideau’s. She watched the thrusting of the cigarette into the man’s mouth, and the lighting of it.
“It’s a swell bunch,” he observed easily. “It’s the biggest brew yet.” He inhaled deeply. Then he gestured with an expressive hand. “I’ll run you into Calford so you can make a big buy for yourself out of my share. That’s right after to-morrow night, when we’ve pouched the dollars, an’ got away with it.”
Annette regarded him in silence. She saw in him the most picturesque creature in Buffalo Coulee. His tall figure, his dark, intelligent eyes. His clean-cut features and shining black hair. But then there was his manner, his maddening assurance. Now, as always, it stirred the flame of her stormiest resentment.
The Wolf looked for no gratitude, and found none. Annette occupied his whole soul. It was not only his privilege to minister to her pleasure, it was not simply a right, a happiness; it was his most treasured duty.
She was Annette. She was utterly desirable. She was a deep feminine mystery that fired his every sense, and made him glad. She was his whole worship. All his being was centred on that sublime ultimate which he intended should be theirs.
For the rest? What did it matter that she preferred to anger him? Then her power to hurt was infinite. However she drove him, however deeply she hurled[123] him into the abyss of soul-despair, it was all a part of the transcendent whole of his man’s adoration.
But Annette’s manner abruptly changed. It became eager. She forgot her desire to hurt.
“Say, boy,” she cried eagerly. “You must have run the old tank night an’ day.”
The Wolf nodded.
“Sure. I needed to get through quick.”
“Why?”
“Why?” The Wolf glanced round. His gaze encountered the frost-rimmed window. He could see through it a doubtful outline of the distant police quarters. Then he jerked it out. “To get right back to—here.”
Annette ignored the significance of his reply.
“How’re you goin’ to handle such a dope of juice as that?” she asked sharply. “You can’t make it in a single jump. An’ the trail’s red hot with those who’re yearning. Five hundred gallons? You’ll never get away with it. They’ll never let you pouch those dollars. How? Tell me.”
And the Wolf told her. He told her in rough outline without a shadow of concern. He only withheld the hour of dispatch because it was not yet settled. And Annette listened to him with all her ears. Again, she forgot to scorn when he had finished. Her eyes simply hardened, and she shook her head.
[124]“Why leave it to Pideau?” she asked. “He hasn’t your slickness.”
Then she broke into a laugh. It was the return to the mocking and jeering which were overdue.
“Say, you aren’t as wise as you reckon, boy. Not by a lot. Pideau? Psha! Pideau’s a mule. An’ his sense is about equal. Five hundred? And you’d risk a big bunch of money to his hands? If you mean to hand me that buy in Calford you best tote the stuff yourself. If you’ve two grains of sense in your fool head, that’s what you’ll do.”
“No!”
The Wolf flung the remains of his cigarette under the damper of the stove. Then he rolled a fresh one. And while he considered the work of his fingers his eyes grew hot. He was thinking of the man, Sinclair, and the blood surged through his veins.
He lit his cigarette and it hung on his lower lip. Then he returned his tobacco sack to his pocket and looked up. As his eyes encountered hers, Annette read the challenge in them. Instantly she was caught in a whirlwind of passion.
“Why?” she demanded roughly. Then she turned away to the stove with her hands outheld to it.
But it was only for a second. The next moment she found herself flung about with a force that nearly threw her off her balance. The eyes of the Wolf were blazing as he gripped her and held her where she stood.
[125]“Because ther’s a heap too much Sinclair to this fool township when I’m out of it,” he cried savagely. “Say, if I thought Sinclair ’ud hit my trail, an’ pull police med’cine on me, I’d trade the dope myself, surely, an’ cut Pideau right out of the play. But he wouldn’t. With me on the trail he’ll stop around here handin’ you all the stuff that comes natural to his sort, the same as I found him to-day when I pulled in from the hills. That’s why. Pideau’ll trade. I’ll stop around to see Sinclair—don’t.”
The Wolf’s hold relaxed. It was as though his sudden storm had expended itself. He flung the cigarette away and looked into the girl’s furious face as she hurled the madness of her moment at him.
“Too much Sinclair?” she shrilled, striving for derision but accomplishing only violence. “I’ll see all of Sinclair I fancy to. All! You get that? I like Ernie Sinclair. I like him good. He’s a man. He’s a decent police boy, an’ not a crook ‘homebrew’ runner. He’s not the sort to brew poison up in the hills, an’ send folks raving crazy into the bughouse down across the border for the rotten dollars they haven’t more sense than to pass you. Who’re you? What sort of a man? You Wolf! I’ll tell you,” she raved. “A no-account. A poor ‘stray’ roped by the fool woman who stole you. God! I hate you! You ain’t a thing to me. Nothin’. I wouldn’t stand for you a[126] brother. You hear? I’ll see Sinclair when I fancy. I’ll see him all I choose. If I feel that way I’ll marry——”
“You won’t kid!”
The storm in the man broke again. The Wolf’s face was ashen against his dark cap. Suddenly he leaped. It was like the noiseless spring of a puma, so swift, so sudden. The girl was caught by her shoulders and held by hands that crushed the flesh under them. And she stood there struggling for release while the man’s passion burned in eyes that seemed to be reading every secret of her soul.
“You won’t, kid,” the Wolf reiterated, through gritting teeth. “You’re goin’ to quit him right away. I know him. You don’t. You can’t know the scum he is. He isn’t for your sort. Only—— Say, you’re from the hills, clean as God made you. You’re not Molly Gros. If he gets around you after this, as sure as it’s snow-time in Buffalo Coulee, I’ll shoot him to death so ther’ ain’t enough meat left over to make a burial. That goes.”
The tenacious hands bruised mercilessly. Annette’s efforts to escape were unavailing.
“Quit, kid,” the Wolf went on. “It’s just no sort of use kickin’. I’ve got you now, an’ you’re goin’ to hear it all. I tell you ther’s only room for me around you. Not another livin’ soul. I’ve told you that years.[127] I’ve told it ever since we fished together in the darn hills. You’re goin’ to marry me whatever he thinks, whatever you think. I love you. I love you to death. Say, I love you so I could beat the life out of your beautiful body rather than see it for another. You ken rave an’ shout. You ken claw with your darn mean hands. You ken raise all the hell your dandy notions set you to. It don’t matter a curse. Not a curse. Get it right now. Get it good. You’re mine. An’ you always will be. Psha!”
The girl reeled and nearly fell on the blazing stove. It was a sweeping gesture that came with the man’s final exclamation. It was the storm of his passion finding physical outlet. It was the man swept by the violence of the sex in him.
He stood there a wonderful figure of manly beauty, straight, and clean. And his burning eyes never left the face of the girl. He saw the violence behind it. He realized the fury in the heaving bosom for which he yearned. He remained silent and waiting.
And Annette came at once. But it was a different Annette from that which he knew. With superhuman effort the girl choked back the fury that well-nigh strangled her. She even forced a smile. The Wolf stared in amazement.
“Wolf!”
In place of anger there was something like humility.[128] Then the smile Annette had forced deepened. It looked even more real.
“I hadn’t thought you’d the guts, Wolf,” she said.
The man stared.
“No,” he said helplessly. “That’s how you’ve most always said.”
Annette nodded. Her smile broadened still further. But the sight of it only gladdened the man when it should have warned him.
“I did it because I thought that way,” the girl went on humbly. She drew a deep breath. “Say, I don’t care a curse for him. I never did. He couldn’t ever be a thing in my life. I’m not Molly Gros.”
Reaction swept over the man.
“Say, kid, I’m—I’m sorry——”
He stood with his long arms outheld. But Annette shook her head.
“No, Wolf,” she said gently. “Not that. But—but you’re dead right. There’ll be no more fool’ry and Sinclair. I’m thro’. It was a crazy game, and I’d ought to’ve known better. He’s dirt when a woman’s around, an’ I’m not looking for dirt.”
She sighed profoundly.
“Say, you can go right on an’ trade that dope yourself. I’m all for that buy in Calford. An’—an’ I won’t get it if you trust father. Say, boy, it’s a deal? Our trade’s bigger to me than even gettin’ you mad. You go to it, an’ put that trade thro’. An’ I’ll swear[129] to cut Sinclair right out from between us—here an’ now.”
The Wolf had no learning. He only had his own understanding of loyalty and love, and the invincible courage of utter fearlessness.
Annette had achieved with her smile what no raging could have done for her. And she knew that that was so as she watched the Wolf pick up and relight his cigarette.
CHAPTER IV
SCHEMING
ANNETTE was standing at the window of the living-room. She was alone and glad to be so. Never in her life had she been more thankful for solitude and the shadows about her.
The room was in darkness, except for the ruddy glow under the damper of the wood stove. Beyond the window it was inky black, for night had fallen, and a silent, windless snowstorm was burying the prairie outside under a new white shroud.
The girl’s day had been long and difficult. She had found it prolonged purgatory.
After those swift-moving events about noon the period of waiting and dissembling had taxed Annette’s impatient nature to the uttermost. But she had forced herself to endure. She had smiled on her father, and even more upon the Wolf. She had ministered to them and watched them eat the frugal meals it was her work to prepare. And she had betrayed nothing. With all her strength she had struggled that no suspicion should find place in the minds of her menfolk. Now, now at last, she was free, and there was no longer need of disguise.
Her eyes were shining with a cold, hard reflection[131] of the ruddy firelight. Her cheeks were drawn by the set of her jaws. Her lips were pressed tight, so that her breathing dilated her delicate nostrils. Annette was never more the untamed half-breed than at that moment. The hot blood in her veins was as full of mad impulse as a freshet in springtime.
But Annette’s passionate mood was not all that the firelight revealed. There was something else. Deep in her soul something was striving for place, something which no resolve could altogether shut out. It was not doubt. It was not weakness. Yet it conveyed something of them both.
Unhappiness? Possibly. Or was it grief? Whatever it was the result was there in a queer dissatisfied frown which marred the even marking of her brows. In another woman that frown would surely have indicated the nearness of tears. But Annette had known no tears since childhood.
But softer emotions were resolutely dealt with. Annette was too surely a young human animal; she was too surely bred of debased and calamitous stock to yield to the gentler spirit of her sex. She was potential for good or evil in just such measure as those who claimed her affections were powerful to influence her. And just now her whole desire was for the man Ernest Sinclair, and to do his bidding.
Sinclair’s bidding! But Annette saw nothing of its enormity. She was blind to everything but the[132] bait which the man had held out to her. Her faith, her credulity, these were the woman in her. Her lack of all scruple was a reaction of the unlovely father she was called upon to betray.
Standing there in the play of the firelight, Annette’s thought flowed on unchecked, unguided. Her frown remained. And that which struggled so vainly for place in her soul continued its impotent striving.
At last her thought settled, and she found herself gazing upon a mental picture of the Wolf. And as she gazed an angry, scornful, half smile drove the frown from her face.
Memory was astir. It was memory of that which had passed between them only that morning. The man’s violence. His hectoring. His disregard of anything she might desire or feel. He was a fool. A vain, crazy fool, whose confidence ran away with him. Well, he would soon learn where his vanity was to lead him.
Penitentiary! She thought of it coldly, grimly. The Wolf. Why not? Oh, it would serve him right. She wondered. What sentence would the Court pass on him when she delivered him into Sinclair’s hands? She remembered the men’s talk when considering their risk. Five years. It had always been of five years in penitentiary.
Five years! They would both get five years. A shiver passed through her body. But she did not[133] pause. Penitentiary for her father had no power to quicken a single pulse beat. He was of no account in her life in spite of his affection for her. But the Wolf was different. The fate of the Wolf could never be a matter of indifference to her. She told herself fiercely that she hated him too much for that. She assured herself of the satisfaction his penalty would give her. She was glad. Very glad. It would break his conceit. It would smash his crazy insolence. It would be the ending of their long drawn-out conflict with victory, complete victory, for her.
She sighed.
But her sigh was gone on the instant. She could still feel the hurt of the Wolf’s crushing fingers, first on her arms, then on the soft flesh of her shoulders. Then the brutal way he had hurled her from him, as if she were something he hated and loathed.
Marry him? Marry the Wolf? Would she? Never, never, never! He could go to penitentiary. It would be she who sent him there, not Sinclair. And after five years, when he came out, she would be a wife. Ernie Sinclair would be her husband, the father of her child. And maybe even, by that time, the Wolf would find her crowned by a generous motherhood.
It would be triumph. What a triumph for all he had done to her. Yes, it certainly would be a triumph.
But even as Annette thought of her triumph that queer stirring in the deep of her heart became more[134] insistent, and her pretty brows frowned the more surely.
It was at that moment it came. That which she had been awaiting. It was a light shining through the snowfall outside. The office window of the store had lit up. And she knew that the Wolf and Pideau had foregathered to complete their plans for the conveyance of those five hundred gallons of liquor.
She turned from her window. She picked up her fur coat. She clad herself against the storm. Then, closing down the stove damper for safety, she passed out of the home of the wolf pack.
Pideau was lounging back in his hard square chair in the office of the store. His ill-shod feet were thrust up on the desk which was the repository for such accountings as his partnership with the Wolf necessitated. His mood was more than usually suspicious. He was chewing, and the cuspidor, more than a yard away from him, testified revoltingly to his habit.
The Wolf was in happier heart than he had known for a long time. He was contentedly smoking, sprawled in a low rocker-chair. He understood Pideau. He read the working of his mind beyond all doubt, and it disturbed him not at all.
The half-breed, however, was in a dangerous mood. Suspicion with him was symptomatic. It was always[135] a danger signal. He was guessing and disturbed. The Wolf had left him that noon a potential killer. Now killing never seemed farther from his mind.
He knew the Wolf had searched out Annette after leaving him. He had made it his business to know all the Wolf’s movements. He knew their meeting had been violently stormy. Then why this change? Why had hours passed, and the Wolf made no attempt to carry out his threat? The position had not changed. Sinclair was still Annette’s lover.
Pideau’s temper was on edge. The Wolf was still the Wolf of old to him. He was still the one witness of his own earlier crimes.
Pideau spat with a splash.
“Well?” he demanded, his ill humor never less disguised.
The Wolf sucked his cigarette and pondered the face before him.
“Guess we need to make our plans right away,” he said after a while. “The liquor needs to go right off to-morrow night for a clean-up. I fixed it eight o’clock. That’s to hand us the best of the night to get through. Ther’s no moon. If it storms, the better. We’ll have to get right back before daylight.”
“We?”
Pideau was startled. And the Wolf, as he watched him, noted the sparkle of his eyes.
[136]“Yes,” he said, “I make the trip with you after all.”
“Why?”
The Wolf pitched the stump of his cigarette away, and pulled out his tobacco sack.
“You guessed it was a two-man job—five hundred gallons,” he said quietly.
“An’ you didn’t.”
“No, you put me wise.” The Wolf’s laugh was derisive.
“Guess you need to tell me,” Pideau said sharply. “It’s one thing now, an’ another when your belly eases.”
“Sure!” The Wolf was intent on the cigarette he was rolling. “Talk’s waste. I’m goin’ to make the cache, an’ haul those kegs ready. You’ll make the creek bank under the bluff with the teams, an’ I’ll tote ’em over. That’ll be eight to-morrow night. You best have Pete an’ Kat with the teams. They’re red hot in a scrap. Then you’ll be in one sled, an’ me in the other, an’ we’ll pick up the O’Hagan bunch at the border to hand over, an’ pouch the stuff. O’Hagan’s had word and is crazy for the dope. He’s wanting it bad. Say,” he paused. And the smile in his eyes hardened to a glitter, “when O’Hagan’s yearnin’ he needs watchin’ most. We’ll need a bunch of guns. A whole blamed arsenal. That boy ’ud shoot up his dying mother for the gold in her teeth.”
[137]While the Wolf talked Pideau made no sign. He just listened to his orders without any change of expression. But he was still guessing.
He nodded. Then he suddenly turned an ear. The movement was so apparent that the Wolf gave a final twist to his cigarette and thrust it quickly to his mouth, and searched in the direction of Pideau’s gaze.
“What’s up?” he asked after a moment.
For answer Pideau’s feet came down from the desk without a sound. He stood up. He passed swiftly to the door, and opened it noiselessly and peered through a narrow aperture. Then he passed out, closing the door gently behind him.
The Wolf remained where he was smoking. But he watched the door through which his partner had passed.
Presently Pideau returned. The Wolf asked no question. He sat eyeing him.
“Tho’t I heard someone movin’ around in the store,” Pideau said quietly when he had closed the door. “But—I’d say I was wrong. Maybe it’s the darn rats chasing the crackers an’ cheese.”
He sat down, and his feet again went up on to the desk. The Wolf watched him bite at his black tobacco plug but offered no comment.
For some moments there was complete silence, and Pideau’s face was heavy with thought. Then his eyes snapped.
[138]“That stuff’s all right,” he growled suddenly. “It’s the usual play, only two teams. But I got to know the other boy. What’s the big thing? You cooled off, ain’t you? You ain’t killin’ Sinclair? Maybe that don’t seem the joy it did? Annette? You aren’t worried fer her any more? She turned you down? Or hev you jest—weakened? You wer’ stoppin’ around to kill Sinclair. It was a swell talk of killin’ you handed me. I was a fool. I figgered you’d the guts. I’d ought to’ve guessed better.”
The Wolf’s easy humor was impervious to the jibe. He laughed.
“Maybe the father would like good to have me do the killin’ that rightly belongs him.”
“It was you talked killin’.”
Pideau’s eyes sparkled angrily.
“Yes.”
“An’ now?” Pideau threw into his manner all that was foulest in him. “Sinclair’s leave-over’s good enough without a kick, eh? I surely made a poor guess.”
The Wolf gestured.
“It don’t matter what you guessed, Pideau,” he said coldly. “It’s wrong, anyway. Cut out the ‘leave-over’ though. Ther’ ain’t no ‘leave-over’ where Annette’s concerned. Annette’s the greatest thing ever stepped this crazy wilderness. An’ I don’t know how it comes she belongs a father like you. I’d kill[139] Sinclair same as I’d kill you, if either of you hurt body or soul of Annette. You can get that right now. Annette’s cut Sinclair out fer me. Fer me! Do you get that, too? Ther’s no sort of need fer a killin’ now—none. I’m not goin’ around killin’ police boys fer pastime or to hand you joy.”
The Wolf looked for an outburst. But Pideau only shook his bullet head.
“She cut him out fer you?” he scorned. “She can’t!”
The Wolf’s eyes glittered.
“Why?”
“Molly Gros.”
The Wolf stood up. It was almost as though a spring had been released under him. He stood there, his tongue passing slowly across his lips. Then his jaws shut tight with a snap. His eyes were blazing. And the manner in which he searched the face confronting him stirred a deep feeling of unease in the pit of the half-breed’s stomach.
Just for a few moments the lash of his fury beat upon the Wolf’s brain. Then the crisis passed.
He turned away. He moved swiftly to the door. It was flung open. Then it closed behind him with a slam, and the Wolf was gone.
Pideau made no move to leave his seat. He remained precisely where the Wolf had left him with his feet thrust up on the desk. The only difference[140] was that now he was staring thoughtfully at the empty rocker-chair. He was considering the Wolf’s refusal to kill Sinclair.
Pideau had built on it. Pideau had seen murder in the Wolf’s eyes that noon. And the sight had rejoiced him as could nothing else on earth. He had believed then that at long last the shadow of the Wolf was to be removed from his life.
So in his disappointment the man pondered morosely. He searched the position through and through, and it took him hours.
But his work was not unfruitful. And there was something like a smile in his wicked eyes when he finally left the store. In the long hours he had sat there he had solved several problems. And among them was that one which related to “rats chasing the crackers and cheese.”
CHAPTER V
PAYMENT
CONSTABLE SINCLAIR sealed and addressed his last letter. He sat back in his Windsor chair and, for some moments, pondered the address he had just written.
Then he turned and glanced over the ill-lit room that was his official home.
It was a bare enough place. It was no more than sufficient for the simplest human needs. But then no more was asked of it. Police life was never made easy.
The room was narrow and low-ceiled, and its walls were boarded. At one time in their career they had been varnished, but that was long ago. Now they were dingy with the smoke of many winters. A bed-cot of trestles and boards, with a straw palliasse and brown blankets on it, was the man’s sleeping place. A well-polished wood stove abated some of the winter cold. The only thing that could have been considered luxury was a washbowl on a makeshift table with a water bucket standing beside it. As for the writing table at which Sinclair was seated, it was small, of white wood, and served its purpose with nothing to spare.
There was no floor covering of any sort. There was not even a curtain over the double windows to[142] afford privacy. A couple of old grain sacks were jambed at the foot of the door, but these were only for the purpose of shutting out some of the penetrating bitterness of the winter cold. The Spartan severity was extended even to the illumination. The single oil lamp was just sufficient to stir up shadows even in those narrow limits.
Sinclair was indifferent to bodily discomfort and found no fault with his quarters. But he hated the office work which he performed with meticulous thoroughness. That was his way. He was looking for promotion and knew how much that branch of his work counted with those in whose hands his official future lay. So he had spent a long and dreary evening completing his weekly report of ten foolscap pages. And after that he had written two private letters.
There was not much choice for him with the snow falling heavily outside. It was either work or his blankets. And as yet he was in no mood for sleep. So he had written a dutiful epistle to an aged mother in Toronto and a letter of several pages to a girl who occupied the position of governess to two very young children in the household of one of Calford’s leading citizens.
It was all very characteristic of Ernest Sinclair. He was sure of his own efficiency; quite certain of it. And furthermore he took good care never to leave[143] undone any of those things which might serve his ambitions.
It was his way to spend a lot of spare time in calculation. No interest of his own was too small that it should not be fully weighed and measured. It was his aim in life that his sums should always prove. And if things did not always work out as his figures indicated it was not for lack of strenuous effort. When things went wrong with them he usually assured himself of the inevitability of the failure. Never, in his frankest moments did he admit the unfailing discount demanded by his own besetting weaknesses.
He rose alertly from his desk and crossed the room to the stove in the corner. Habit set him raking it. Then he generously replenished it from his store of cord-wood. Automatically he closed the damper and stood up, wiping the wood ash dust from his hands.
He felt almost elated. He was wondering and speculating as to the outcome of his morning’s interview with Annette. He felt that things should certainly come his way. He assured himself he was entitled to such a result. It had been hard work. It had made him sweat in spite of the cold. The inspiration that had leaped to his mind in the nick of time was something which tickled his vanity mightily.
But as he began to fill his pipe he found himself resorting again to his habit of calculation.
He knew Annette’s headlong temper, her impulse.[144] He felt he knew by heart the nature of the clay he was seeking to mould. Annette had no real cleverness. She had a measure of nimbleness. In truth she was just a beautiful young animal full of a glorious joy of life. She was utterly desirable, of course, but nevertheless, a brainless, hot-blooded animal. That was all.
He forgot to complete the filling of his pipe. Instead he returned it to his pocket and rubbed his hands.
Then what would be the result, he asked himself? What must be the result? Annette had come to him with her woman’s purpose of forcing his hand. She meant him to father her child in the eyes of her world in Buffalo Coulee. She was a half-breed and he was white. And full well he knew the crazy desire of her kind for a white husband. She—yes—she would sacrifice anything—anybody—for the thing she wanted. She had been shocked in those first moments of the big idea. But——
Sinclair started. He shot a swift glance at the door of his room, which opened into his outer public office. For an instant he eyed it questioningly. Then he looked at the cheap clock hanging on a nail over his table. But, in a moment, he turned again to the door.
Several moments passed. Then he moved. He moved swiftly. And as he came to the door and flung it wide, the snub nose of an ugly small gun was poking[145] out from the grip of his palm, which an instant before had been quite empty.
The yellow lamplight revealed a fur-clad figure. For an instant Sinclair’s gun hand was raised. Then it lowered. And it resought his pocket as he laughed.
“Say, kid,” he cried a little boisterously, “you gave me quite a scare. I sort of figgered you were some guy looking for my scalp. I was all for perforating your swell furs with a gun that don’t usually quit under ten rounds. Say, you faced this darn storm to see me? Why?”
He held out his arms, and for all the melting snow that was saturating Annette’s furs she was caught and held tightly to him while his hot lips caught hers.
The girl yielded. Then, with a little struggle, she released herself and stood breathing quickly. The dusky blood flushed up to her beautiful cheeks, and a flash of resentment to her eyes.
“I didn’t come around fer that,” she said sharply.
And Sinclair laughed in the confidence of success.
“Sure you didn’t. Say, is there a girl in the world ready to admit the things she wants from a man? No, no, kid. You didn’t come around for fooling. It’s a mighty important proposition to set you turning out on a night that’s only fit for starving timber wolves. Here, come across to the stove. Shake the snow off you, and thaw out those pretty fingers. I’ll close the door in case there’s any wolves chasing around.”
[146]He laughed at his own pleasantry while he closed and fastened the door. Then, as the girl undid her fur coat beside the stove, her voice came sharply.
“That window,” she said. “Can’t you set a blanket across it?”
Sinclair paused half-way to her side. His eyes were still smiling the elation he felt. The girl gestured impatiently and spread out her hands to the warmth.
“You must,” she said. “I—I daresn’t stand around here with that window uncovered.”
“I see.”
In half a minute one of the brown blankets from Sinclair’s bed was hung on two nails that were already in the window casing for just such a purpose.
“You think anyone saw you come out?”
The policeman was at the stove. He was at the opposite side of it looking across into the pretty face that had lost something of its usual confidence. Annette’s gaze was unsteady. There was a distinct droop at the corners of the mouth that Sinclair knew could caress so hotly. He realized from the swift rise and fall of a tumultuous bosom that she was disturbed and apprehensive.
“They’re abed,” she said. “They’ve been abed an hour. But I—I think I’m scared.”
Sinclair shook his head.
“No, kid,” he said. “Not scared. That’s not you. I tell you I’d hate to stand up to the thing that could[147] scare you. But you’ve nothing to be scared for anyway.”
He moved round the stove to the girl’s side, his pulses stirring. He sought to take her into his arms again, but, with a swift movement, the girl eluded him.
“What’s amiss?” he asked sharply.
“Nothin’, Ernie. Only—only—ther’ ain’t time to fool now.”
The man’s eyes were hot. All the worst in him was uppermost. His cooler, calculating mind was befogged by that passionate weakness he was powerless to deny. He wanted the girl more than he desired advancement at that moment.
“Why?” he cried, with a petulant snap of disappointment.
Annette gestured impatiently.
“Because I’ve got what you want, an’ must beat it right back to home before—before——”
“Kiss me first, then, so I can listen right. Say, I can’t listen, I can’t think till—till you kiss me.”
The man was beside himself. The whole expression of his face had transformed. It was rather terrible. The hot blood was madly surging to his head, and veins were standing out on his forehead. He watched her devouringly.
The girl understood. And curiously there was no responsive feeling in her. It was as if something she saw in him reacted adversely. Her own passions were[148] for once quiescent in proportion to the extravagance of his. She turned to the stove.
“Quit fool’ry, I tell you,” she said, so coldly that Sinclair grew angrily calm. “What sort o’ man are you anyway? Can’t you quit that sort of thing when—when we got business to fix? I tell you I got what you need, an’ I’ll go clear through with it. But you can’t get it till you quit foolin’. An’ you can’t get it till you swear before God you’ll marry me right away when it’s thro’.”
For some moments the man stood a prey to the madness of his passions. For a while desire set him yearning to lay violent hands on the beautiful creature who so furiously inflamed him. Then, at last, the cold stare of the girl’s eyes reduced him to sanity. But it was a surly sort of sanity.
“You’re a cool devil, Annette,” he sneered. Then he tried to laugh. “Go right on,” he added sharply.
Annette stared down at the stove.
“You swear ’fore God?”
The man made no answer. And Annette shook her head.
“You got to hand me that,” she insisted.
“Say, kid that’s all right, but I just hate the notion of a—a bargain between you an’ me.”
Sinclair was master of himself again. And his brain was working on those calculations which came so naturally to him.
[149]“See, Annette, I’m just crazy for you, and always will be,” he went on. “Bargaining with you is like playing the Jew game. There’s no sort of need for a bargain. Of course I’m goin’ to marry you. Do you think I’d leave our little kiddie without a father? I’m no skunk of that sort. I just love you to——”
“But you got to swear that Ernie, all the same,” Annette persisted. “It’s your own bargain. You made it that way this mornin’. You figgered you’d marry me if you got your promotion. An’ I was to make it so you could get it. Well, I figger I ken do all you want. I ken make it so you get them at the still with five hundred gallons of liquor lyin’ ready to ship. But when I’ve done that I’d say I can’t draw back. Can I? Once you got your hands on ’em you got what you need. Well, I got to get from you what I need. You’ve got to swear on the Gospel. You got to swear by the swell mother that bred you. You got to swear by all that figgers a thing in your life. If you don’t——? Well, we’ll leave it right there.”
Sinclair realized from the tone, from the cold of her manner, that he had come very near to blundering. He even feared that her suspicions were already aroused. The remedy must be instant.
He nodded and smiled with all the good will he could summon.
“I’ll swear by every god that was ever worshipped,”[150] he said eagerly. “I’ll swear it by my dear old mother ’way East on her farm. It’s my dying oath, kid. The oath every school kid knows, and would hate to break. Do you feel good about it now? You know, little girl, there isn’t a thing in the world I want like you. Not even that promotion we been worrying over. It hurt you didn’t trust me without that oath. But I sort of see now. You got to have it for our—kiddie. Well, now you’ve got it you can pass me mine.”
Annette gestured nervously. She turned from the man’s challenging eyes.
“It—it seems tough,” she demurred.
“What? To fulfil your side of the bargain?”
Annette raised her eyes to the glassy watchfulness of his.
“It sure means penitentiary?” she cried suddenly. “How long?”
“Five years at most, I’d say.”
“Five?”
“Yes.”
Sinclair saw the struggle going on behind the girl’s eyes. He had everything to gain by patient persuasion. So he held strong check upon himself.
“I don’t guess your father’ll get more than a year. It’s the Wolf,” he said, watching the effect of his words. “He’s the feller with the still. He’s the real boss. That’s his way. He runs the still. He’s got your[151] father where he needs him. And treats him to the same bull-dozing he does you. He’s a swine of a bully. He’s made your life tough as well. Five years in penitentiary’ll hand him an elegant lesson not to bet on a ‘full house’ when he’s barely ace high. He’s got a hell of a stiff neck. But five years of penitentiary’ll change all that.”
A bitter laugh answered him.
“Yes, yes,” Annette cried eagerly. “That’s it. It’ll smash his fool conceit. It——”
She broke off with a sharp intake of breath.
“Well? Where is it? The still?”
The girl flung out her hands.
“The Coulee. Spruce Coulee. Back to the hills.”
Sinclair stared.
“Why Spruce Coulee’s only eight miles back to the hills, and I ride that trail every month of the year.”
“I know. That’s his bluff—the Wolf’s. He figgered you’d never locate it if it was right under your nose.”
The man had forgotten Annette entirely. He was thinking of the men. He was furious at the bluff which the Wolf had flung at him.
“Just where?” he asked, with a sharpness that sounded harsh in the stillness of the half-lit room.
Annette’s slim hands came together sharply. There was a queer straining in the eyes that gazed up at her[152] lover. She drew a deep breath as she remembered the child that was to be born to her.
“’Way back of the big bluff of jack pine wher’ the freshet cuts out o’ the hills into the coulee. It’s the break in the hillside that’s full o’ water come spring, an’ snow in winter. You seen it, an’ passed it, and reckoned it wasn’t worth a thought. It’s just a split in the rock wher’ it starts. But it opens out to a widish cañon right inside, an’ it goes back miles. The still’s set up in a cave west o’ the third bend, a cave big enough to drive a team an’ spring wagon into. It needs findin’ even at that, for it’s hid up close by a fall of loose rock and a wall of scrub. But it’s ther’. An’ ther’s five hundred gallons kegged an’ waitin’ shipment. They’re to tote the stuff eight o’clock to-morrow night.”
The girl’s words came torrentially. It was as if she dared not pause lest her purpose should fail her. At the finish she confronted the policeman, with her rounded bosom heaving.
“Eight o’clock?” Sinclair nodded. “They’re shipping five hundred gallons?”
Suddenly he laughed. And a look of fear in Annette’s eyes replied to him.
“Ernie!”
But again the policeman laughed.
“Don’t worry, kid,” he cried.
“But they’re desperate. They’ll fight like devils.[153] They’ll shoot to kill. They mustn’t kill you. They——”
“Kill nothing!” the man scorned. “There’ll be no killing. Just penitentiary. I want ’em both. And now I’ll get ’em. And——”
The girl’s hands were prisoned.
The next moment her body was caught in the man’s arms, and Annette submitted to fierce caresses. She submitted but did not respond. A queer desperation seemed to have taken hold of her. It was reaction. And it robbed her of the power to think connectedly. In those moments the one thing she knew was an awful despair, and a pitiful desire to fall a-weeping.
For Sinclair it was a wonderful moment of triumph. At last the whole game was in his hands.
An hour later Ernest Sinclair was alone. Annette had passed out again into the silent deluge of snow.
The girl’s going left him unconcerned. It meant nothing to him that she must make her way alone across the township in a blinding snowstorm. He had obtained from her all he wanted, and that was all that mattered. She had served her purpose. She was a half-breed. Just a half-breed. A mere chattel to be discarded when his end was achieved.
He sought his bed, and pulled the blankets up about his neck and ears. His stove was well banked for the[154] night. And now he had a pleasant stock of thoughts which would occupy him till sleep overtook him.
Oh, yes—there was going to be no mistake. He was winning all along the line. It would be strange indeed if his efficiency failed him in the moment of success. At eight o’clock to-morrow night there would be no shipment of five hundred gallons of “homebrew.” No—but there would be two prisoners who had long been “wanted” to his credit. And then—and then——
CHAPTER VI
THE CACHE
THE moon was at its full. Its cold brilliance was a perfect match for the temperature prevailing. It was a clear, bitter night, without a breath of wind out of the western hills sufficient to lift it, however slightly, from the depths below zero into which it had plunged.
The frigid melancholy was broken only by odd nature sounds. They came from afar. They echoed near at hand. There was the rarer boom of frost-bitten forest trees. There was the occasional moan from the hungry bowels of some lonesome creature of the wilderness. There were other sounds, too. Mysterious, unaccountable sounds that only served to express more surely something of life’s last hope lost in the cold heart of a merciless winter.
East and west a frozen watercourse wound its way. It lay at the foot of a shouldering of sharp, rough-hewn cliffs, which represented the last barrier where the world of western hills gave on to the undulations of virgin prairie.
Even under snow the course of Spruce Coulee was sharply outlined. The snow-laden limbs of conifers sagged heavily for miles along its banks. So, too,[156] with the lower scrub, and the rime-decked branches of leafless trees. Otherwise it would have been indistinguishable from the rest of the world.
The woods on its far bank were tight-packed against the sheer of the cliffs. In places they even hid the rocky wall entirely. Doubtless in summer they were gracious enough. But just now their only service seemed to be to lend the gleaming white of their burden to hide up the careless roughnesses of Nature’s quarrying.
At one point along the course of the coulee the woods broke on either bank. One break was natural. But that was where an irresistible freshet had driven a way for itself through the rocky barrier of the hills in a boisterous effort to reach and swell the waters of the superior stream. Its achievement was doubtless the work of ages. But it was complete. A deep rift split the face of the gray stone cliffs to a breadth of something over twenty feet.
On the prairie bank the break was a narrow enough opening, barely sufficient for the passage of a horse-drawn vehicle. It had nothing of the naturalness which had split the face of the opposite cliff. But so cunning was its design, so insignificantly winding its course through the trees, and with so much care had obstructing tree-boles been removed, that its presence betrayed not the smallest indication of the human handiwork that had fashioned it.
[157]Directly between these openings a figure on foot was floundering through the bed of snow which obscured the coulee. It stood out sharply in the moonlight in its dark furs. Nor was there the smallest indication of any means, other than afoot, by which it could have arrived there. Neither horse, nor vehicle were in evidence anywhere.
Half-way across the coulee Sinclair paused to consider his surroundings, and to clear the icicles from about his lips, and even the lashes of his eyes. Eyes and ears were equally well trained to the haunting silence of the world about him, and, after a prolonged survey, he knew there was nothing to disturb. It was just the shadowy white world he knew and hated. And the sights and sounds that came to him were of the things he could interpret beyond any question.
So his whole attention became concentrated upon the gap in the rough wall of the cliffs ahead. Again he knew it all by heart. He had seen and ignored it so frequently. It was just one of those spring watercourses feeding the coulee. But now it had assumed an importance in his mind that demanded for it his closest attention.
That which he beheld filled him with a certain admiration for the astuteness which had seen in the rift a safe hiding place for a secret traffic. The bed of the spring watercourse was hidden up by trees, and scrub, and was choked with drift snow. From a[158] distance it was only high up where the opening was at its narrowest that the place could be detected at all.
He moved on. With the coulee well behind him there came a battle with the snow-buried undergrowth. But after a while the trees hid him up, and forthwith the world he left behind him forgot the intrusion upon its frigid solitude.
A small circle of light flashed to and fro in the inky blackness. It turned upwards and found the domed roof of a cavern. It swept to the right and to the left. Dark walls of broken rock were all it revealed, a simple expression of Nature’s monstrous labor.
Presently it turned away and became motionless. It had suddenly revealed a mass of equipment that had nothing to do with Nature.
The light made no further movement. A pair of eager eyes were searching the discovery.
But Sinclair had little enough time in which to indulge mere curiosity. The plans he had made depended entirely for success upon the swiftness with which they were executed. Delay would probably mean disaster to them and very likely to himself as well. So it was sufficient that he recognized the complicated gear of a distilling plant of considerable capacity without its further consideration at the moment.
It told him all he desired to know just then. It was the final proof of Annette’s sincerity. It was very[159] welcome. But the girl had further warned him that five hundred gallons of raw spirit had been brewed, and kegged, and set ready for shipment He must verify that. Now—where?
The light of his flash lamp continued its work. The searching circle of light passed on here, there, everywhere. It shone ahead, an ever-widening shaft of light that became faint and ineffective in the far remoteness of the bowels of the cavern. It came back sharply to the nearness. Left and right it flashed swiftly. And finally it searched the litter of impedimenta upon the uneven surface of the rocky floor.
It was then that an exclamation broke sharply. The man dropped to his knees before a great lantern which stood ready trimmed for lighting.
The mellow lantern light fulfilled its purpose. The cavern lit up sufficiently, all but the far distance which formed an ugly, rugged passage. The place was far larger than Sinclair had suspected, and conveyed nothing pleasant or easy. It was a grim hiding. And as he gazed, a queer weight of depression settled heavily on his spirits.
But the feeling passed as the thing he sought was revealed. Excited satisfaction replaced it when he beheld a neatly arranged stack of ten-gallon kegs.
The policeman moved across to it at once. The barrels were arranged near the right hand wall in three tiers. He set his lantern down on the top of the upper[160] tier to leave himself free for examination. He lifted a barrel and replaced it. He tried several others. And with each test his satisfaction grew. They were all full. Annette had not deceived him. A smile of deep significance lit his eager eyes.
Five hundred gallons!
Sinclair considered. He was listening and watching, too. He told himself the whole desperate game was now in his hands. The Wolf and Pideau were definitely booked for penitentiary—provided always he made no mistake.
Oh, he was going to do nothing of that sort. He was taking no chances. Everything was just as he would have it. Even to the setting of those precious kegs. He could crouch behind the stack, an excellent rampart against gunfire, with the drop on the men he was waiting for as they silhouetted against the moonlight beyond the mouth of the cavern.
Eight o’clock. Annette had said eight o’clock. It was not so long to wait now. And he was glad. He was yearning for activity. Yearning for that triumph he felt to be coming to him. For all the cold was already eating into his bones he felt that he could, if necessary, endure hours of waiting for such an end to his night’s work.
It would be so very easy, too. Those two would not have a dog’s chance really. How could they? He knew his own value as a shot. And then the moonlight.[161] Why—— But he would be very careful. He would shoot. Of course he would shoot on sight. But not to kill. Oh, no. That would——
A shot crashed in the echoing cavern like the thunder of high explosive. The policeman’s whole body seemed to jolt and stiffen. Then a spasm shivered him from his head to his heels. He staggered, swayed, and slowly crumpled up. He fell forward almost without a sound. Without so much as the moan of a dying soul he rolled over face upwards on the rough stone of the floor. And he lay there still—so still.
Ernest Sinclair was stone dead. Already he was stiffening in the bitter cold of the night. The kneeling figure crouching over his body was in no doubt upon the subject. The shot had driven straight through its victim’s heart as he stood outlined against the lantern light with his back turned to the cavern entrance.
The groping hands desisted from the examination they had been carefully carrying out. The figure sat back on a pair of moccasined heels, and thoughtful dark eyes considered the sprawled body. Then they glanced down at the old-fashioned, seven-chambered revolver lying on the ground near by.
A deep-drawn sigh. Perhaps it was relief, or even pity at the necessity for the destruction wrought. It was impossible to tell.
[162]A moment later the figure was standing. It reached out to the lantern on the kegs and opened it. The next moment black darkness descended, shutting out the sight of the sprawled body of the murdered man. Then came the soft padding of moccasined feet.
Outside the cave the uncertain light of the moon shining down between the overhang of gorge revealed a newcomer. It might even have been the return of the earlier visitor, the one who had knelt searching the body of the murdered police officer. It was impossible in that half-light to identify it. The outline was similar. But there is so little to differentiate in the outline of heavy furs in a snow country.
But now there was something furtive in the manner of approach. It suggested fear of discovery, for the figure was hugging every shadow cast by the overhang of rock, and its every movement was as stealthy as the deeps of drift snow would permit. It came on slowly, laboriously. And at last it halted just outside the entrance to the cave with an ear cocked, obviously listening for any sound to suggest danger.
The profundity of silence was intense. The cavern had become a veritable sepulchre, assuming the atmosphere, to which, as such, it seemed entitled. It was almost as if nothing could ever again disturb the place. As though the recent momentary crash of gunfire was an unreality, a dream, a figment of imagination.
[163]The newcomer leaned forward peering. Whatever the ultimate purpose for a long time there was no attempt to pass those black, yawning portals. But at last there came definite movement. It was as though confidence had more fully returned. The figure moved forward towards the engulfing darkness. And, in a moment, all that remained to proclaim the visit was the soft shuffle of footsteps over the rough surface of the cavern floor.
A pair of dark eyes shone in the reflected light which outlined the entrance to the cavern. There was no longer the impression of the sepulchre. The lantern on the stack of kegs had been relit. It had only just flashed out, its yellow rays illuminating a scene which amazed, almost paralyzed the brain behind the startled gaze endeavoring to take in and sort out the meaning of what it beheld.
The light threw into relief every detail of the industry, which for so long had remained secret. There stood all the complicated paraphernalia which made up the primitive still. There stood the various rough adjuncts, denoting human occupation. Then there was that store of liquor ready prepared for shipment.
But the gaze that took in these details found nothing in them to interest. For the time being they were completely meaningless. It was that by the stack of kegs, and in the full rays of lantern light, that stirred a[164] spasm of horror so deep that it left the faculties stunned.
A figure, a living human figure was standing over a dead body sprawled on the ground at its feet. It was a figure clad in familiar enough furs. And in its right hand was a revolver of old-fashioned pattern.
It was all vivid and unmistakable. It required no imagination to translate that scene and discover the meaning of it. Murder! It was murder. And the figure gazing down upon the lifeless form of its victim, maybe gloating over the dreadful work it had accomplished, was there red-handed, seemingly indifferent to all chances of discovery.
The brilliant patch of color, staring up under the lantern light, where the murdered man’s black furs were flung wide open, told at once of the identity of the victim. A policeman! A police officer shot down! Shot to instant death! The madness of it. The reckless wantonness.
A mitted hand was raised and passed across the watching, horrified eyes. It was a gesture of helplessness. A gesture that told of something approaching weakness. It was followed by a deep-drawn breath. Then came reaction. The watching eyes turned abruptly from the spectacle. It was as though a supreme effort of will had been put forth to shut out a terror that was overwhelming.
Then sudden movement.
[165]It was at that moment that the lantern light was extinguished, and the whole scene was gone from view. The watcher could only hear. There was the slither of hurried footsteps. A shadow detached itself from the blackness of the cavern. It moved out into the dim moonlight. And presently it was gone, vanished in the twilight of the shadowed world.
The next moment the place where the watcher had crouched was empty.
Pideau was standing in the shadow of the woods. He was at the appointed rendezvous. He had faithfully carried out the orders he had received. But there was no liquor awaiting him.
The bluff on Spruce Coulee was deserted, given up to the solitude that belonged to it.
The man had passed the time of waiting pacing the rotting underlay of the woods, in a vigorous effort to keep his stout limbs warm in the fierce cold. But now he had halted and remained staring down at the white bed of the coulee, where two teams and double bobsleighs were waiting with the blanketted horses knee deep in the soft snow of the recent fall.
His small eyes were snapping as they gazed out from amidst his furs. His mitted hands were thrust deep in the pockets of his long coat, where they encountered two loaded weapons. They were his principal defence in the hazardous journey yet to be made when[166] he was to complete his deal with those he knew as the “O’Hagan bunch.”
He was considering. The Wolf should have been there with the goods. He was not. What course should he, Pideau, adopt? Should he wait on? Or should he go down there to the teamsters and tell them to wait while he went to the cache to discover the reason of the Wolf’s absence.
These were the obvious alternatives. But, somehow, Pideau arrived at no decision. He just thought on and on. And so he waited. His snapping eyes gazing always down at the waiting teams.
Suddenly he started. He turned an ear at a sound in the woods behind him. A new note had been added to the many sounds of the night. It was the scrunch of feet crushing the rotten pine cones where the foliage was too thick to permit penetration by the snow.
There was no reason to consider his future movements now. He knew his waiting was at an end.
The Wolf came up out of the shadow of the forest. Pideau was ready for him.
“Well?” he demanded in the harsh fashion habitual to him.
“You best come right over to the cache, Pideau,” the Wolf said, offering no explanation of the absence of the liquor. “Guess you’ll need to pass a hand totin’ the stuff. Things have happened along back at the cache. But we got to get the juice out right away[167] an’ make our trade. You can hand a close word to the boys down ther’. Just tell ’em I been held up by the snow. The stuff’ll be right along as fast as we can both haul it on the hand sleds. You get me?”
Pideau searched the other’s face all he was able. Then came his inevitable challenge.
“What’s happened?”
“That’ll wait. I’m worried to pouch O’Hagan’s dollars quick. You go right along to the boys, as I said. Then the cache. I’ll get back.”
“Trouble?”
Pideau’s persistence drew a short laugh from the other.
“It’s the way you look at it,” he parried. “But you beat it down to the boys.”
He moved off even as he spoke. And Pideau watched him go. He watched him till the shadows swallowed him up. Then he turned to carry out orders.
The cavern was almost brilliantly lit. Three lanterns were shining, where before only one had sought to dispel the shadows. The Wolf and Pideau were standing together. They were gazing down at the sprawled body of Ernest Sinclair.
Both were silent. Each was preoccupied with such thoughts as the ugly sight of the dead man inspired. But whatever their emotions there was no outward display. None at all.
[168]The Wolf was lost in profound thought. The curious smile which Nature had stamped about his fine eyes gave the impression of amused, even derisive speculation. But nothing could have been further from his mood. It was just the natural mask he could not remove.
Pideau, in his different way, was quite as impossible to read. His expression never once changed after the first widening of the eyes which had occurred when the flash of lantern light had shown him the scarlet of the dead man’s stable-jacket.
Finally it was Pideau who broke the silence. He inclined his bullet head in a nod.
“Guess I take it right back,” he said amiably. “I didn’t reckon you’d the guts.” He drew a deep breath. “Gee, I am glad. Glad as hell. That puts him right out. We’re clear away with things. Annette’s shut of a scab p’liceman. An’ we——”
The Wolf caught and held the evil sparkle of the other’s eyes.
“Guess I’m not crazy, if you are,” he said sharply. “I found him just how you see him now, when I came along for those kegs o’ liquor.”
Pideau blinked.
“What sort of bluff did you pass him to get him wher’ you needed him? Say, Wolf, you’re brighter than hell. You surely are. I didn’t reckon that way last night. I thought you’d weakened. I’d ought’ve[169] known better. I guess it’s the sort of trick only you could work out. Oh, boy, I’m glad. We’re partners. Ther’s bin times when I reckoned I was mostly a choreman doin’ as you said. Well, I’m most ready to act that way all the time for a partner who ken put through a play like this. That’s surely so. We got to cache him way back to the end of the cave wher’ he ken freeze good. What you done with his broncho an’ saddle?”
“Nothing.”
The Wolf’s eyes were still smiling, but a deep flush had spread right up to his broad forehead.
“I haven’t seen ’em,” he went on, after a pause. “I don’t know a thing, an’ haven’t seen a thing till I found—this—lying right here the way you see it now.”
Pideau shook his head. For a thoughtful moment he gazed at the dead man, whose glazed eyes and dropped jaw stared up at him. Then he eyed the big, seven-chambered gun lying on the ground in close proximity.
“It don’t do leavin’ your old gun around anyway,” he said. “That ain’t clever nor bright. Best take it an’ clean it good right away.”
The Wolf glanced down at the gun. Then he stooped mechanically in obedience to the other and picked it up. He opened the old-fashioned side of the breech and revolved the chambers. There were six[170] loaded chambers. The seventh contained a spent shell. He returned it whence he had taken it.
“Jest one shot,” Pideau approved. “But I don’t guess you ever need more’n one.”
The half-breed spoke with an amiable chuckle. But the Wolf’s shoulders went up coldly. Then he laughed.
“It’s a fool trick leavin’ the gun around,” he agreed. “But that’s easy fixed. Maybe I’ll clean it later the way you say. Meanwhiles we’ll leave it with him. We need to move quick. We’ll tote him back into the cave wher’ he’ll freeze right. We ken deal with his broncho later. O’Hagan’s waitin’ on his liquor an’ that means dollars. We’ll get busy. Say, get a grip on his legs. I’ll pack his other end.”
CHAPTER VII
WHERE THE CRIMINAL FINDS NO MERCY
SERGEANT-MAJOR STURT, of the Mounted Police, pulled on his short buffalo coat. As he turned up its storm collar about his neck and ears, and set his yellow-badged fur cap on his stubble of dark hair, he was a worried man.
He stared round him at the pleasant quarters which represented his home in the Calford barracks. His quick eye came to rest on one of the two small-paned windows. It revealed nothing except wintry daylight It was thick with ice and snow. But it was sufficient.
He was not concerned just now with anything the winter-bound barrack square beyond could show him. He was thinking; thinking hard. He was pondering the interview he was about to seek. And, for the autocrat of the Calford barrack square, for a man of his stern discipline, it afforded him no pleasant anticipation.
At last he turned away. He crammed some papers into one of the pockets of his coat, picked up a plug of chewing tobacco and disposed it handily, seized a stocky hunting crop, drew on his fur mitts, and passed out of the room for the white expanse of the barrack square.
Sturt was a fierce disciplinarian and an exceedingly[172] shrewd police officer. No one knew better than he the severity of the conditions governing the lives of those who acknowledged the authority of the Police Department. And no one knew better than he the need for such severity if a mere handful of men were to maintain law and order in a territory large enough to support a world of strenuous human souls.
Nor would he have had things otherwise. Police traditions were ingrained in his sturdy nature. The “Force” and its purposes bounded his whole outlook. He understood that it was not only his duty but his desire to see that its esprit was maintained to the last degree, and no affront or outrage against its traditions went undealt with. And discipline? Well, discipline in the Mounted Police was the whole of everything as he saw it.
It was little wonder, therefore, that the morning’s mail had grievously upset him. He had received a private letter from Doctor Fraser at Buffalo Coulee. And the doctor was a man with whom he had not infrequently come into contact; a man for whom he entertained a certain respect. It was an astounding letter. A letter which very nearly added further bristle to his cropped hair.
The letter conveyed the information that, for something over two weeks, Constable Ernest Sinclair had been missing from his post at Buffalo Coulee.
Constable Sinclair was missing. Missing! It was[173] that curiously ugly word which the doctor had used. And no one had a better appreciation of its significance than Sergeant-major Sturt.
There were, of course, all sorts of possible explanations for such a situation. But the sergeant-major’s mind saw few alternatives. That was the result of extensive knowledge and experience. There was first of all the matter of life and death. Many an able constable had lost his life in the execution of his duty. There was the winter, the intense cold, blizzards. Then there was shooting, when dealing with criminals—a hundred and one chances. But Sturt was incapable of accepting any excuse where a policeman’s life was involved. It was always the same. An “intolerable,” a “damnable” expression of inefficiency.
Another alternative he saw was desertion. It was just possible that Sinclair had deserted across the United States border. But somehow he could not bring himself to accept such a theory. He knew the man’s keenness and ambition too well. There was one thing certain, however. Should desertion prove to be the answer, all his passive, blasphemous disgust would be swiftly translated into fierce activity.
The reflection with the greatest appeal, based of course on Sturt’s personal knowledge of the man in question, was the chance that Sinclair was away on a hot trail after some criminal, a trail that had carried him farther than he had anticipated. But, even so, it[174] offered no excuse for creating a position in police affairs wherein it was possible for a mere civilian to interfere. That was against all police tradition and, in Sturt’s mind, the worst possible exhibition of inefficiency.
The man chewed and spat the whole way across the barrack square. It was an almost mute expression of his disturbance. He moved swiftly, his rubber-shod feet ploughing their resolute way through the soft snow without concern for the depth of the drifts. And by the time he reached the Orderly Room, where he knew he would find Superintendent Croisette already at work, it would have been a simple matter to have tracked him down by the trail of tobacco juice he left behind him in the snow.
His chief greeted him with a short nod that bespoke a mood no better than his own.
“Better sit down, Sergeant-major,” he said, as Sturt halted before his desk and saluted. “There’s a tough proposition to be settled before Orderly Room. We’ve got an hour.”
He went on working while the other remained standing. Sturt’s jaws had become suddenly motionless.
“You got the news, too, sir,” he asked, making a shrewd guess.
“I think so.” Croisette did not look up.
“About Constable Sinclair?”
“Yes.”
[175]The superintendent raised his searching eyes, and the sergeant-major sat down with a movement very like a jolt.
Croisette reached across his big desk. He picked up a single sheet of somewhat soiled paper. He held it out to his subordinate, who took it.
“You’d best read what it says. It’s from a mossback of sorts, I take it, who has forgotten to sign it.”
Sturt laid his own letter from Doctor Fraser on the desk within the superintendent’s reach.
“My letter’s signed,” he observed, and began to read the anonymous document.
Croisette picked up the doctor’s letter and leaned back in his chair.
The superintendent was an alert-eyed French Canadian who had won his position in the Mounted Police by sheer merit. He was at once a practical officer and an organizer. But like most men of sheer capacity in the Mounted Police he preferred the activities and dangers of the trail to the work of the office. Nevertheless, he was a glutton for work wherever he found it. And he had certainly raised Calford into one of the most efficient centres of police work.
He was still under forty, with jet-black hair and a pair of keen, stone-gray eyes which peered from between thick, black lashes. And if it were possible for the mind of his staunch sergeant-major to set anything[176] human on a pedestal of admiration, it would certainly have been Fram Croisette.
Croisette was the first to finish his reading. He raised his searching eyes above the top of the letter and studied the rugged face of his henchman with its steadily masticating jaws.
“Well?” he inquired presently, when Sturt passed the dirty sheet of paper back across the desk.
“Best set Sergeant Fyles to work on it, right away, sir.” The sergeant-major turned his tobacco over to the other cheek. “There’s more to this than I got from Doc Fraser. Fraser states his facts without unnecessary comment. This guy, whoever he is, knows more than he tells. And he looks to have as much use for the police as a bunch of rattlesnakes. Sinclair’s been—done up.”
“Ye-es. You’ve warned Fyles already, I take it?”
“I told him to come right over, sir. He’s here right now. I saw him pass the window.”
“What do you propose?”
“Pass him a free hand, sir. Give Fyles a free hand and he’ll punch it well home.”
Croisette eyed the letter that had been returned to him.
“Ye-es,” he admitted, thoughtfully.
“I was wrong sending a boy like Sinclair to a tough show like Buffalo Coulee,” Sturt grumbled. “You[177] reckoned at the time, sir, it was a job for a ‘non-com’ of experience. It makes me feel mean. I misjudged.”
“That’s all right, Sergeant-major. Don’t take too much blame to yourself. We don’t know a thing yet, except that Constable Sinclair is missing.”
“I’m thinking of the bunch down there in that rotten prairie township, sir. That’s what makes me sore. There’s an ugly outfit of half-breeds, and there’s that flood of bad liquor always leaking across the border, which the United States Prohibition folk are all the time complaining of. It’s made there. Some of the worst rotgut that ever burned a human belly. There’s dollars to burn down there, too. And when toughs have dollars to burn, why, just anything can happen. Yes. This looks like work for Stanley Fyles. If there’s a thing hidden up in that place he’ll nose it.”
“Do you make that anonymous letter the work of a man—or a woman?”
The officer’s challenge startled his subordinate. Sturt’s face was a study in astonishment. His jaws stilled, and his small eyes widened.
“I hadn’t thought, sir,” he said. “I just took it to be a man’s letter. And a pretty mean man at that.”
“That’s why I asked. It’s almost too mean. It’s full of spite. Spite against anybody and everybody—except Sinclair.”
“Friend of Sinclair?”
[178]But the superintendent only shrugged his black-coated shoulders.
“Tell Sergeant Fyles to step in.”
Stanley Fyles entered the office accompanied by a draught of icy air. Of middle height and neat figure, capacity was there in the keen glance he gave his superiors as he paused before the desk and saluted.
Croisette took in the man’s appearance without seeming to do so. A quick upward glance accompanied his sharp announcement.
“Constable Sinclair’s missing from his post at Buffalo Coulee,” he said. “I’ve had word by anonymous letter; the sergeant-major by a private letter from Doctor Fraser, who lives there.”
“Any particulars, sir?”
“Doctor Fraser gives none. Mentions the fact and expresses worry. That’s all.”
“May I see the anonymous letter, sir?”
“I’d like you to. Sit down.”
Stanley Fyles took the dirty, unsigned sheet of paper from the officer. He pulled up a Windsor chair and sat down. Croisette went on with the work of dealing with his official correspondence. The sergeant-major sat chewing and furtively eyeing the subordinate who had never yet failed him in any difficult problem.
Fyles was absorbed in the document handed to him.
Nobody but a bunch of foolheads like the police would need to be told the things happening in Buffalo Coulee. You send a lone-handed boy, whod orter have a mother around, to lick a[179] bunch of toughs into shape. Well hes got it. An the folks who done it will clear away with it if you dont send along quick. It aint use sending any hoodlam. Itll take a big bunch of red-coated gophers to beat up Buffalo Coulee.
Ill-written, scrawling, illiterate document as it was, it yet managed to convey in the fewest possible words all the venom of the writer as well as the news to be conveyed. Sinclair had “got it.”
“She’s pretty mad about it,” Fyles observed, still considering the paper in his hands. “And she’s used paper that belongs to a heading. The heading’s been cut off with scissors.”
“She?”
The superintendent’s eyes were alight with interested approval.
“Yes, sir. A man don’t cut paper with scissors. A man who wants to tell things to the police won’t worry to pass meanness to them with a shovel. And it’s a female who hasn’t seen the inside of a state school, too. I’d say that letter comes from the inside of the outfit who knows what’s happened. Buffalo Coulee—that’s the hunting ground of the Wolf Pack.”
Fyles returned the letter across the desk. And the eyes of the superintendent conveyed his approval.
“I thought that was the work of a woman, Sergeant,” he said, contemplating the paper. “Looks like she’s a friend of Constable Sinclair.”
“Likely one of them, sir?”
“One of his women friends?”
[180]The sergeant-major shifted uneasily. He felt it was time to make himself heard.
“Aren’t you moving a bit fast, Sergeant Fyles?” he asked brusquely. “Sinclair was a sound enough officer. He’s pulled some good work since he was transferred here.”
A half smile flashed into the keen eyes of Stanley Fyles. He understood. Sturt was responsible for his men. Croisette watched the two men with quiet amusement.
“I haven’t a word against Sinclair for his work,” Fyles said seriously. “There was no better man I’d be glad to have on a job with me. You’re quite right. He’s pulled some good work. But there are men splendid under personal orders who aren’t worth salt on their own. I reckon Sinclair was one of them.”
“What was the trouble, Sergeant?” Croisette asked quietly.
“How do you come to know that—without passing word to me?”
The sergeant-major’s notions of duty and discipline were outraged.
Fyles turned to the man behind the desk.
“I reckon you’re going to send me along to look into things, sir, and this is by way of a conference?”
Croisette inclined his head.
“Then I can speak plainly, sir?” Fyles went on. He turned at once to his sergeant-major, who was also[181] his friend. “It’s my work to learn all I can about the merits or demerits of men, who may, at some time, have to carry out my orders. But the things I learn of our boys, unless they are detrimental to discipline and efficiency, are solely for my information. They’re just a guide for me, something that may help me in real emergency. In keeping them that way, Sergeant-major, I’m sure you’ll be the first to admit my right. If I’d learned anything of Sinclair detrimental to our work you would have been the first to hear it. The man was a sound officer, as you say. But he wasn’t to be trusted when women cut across him. I think that’s the meaning of that unsigned letter.”
“You think it’s nothing to do with the gang of rum-runners?” Croisette questioned sharply.
Sergeant Fyles considered.
“I wouldn’t say that, sir. I just don’t know yet. It’s bad making a definite conclusion without sound evidence. But the thing I do make out is sufficiently clear to me. Something in the way of violence has happened to Sinclair. As Doc Fraser’s letter says, he’s ‘missing.’ Has been missing two weeks. A woman, who hasn’t a word to say against him, but, on the contrary, inadvertently conveys a sense of pity for him, and who clearly has no love for the police, is impelled to write asking help. As a jumping-off mark it suggests as I said, she’s a friend of Sinclair’s. She’s to do with those from whom he ‘got it.’ She[182] knows all that’s happened and is out to make someone pay. I’ll have to find that woman. May I have that letter when you’ve had it copied, sir. It might be very useful.”
Superintendent Croisette sat up. He folded his arms on the desk before him, and his keen eyes fixed themselves steadily on the face of Sergeant Fyles.
“Certainly you can have it,” he said. “I’ll get it photographed right away. It may serve you for identification. I like your argument, Sergeant. Your jumping-off mark looks good to me. You’ll proceed at once to Buffalo Coulee, and take the post over temporarily. But you’re not going there to police the place, or to concern yourself with the rum-running especially. Your work is to find out what’s happened to Sinclair. And, if he’s been killed, it’s up to you to bring his murderer to justice. I think it might help you to leave the place without proper police supervision other than simply your presence there. As the sergeant-major says, it’s a township of toughs. And they may make your work easier. They may, I mean, give things away inadvertently if they are not too closely watched. I think single-handed for you will be best. You can take with you full authority for any arrest. And any help you may ultimately need will be sent on the ‘rush’ at word from you over the ’phone. When you’re through I mean to clean that place up so it isn’t possible for a crook to find shelter in it. That will do.”
CHAPTER VIII
THE BEAUTY OF THE NIGHT
THERE was nothing phenomenal, fantastic, or sensational in the methods of police work adopted by Sergeant Stanley Fyles.
He was one of those, who in moments of expansiveness, admitted that police work in the world of the Northwest had little of the jig-saw puzzle about it, but much of the bricklayer’s craft. He insisted on the necessity of choosing the bricks of evidence with the utmost discrimination and appreciation of values; the mortar of common sense, he believed, required real skill in application; then the officer must certainly have the nerve for feats of strenuous physical effort and a deadly eye for alignment in emergency.
Given these things, and an imagination kept well under control, the process of establishing a civilization, where only wilderness had existed since the world began, became a natural corollary.
But with all his clear-sightedness, and the calm pose of his logical mind, there was one necessity in Stanley Fyles’ calling that he quite failed to appreciate. Being a man of very distinct personality himself, he utterly failed to recognize how heavily that weighed in the balance of his success. It never for a moment occurred[184] to him that his own individuality could be the asset which made the mention of his name a matter to inspire the gravest apprehension even in the most hardened among the outlaws of the hills and plains.
It was unquestionably so, however. And as the sergeant sat astride his favorite trooper, a rawboned, mud-brown broncho mare, with the double bobsleigh and team that was carrying his scanty outfit on its way to Buffalo Coulee behind him, with his watchful eyes peering out over the moonlit snow from between the folds of his storm collar, there could be little question as to the personality he radiated.
There was something Napoleonic in the manner of the little procession. Fyles rode clear ahead over the well-defined snow trail. He was a sturdy, dark, muffled figure.
There was no sound of hoof beats on the snow, and there was no jangle of sleigh bells to betray. It was a ghostly, significant procession. Fyles intended to descend upon Buffalo Coulee without herald of any sort. He had determined to reach the police quarters under cover of night, and, with the empty sleigh already on its way back to Calford, find himself an established fact in the life of the township by the time the morrow’s sun rose.
As yet his bricks of evidence were few, and so far their quality had not seriously impressed him. But he saw the advantage of his plan very clearly and was[185] satisfied with it. No word had leaked out of his going, and so swift had been the reaction from Calford to the information received that he felt reasonably confident that the slumbers of Buffalo Coulee would remain undisturbed, and the town’s ordinary peace of mind would endure until sunup.
But like all men of simple wisdom Fyles’ optimism was carefully bounded. He knew only too well the value of leaving a wide margin for the unexpected in his calculations. He saw a more than usually interesting problem ahead of him, and he was approaching it with an open mind.
The night was profoundly still. It was one of those clear, perfect winter nights which should receive greater appreciation than is usually the case. Stanley Fyles owed it no grudge. Although the depths below zero were biting into the marrow of his bones, although at the moment the roar of a blazing wood stove suggested the most comforting thing in life to him, he could still appreciate the calm beauty of radiant moonlight on the snow, and the pall of black velvet, studded with a million gleaming jewels, which overhung the world to which his life was dedicated.
It was all a little wonderful, that limitless white world. In only one direction lay any variation. That was ahead of him. Far away on the twilit skyline a sharp, dark line was drawn right across his path. How far on it was, Fyles could only roughly estimate. Something[186] less than ten miles would bring him to the wood-lined banks of Buffalo Coulee.
Fyles’ mare required neither check nor urging, and certainly no guidance. The deep snow trail was under her feet. And outside it depths of snow in which she had no desire to flounder. So she would go on at that easy gait of the prairie broncho that eats up distance so voraciously.
The journey had been long and the man was drowsy from monotony and hours spent in the crisp cold air. Furthermore the glare of snow, even in the moonlight, afforded an overwhelming desire to close his tired eyes. Again and again they closed. But each time they did so the nod of his head startled him at once to wakefulness.
Fyles’ mare was breasting an easy incline to the crest of a higher wave than usual in the roll of prairie undulations. The rise shut out the dark line which was their goal. In place of it was the sharp cut where the starry heavens came down to the earth. Fyles awoke as his head jerked.
He was at the summit of the wave crest. The far distance was in more pronounced view. For he was gazing down a long slope that was deeper than usual.
But now he was wider awake than had been the case for more than an hour. There was no longer any desire to close his eyes. The brain of the man was keenly searching.
[187]Sharply outlined against the general background of snow ahead, a horseman was sitting motionless at the trail side. He was there without shelter. He was there utterly alone in the white waste of winter. Why?
The mud-brown mare flung up her head with a faint whinny of glad greeting. An answer came back and disposed of all possibility of illusion.
The mare felt the check of the rein. She halted on the instant. Her ears were sharply pricked, and her nose was flung up. Presently Fyles was speaking to the teamster who had driven abreast.
“You’ll wait right here, Arnold,” he ordered. “Don’t move till I get along back. There’s some boy waiting around for me down there ahead. Guess he’d best find me.”
The horses were standing nose to nose. They were greeting each other in silent, equine fashion. Their riders were no less interested in each other.
The mud-brown mare was hands taller than the other. She dwarfed it to the diminutive proportions of an Indian cayuse. The wiry little creature, well-shaped and superbly muscled as it was, became almost ghostly in contrast. It was piebald. And the great splashes of white, which was its predominating color, somehow seemed to merge into its surroundings of snow.
But Stanley Fyles, after one quick glance at the stranger’s general outfit, had no great interest beyond[188] the face of the rider. The moonlight was streaming down upon it. It relentlessly searched it in the recesses of a well-worn buffalo storm collar. And it showed him a pair of big, coal-black, velvet-soft eyes that shone with a queerly sullen expression. But it showed him more than that. He was gazing upon the dusky beauty of a half-breed girl whose youth was unmistakable.
In the brief moments of meeting Fyles’ realization of the girl’s personality was no swifter than his thought. He understood she was waiting for him, the messenger from the police to whom she had written. And he asked himself the meaning of the encounter. Its hour. Its place. And then there was the sex of the stranger.
He wondered what extent of ugliness there could be back there in Buffalo Coulee to drive a young and beautiful girl to brave the cold of the night and a lonesome vigil. And all with a crazy hope of intercepting him.
“You’re waiting for me?” he inquired. His manner was the brusque tone of unquestioned authority. “The ‘red-coated gophers’ have a way of answering quick. What’s back of the letter you wrote?”
Fyles found what he was looking for. He saw the start, the sudden widening of the black eyes. And he knew his instinct had served him well.
“Everything!” The girl’s tone was low. “I bin waitin’ for you.”
[189]Fyles forgot the hour, the cold. Even he forgot his teamster.
“Who are you?” he asked shortly.
“Annette Estevan, Pideau’s daughter. Who are you?”
The girl’s retort had a tone in it. Fyles understood. He also noted her exactness.
“Fyles. Sergeant Fyles from Calford. Why are you here—waiting?”
The final question rapped out.
There was a definite pause before Annette made reply. Her sullen eyes had lowered. There was movement in her body, too, under its heavy fur coat. When at last her answer came it was with a rush that intrigued the officer.
“Because I ken hand you word who shot up Ernie Sinclair. I ken show you wher’ his body’s lyin’—right now.”
Fyles lost nothing of the girl’s emotion. But her sullenness puzzled him. What did it indicate? It almost seemed like reluctance. And yet——
The policeman remembered his teamster.
“Just stop right here till I get back,” he said. “I got to pass my outfit right on to Buffalo Coulee. After that we can talk without folk around.”
Fyles swung his mare about and loped back to the waiting team. When he returned to the girl they sat[190] there together beside the trail, and watched the sleigh pass on its way to the township.
The night swallowed up the retreating vehicle and Annette found herself alone with the man whose name had never failed to inspire her with disfavor and even fear. She suddenly felt as though the earth had opened at her feet and she was staggering at the brink of the chasm. Her nerve had stood the test of her purpose. It had shown no sign of weakening at the moment of encounter. The identity of this man, however, had been curiously terrifying.
She remained silent for so long that initiative was forced upon the policeman.
“You’d best talk,” he said, forced again to his well-tried challenge.
“How d’you know I wrote that letter?”
“I didn’t.”
“But you said, ‘that letter you wrote’?”
Annette’s eyes were peering a little anxiously in the moonlight.
“It was a woman’s letter. An’ you were waiting—here.”
The girl made no reply, and again Fyles was forced to break the silence.
“It’s too cold for the horses. We’ll ride on. Guess we can talk as well that way.”
“No. I quit you right away here after we’re[191] through. Ther’s folk in Buffalo Coulee who don’t sleep a deal.”
Annette gazed out in the direction of the distant township. And as she gazed the smoulder in her eyes flared up. Deep fires were burning behind them and memory was feeding them fuel. Generations of savagery were busy within her. A tangle of fierce emotion was driving. It was as though all the wayward impishness of her youth had suddenly developed into a surge of mad desire that was beyond her powers of control. And yet there was something she neither recognized nor understood, delaying a tongue that was usually ready.
Fyles refrained from urging. He was watching, watching.
Of a sudden the girl gestured. To the man it was as if she were thrusting something from her with two passionately impelled hands.
“It’s the Wolf, I tell you!” she cried, with sudden fierceness. “He shot Ernie Sinclair to death. He’d threatened. And—I know.”
“The Wolf? That’s your brother?”
There was something almost of horror in the policeman’s tone.
“He’s not my brother. He’s no relation to me. None. He’s white like you. He’s just Pideau’s partner in the liquor.”
“And you—know?”
[192]The girl flashed around at him. Her pony stirred eager for movement to escape the cold. She checked him savagely.
“Yes, I tell you,” she cried, her eyes flaming in the moonlight. “The Wolf did it. It’s out ther’.” She pointed with an arm outflung to the westward. “Right on Spruce Coulee wher’ the hills quit. He brews the liquor in a cave. It’s all hid up. Sinclair’s ther’. He’s stone dead an’ froze solid. The Wolf tricked him ther’, an’ shot him to death. An’ he’ll stop right ther’ till the spring thaw. Then the Wolf’ll bury him. He’ll fix it so ther’ ain’t any tracks. He’s ther’ I tell you—dead. I know. An’ I ken show you.”
Fyles nodded.
“Sure.”
“Right away—it’ll have to be right away. To-morrow night.”
“Yes—to-morrow night.”
Fyles peered out at the woods where Buffalo Coulee lay. A queer sense of unreality was taking possession of him.
“Where’s the Wolf now?” he asked.
“Back to home.”
“Can you make a getaway without——?”
A harsh sound which was almost a laugh broke from the girl.
“I said I could show you to-morrow night.”
Fyles knew the half-breeds. No one knew them better. But hardened as he was to the ways of these[193] people he experienced something of a shock. And feeling added harshness to his manner.
“The Wolf shot Sinclair,” he said. “You know that. You saw. Tell me; and don’t lie. Why did you write that letter? Why are you on the trail waiting for me with the thermometer twenty-five below zero? Sinclair? Why are you worried a policeman’s been shot up? You—a half-breed. You got to tell me right now.”
Annette flung out her mitted hands. This time there was no doubt about the meaning of her gesture. Ungoverned fury was driving her like a tornado.
“I tell you the Wolf’s no brother to me,” she cried passionately. “He’s shot up my man, Ernie Sinclair, an’ left his unborn kid without a father. Now d’you want to know. Now d’you guess I’m lyin’? I know. Oh, I know you p’lice. You’re mean as hell when you got the pull on folk. I’m a kid, a woman. I’m a hafbreed. A dirty hafbreed. You want to know all there is. You want to see it all. See it clear to the bone. Well, you got it. I’m to have a kid. It’s Sinclair’s kid. One of you p’lice. An’ I tell you the Wolf’s shot him because that’s so. Is the hafbreed dirt—lyin’?”
“We’ll know to-morrow night.”
Again came that sound that was almost a laugh.
“Yes. You’ll know to-morrow night.”
“What hour can you make it?”
“After father an’ the Wolf are abed.”
[194]“Right.” Fyles inclined his head. Then he spoke without harshness. But his eyes were hard and cold. “You need to be smart, Annette. I guess that won’t worry you. But I don’t want you to take a chance. If the Wolf shot up Sinclair he’s going to—hang.”
The man’s gaze was on the moonlit distance. He was not looking at the girl. But even so he was aware of the effect of his announcement. The little start under the heavy buffalo coat. The sudden widening of those beautiful black eyes. He saw these things out of the tail of his eye, and he noted the awe in the whisper that replied to him.
“Hang?”
“Sure. The Wolf’s going to hang—if he shot up Sinclair. That’s what I’m here for.”
The pinto cayuse bestirred. It threw up its head. Perhaps it was in reply to the snatch of the girl’s reins.
“I’ll be right along to-morrow night.” Annette’s voice was hard and cold. “An’ I’ll take no chance.”
The next moment the policeman was alone, gazing after the pinto pony which quickly lost itself against the snow.
For some thoughtful moments Fyles remained where the girl had left him. He sat there quite still gazing, gazing at the point where horse and rider had passed out of view. Then at last he lifted his reins, and the mud-brown mare eagerly responded. He shook his head.
“It’s too easy. It’s too darned easy.”
CHAPTER IX
BUFFALO COULEE STARTS TO GUESS
THE “coming-to” of Buffalo Coulee on a winter’s morning was a matter of heavy labor. It was a prolonged, piecemeal process, like the first bubbles rising to the surface of water approaching boiling point.
There was no particular incentive to early rising in Buffalo Coulee at any time, and, human nature being itself, the citizens of the prairie township displayed little enough enthusiasm for undue activity. It was usually well after sunrise that the first pair of eyes looked out on the day, and the first odor of cooking robbed the air of something of its purity.
The morning following Sergeant Fyles’ arrival in Buffalo Coulee it was a woman who first looked out of her doorway upon the cold white world to discover his presence. It would be. For in Buffalo Coulee woman’s emancipation from the drudgery of life was still a fantastic dream without any hope of realization.
Her door opened to permit the passage of a shower of homemade mats, and a few oddments of well-worn rugs. At the same instant a currish dog escaped into the snow as though it were glad. Then the door tried to close. It had already begun to move in that direction. But its movement was checked, and it flung back[196] wide again. A figure swathed in a bulking fur coat filled the opening.
The woman was peering curiously. She was startled. Automatically she propped herself against the door-casing, and, folding her arms, slid her work-worn hands up the sleeves of her coat for warmth.
Her gaze was on the police quarters where smoke was rising from one of its two chimneys. She saw that its single door was standing wide open, and a uniformed man, with a yellow badge to his fur cap, and yellow stripes to his black riding breeches, was leaning over the gateway in the lateral fence surrounding it.
She stood there for a while, hardly believing the thing she beheld, and offering herself a varied assortment of explanations of the phenomenon. She was chaotically startled. She was infinitely more startled than she would have been had she awakened to find half the township shooting up the other half. The police quarters had been as dead as a mortuary for over two weeks.
The chaos of her mental processes was matched by the vocal tangle into which she presently flung herself. And her efforts continued as she darted back into the house, closing the door as she went, as though fearful that the vision she had discovered would pursue her. Her harsh tones startled the remainder of her household into angry wakefulness.
[197]“The Howly Saints defind us!” she cried, in an unmusical Irish brogue that was more than half American. “But he’s rose out o’ the grave like a shadder o’ the shades. He’s along ther’, I tell you, an’ all. He’s standin’ around like the crack o’ Doom, an avengin’ figger o’ scarlit flame lanin’ foreninst his fence, waitin’ around fer his hafbreed wench to come along an’ shtroke him, an’ set him purrin’ loike a thame wolf.”
The effect of the woman’s noisy amazement was comparatively instant. First came the remainder of her own household, in assorted garments; a small man who seemed out of all proportion to the size and extent of his family of six children of progressive ages. They debauched like ants from an ant heap, shivering in the morning cold, gawking over at the police quarters. And in ten minutes or so the township was transformed into a sort of arena with a sparse audience spellbound by the spectacle set out before it.
Sergeant Fyles saw and understood the sensation his presence in Buffalo Coulee had created. And while it amused him he accepted its significance. The stir of it warned him. So he completed his survey of the scene of his operations, and just went back into his quarters to prepare a frugal breakfast over the stove in his office.
He consumed his meal and methodically cleared up the resulting litter. Then he pulled on his fur coat,[198] adjusted his mitts, and set out for the business of the day.
Fyles’ business was of a nature prompted by hard common sense. There was nothing subtle in his methods, nothing showy. The police records of Buffalo Coulee had given him a sound foundation of general information. And now, with a whole day before him in which to improve his knowledge of the people, he set about it in the practical fashion which years of experience had taught him was the simplest and best.
But his early morning experience had warned him of the extreme importance of establishing confidence in a general sort of way. He must contrive to allay suspicion, general suspicion of himself. Those who had reason would, of course, remain suspicious. That was inevitable. But he must strive for a general impression that Sinclair’s absence from the township possessed no sinister significance. In fact, the general run of the citizens must be taught to believe that the man was absent on duty with official cognizance, and that he, Fyles, was there replacing him as a temporary relief.
Fyles’ first objective was the house of Doc Fraser.
He found the youthful doctor up. He was dressed, and had eaten, when the policeman bulked in his doorway. And furthermore he found himself greeted in a manner that displayed real satisfaction and something else.
[199]“Say, Sergeant,” the doctor exclaimed with a hand of cordiality outheld. “You’re as good, and better to me than a swell birthday gift. I hadn’t dared to hope for such a quick comeback to my word to Sturt.”
The policeman’s thoughtful eyes beheld all that for which he was looking in the other’s earnest face.
“If it’s as bad as that, Doc,” he said quietly, “it’s just as well I got around.”
“Bad?” The man of medicine looked past the other in the direction of the township. “It’s mighty difficult to find a right adjective for anything in Buffalo Coulee. But there’s things doing, or done, and I’m darn glad to see you.”
In a few moments they were closeted in the little room that was the doctor’s living-room and surgery combined. And Fyles noted the plain, business-like aspect of it. They sat down together, Fyles in an old, creaking, wicker rocker-chair, and his host in the swing chair before his roll-top desk that looked almost painfully new.
And so they sat and talked for upwards of an hour.
For Fyles it was a well spent time, and he was more than appreciative. Question and carefully considered reply flowed in an easy, steady stream throughout the interview. And the policeman revelled in the exactness of the information he received. It was the[200] sort of intimate information that could only have been supplied by a local doctor, a schoolmaster, or a parson.
In the time at his disposal Fyles learned all that was known of the lives of those in whom he was most interested and had been treated to a searching analysis of them as a result of the doctor’s own observation.
When he left the pleasant warmth of the man’s bachelor quarters he felt himself to have set a finger firmly on the uncertain pulse of Buffalo Coulee.
Fyles next headed for the long, low building of Pideau’s store. For it was here he must sow those first seeds of confidence and hope for an adequate harvest. After that he intended to spend the rest of the day moving casually about amongst the citizens, gleaning, probing, searching.
He knew just what to expect at the store. Nor was he disappointed. The place was the centre of the township’s life. It was the foregathering point for gossip and tattle. He knew that for that one day, at least, every movement of his would be a subject of the intensest common interest. So, when he entered the building, he had no astonishment at finding his visit had been well anticipated.
There was a gathering of men about the stove, rough, fur-clad creatures who seemed to hush their talk at sight of him. There were women present, too, and one or two men stood with them at the long counter.
[201]Two people, a man and a woman, in whom Fyles recognized Pideau Estevan, and his daughter Annette, of the night before, were behind the counter making trade with their customers. And then, farther down, in the back part of the store, was the most interesting personality of the whole gathering.
Fyles discovered the solitary figure at once. He also recognized him from the doctor’s close description. And even at the moment of his discovery it occurred to him as remarkable that his attention should have been irresistibly drawn and held by the least conspicuous individual in the store, who was apart from the rest at the far end of it.
It was the Wolf; slim, vital, clean-limbed, smiling, in marked contrast with all those others.
On the instant Fyles remembered something of Fraser’s description of the Wolf.
“I don’t know how it is with you, Sergeant,” he had said. “But I’m all for fool instinct when it comes to estimating the other feller. I can’t place the Wolf, and that’s a fact. He’s the brains and ability of a township of hard-living citizens. But he’s more. He looks like a half-breed and lives like one. Nevertheless, he’s white as you or me. They call him the Wolf, without any other name. And sometimes I think he’s rightly named, though I’ve seen nothing of the savage about him. Maybe it’s something in his looks. You’ll note his grin when you see him. Have you seen a[202] young wolf at play? They grin. Grin like hell. You’ll see that grin on the face of the Wolf. But—he’s a man. And I’ve a hunch for him.”
Fyles found himself at the counter. Pideau was serving a big, florid woman with cloth. It was symptomatic that he abandoned his customer on the instant to give attention to the police officer. And Fyles smiled into the snapping eyes that searched his so intently.
“Mornin’, officer,” Pideau greeted him, in his surly fashion.
Fyles nodded, and turned to regard the unsmiling face of Annette who was serving canned goods to a man lower down the counter.
“Morning,” he replied, with easy cordiality.
Fyles was remarking to himself the amazing beauty which the moonlight had only partially revealed to him at his encounter with Annette the night before. Then he came aware that every eye was observing him. And particularly of the unfriendly gaze of the florid woman beside him.
“I’m looking for tobacco,” he announced abruptly. “What plug do you keep?”
“Why, the usual stuff,” Pideau replied, surveying his shelves with pretended interest. “‘L. & B. Gold-stick.’ Then I got some dandy cut stuff with a dope of perique in it. We were mighty glad this morning to see you’d pulled into Buffalo Coulee in the night,” he[203] went on, striving for cordiality. “We was guessin’. We been without a sight of a red-coat weeks. Well, we just didn’t get it. Then we wake up to find you around. Quick an’ cunnin’, eh? Anyway, we’re glad an’ relieved to see you, sir.”
It was Fyles’ first encounter with Pideau in the flesh. And he was relieved that the half-breed made no attempt to shake him by the hand.
But the man had offered him the cue he desired, and he was quick to take it.
“Quick, maybe,” he smiled pleasantly, careful to engage his whole audience. “Cunning? Well, I guess not. There’s nothing cunning to the police. It’s only crooks need to be that way. Surely I pulled in last night. I’d have been along two weeks back only I was ’way out on a trip, north. I was to have relieved young Sinclair then. He’s out on a big trip and won’t be back for maybe a month, or even—more. Superintendent Croisette reckoned Buffalo Coulee could get along without us for a while, so he didn’t send anyone till I was through. I’ll have two plugs of ‘Gold-stick.’ How much? A quarter each?”
Pideau reached behind him where the tobacco was lying on a shelf. Fyles laid down a five-dollar bill.
“You ain’t anythin’ less—er——?” Pideau broke off.
The invitation was obvious.
[204]“Fyles—Sergeant Stanley Fyles. No, I haven’t anything less. Can you make the change?”
It was curious. Where before there had been a sort of smiling curiosity, as the policeman explained his arrival, that curiosity and smile had suddenly died completely. It was replaced, at the mention of the policeman’s name, by an ominous, serious-eyed watchfulness.
Every eye in the long store was on the policeman’s sturdy figure. Every eye was scrutinizing, seeking something which the officer’s armor of blandness refused to reveal.
Even the Wolf, who, up till that moment, had pursued his labors of translating chaos into order amongst a litter of fresh stores, desisted from his efforts to gaze at the man whose name was an unloved household word throughout the length and breadth of the Northwest.
Pideau made the change without further demur. He watched Fyles carefully count and dispose of it. Then, as the officer turned and moved away to pass out of the store, he turned without a word to the florid-faced woman as though nothing had interrupted their transaction.
But the coming of Stanley Fyles to Buffalo Coulee was not to pass without sharp comment. The silence following the announcement of his name lasted until he was well clear of the store. Then it was broken.
[205]There came a harsh, jeering laugh from the region of the stove. The shoeing-smith, Tom Ransom, notorious as a cynical hard-liver, rasped out a verbal expression of what many of those gathered in the store were already thinking.
“Fyles, eh?” he cried. “Stanley Fyles. They send the slickest sergeant they got west of Manitoba to p’lice a no-account township like Buffalo Coulee. Sergeant Fyles to relieve a bum constable who’s been sent on a big trip. Guess Stanley Fyles best try again.”
“Reckon he’s lyin’?”
It was Pideau who snapped the question.
“I don’t reckon nothin’, boy, ’cep’ I’m feelin’ easy I ain’t in the liquor trade.”
Every eye focussed on Pideau. The blacksmith’s eyes were twinkling. The whole of the company felt the laugh was on the storekeeper. The man behind the counter, however, only shrugged his heavy shoulders and went on with his work.
“Don’t worry, folks,” he said, in his harsh way. “The liquor trade knows how to sleep easy fer jest as long as Fyles stops around.”
CHAPTER X
MURDER
ANNETTE’S pony snatched at its bit and halted. And the mud-brown mare came to a stand responsively. The eyes into which Stanley Fyles found himself gazing were shining in the cold brilliance of the moonlight. Annette was listening.
Fyles found himself listening, too.
Annette’s effect on him was wholly extraordinary. It had begun at their first meeting on the trail. And the more he had considered her since, the more surely had it grown. There was her beauty, which could not fail to intrigue his manhood. That was inevitable. But it gave him no sense of pleasure. On the contrary, it inspired him with a feeling of greater repugnance. In his mind it conflicted so hideously with the savage bitterness with which she was pursuing what he understood to be her sheer revenge. The mercilessness in her he felt to be something verging on the terrible. It belonged to a fiend rather than a beautiful woman. And yet all the time there was something about her which found him doubting, even incredulous. It was as though she, herself, were unreal. As though every moment he spent with her were part of some ugly dream from which he would eventually awaken. It was monstrously unbelievable to him that even now he was[207] on his way with her to discover the murdered body of Sinclair.
Yet he had no doubt of her truth. He was without a shadow of doubt of her story. It was just the girl herself and his own sensibilities reacting to the ugly thing she was doing. Then, furthermore, back of his mind lay urgent wonder that here, in something less than twenty-four hours, he was on the threshold of discovery. The riddle whose solution had looked like days and weeks of laborious effort was resolving itself as if he were turning the pages of an open book.
Annette’s tones came low and whispering.
“It’s coyotes,” she said. “I thought——”
“We left them all back in the town. Your menfolk were asleep in their blankets. You said so. Who else could be around out here in the hills—now?”
Fyles spoke sharply.
“Yes.”
The girl turned and gazed out across the white surface of the mountain coulee. Her whole attention was upon the wall of tattered rock across the frozen watercourse, where it rose above the lower tree-tops. The gap they intended to enter was there, plainly visible in the moonlight.
“Maybe I’m scared,” she said. “Ther’s only three folks in the world know this place, and two of them are back in Buffalo Coulee—asleep.”
“Let’s get right on.”
[208]Fyles had no patience. He saw no sense in any waste of time. He wanted to get back to quarters where he could think and reason with himself and forget the repugnant human instrument that had lent itself to his work.
The pinto moved on. It passed down onto the snow-covered ice of the river and went forward. The mare was close behind. And in a few moments the narrow bed of the river was abandoned for a bush pathway that was little more than a track.
After a short, winding passage the bush gave on to the forest of lofty pine trees, and the moonlight faded out under the dense canopy of foliage that roofed the woods. The horses and riders moved on like ghostly figures in procession, and then came the rift in the wall of rock. Annette again drew rein.
“You need to follow close,” she warned in hushed tones. “It’s a path. Ther’ ain’t any sort of roadway. An’ ther’s a drop of nigh eight foot to the stream on the right.”
Fyles listened and nodded. He had no desire to question. He had no desire to do anything but push on. The difficulties they might encounter in reaching their objective gave him no concern whatever. It was sufficient that the girl’s cayuse should lead the way. His mare would follow.
The procession moved on and became lost in the shadows. Fyles was aware of the great overhang[209] of rock which left a narrow, starry belt alone visible above. His keen mind was busy registering for reference. Every yard of the way testified to Annette’s veracity. And he was uncomfortably aware of it. The path over which they were travelling was desperately uneven and uncertain under the drifted snow. There was the stiff, snow-laden bush to one side, and, on the other, the drop of which the girl had told. It was strange. The man knew he would have been glad enough of excuse to discredit her.
Presently the starry belt overhead widened. And with the widening came more light. The moon searched the depths of the rift, and flung pitch-black shadows. The stream bed turned away in a wide bend. Then the two horses passed down the sharp incline, and moved in single file along the snow-laden watercourse itself.
Annette checked her pony and pointed. The mare drew alongside.
“It’s right ahead,” she said, and watched the man’s face in the moonlight. Then, of a sudden: “You don’t believe!” she cried hotly. “You didn’t last night. An’ you don’t now. Oh, I know. You can’t fool me. You’re reck’ning I’m on a play. An’ you’re saying ‘What is it?’ I know. Well, I’m not lyin’. I’m not makin’ any play. My man’s been shot. But, you’re a man. An’ maybe you won’t get what that means.”
[210]Fyles studied the passionate eyes gravely for some moments.
“I get all that,” he said at last. “I don’t think you’re lying. I know we’re going to find Sinclair shot. I know that. I’m believing you all right. We’ll talk later.”
Fyles felt a certain relief as the girl turned, and her pony moved on with a jump, driven by the savage spur.
Minutes later they were clearly outlined in the moonlight, halted before a yawning, black cavern, whose bowels the moon failed to penetrate. Annette pointed.
“It’s all in there,” she said. “The gear. The still. The dead man. I’ll go light the way.”
She slid out of the saddle without waiting for reply. Fyles watched her. And his bowels chilled in a way that had nothing to do with the winter cold.
The body lay just where it had been flung without care or reverence. It was just a dead thing, flung aside out of the way. And it was left to the icy breath of winter to keep it from decay.
It was on its back with its fur coat removed, the better to let the frigid air do its work. Its legs were twisted about each other, and its arms were outflung. Its eyes were staring, hideously, and its lower jaw was dropped. It was intensely ugly to living eyes.
[211]Fyles gazed down at it. So, too, did Annette. And her eyes were hidden.
The girl held the lantern quite still. They were far within the cavern and beyond the reach of the moonlight. Where they stood was out of sight of the distilling apparatus and all that gear which littered the wider floor of the hiding place. It was a narrow tunnel of jagged rock that went on far into the hill.
“He’s moved him back here,” Annette said, after awhile. “He wasn’t shot up here. It was back ther’ by the kegs all stacked around ready to be toted. Maybe as he couldn’t bury him for the snow he’s lettin’ him freeze right her till the spring thaw.”
Fyles made no reply. The girl had only stated that which was obvious to him. He was thinking hard.
Suddenly he dropped on his knees beside the body. He turned the dead thing over and examined the back of the red stable-jacket. There was no need for any close search. There was something more than a bullet hole in the red cloth. It was clear that the dead man had been shot through the heavy fur coat he had been wearing. The rent in the cloth was ragged. The heart had been pierced unerringly.
Fyles laid the body back in its original position. Then he picked up the fur coat that had been flung aside. Yes. There was the bullet hole. Then he picked up an old-patterned gun that had been flung[212] down with the body. He dropped it into his coat pocket, and turned on the girl.
“You saw?” he asked sharply.
“It’s the Wolf’s gun. No one but him ever used it.”
“You saw?” Fyles repeated, with a still sharper inflection.
Annette raised her big eyes and looked into the strong face of the questioner. There was an infinitesimal flicker of her eyelids.
“You mean I saw him—fire?”
“Just that.”
The answer came fiercely and at once.
“Yes!” she cried.
“The Wolf?”
“Yes.”
The girl’s eyes were steady enough now. They were hard, and cold, and cruelly fierce.
She turned again to the frozen body, and the lantern set queer shadows moving in the crevices of the cave. Fyles was on the point of questioning her presence at the moment of the murder. But he refrained.
“You stand pat for your story?” he asked.
His voice echoed loudly. The girl’s head went up.
“Sure.”
“To the Wolf’s face?”
There was a pause before the girl answered him.[213] Her eyes were again on the dead body. Fyles waited. Then he urged her roughly.
“Well?”
Again came Annette’s upward fling of the head. Now angry defiance looked back at him.
“Yes! Where you like! When you like!”
“Good.” Fyles nodded. “We’re through here for now. We’ll get along back. I’m going to arrest the Wolf after you’ve told your story—to his face.”
The lantern moved. The policeman missed nothing. He was watching, watching. The lantern moved a second time and the girl’s other hand gestured sharply.
“You’ll protect me from them?”
“Them?”
“Yes. Father—as well as the Wolf.”
“Your father?”
A mirthless laugh broke from the girl.
“Yes. You don’t know Pideau. This still was his whole fortune. I’ve put you, the p’lice, wise to it.”
Fyles nodded.
“I see,” he said. “You need have no fear. I’ll see you safe. The Wolf will be at police quarters to-morrow night, after dark. So will you. You get me? Till then there’ll be no word—to anyone. It’s up to you. We’ll fix it at six o’clock to-morrow night. It’ll be dark then.”
Annette’s gaze again sought the dead man, as though the sight of the remains of the father of her[214] child afforded her support. Fyles saw her swallow as if her throat were parching.
“And then?” she asked in a low tone.
“Why, your evidence will be needed in Calford.”
“In Calford? Why?”
The girl’s sharpness told of a sudden fear which the name of Calford inspired.
“It’s your evidence that’ll have to send him to the rope. You saw him shoot Sinclair, your man, the father of your child, to death?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’ll give that evidence in Calford.”
Years of experience lay behind the gaze which never for a moment left the girl’s face. Fyles was striving to fathom her savage soul. But he remained baffled.
Suddenly Annette swung around on him and her voice was moaning.
“My kid’ll have no father,” she cried. “I tell you my kid’ll have no father. Say—— Yes. The rope’ll get him if I ken pass it. We were raised together. The Wolf an’ me. Kids. Play kids. He made me do as he said, an’—an’ I didn’t mind. We fought together. An’ played, too. An’ we were mostly ready to fight anyone who butted in. An’—he’s killed my man. The father of my kid. Yes, I’ll go to Calford. But Pideau’ll kill me fer it.”
“No. You can cut that notion right out. I’ve[215] told you. You’ll be safe.” Fyles moved to go. “Come right along. I’m going back. Before we make Buffalo Coulee you’ll go your way, and I mine. And remember. Six to-morrow night.”
There were no lights to be seen in Buffalo Coulee when the brown mare neared the police quarters again. The township was buried in sleep.
Fyles should have been well satisfied with his night’s work. He looked like bringing to a swift conclusion the work he had been sent to perform. A return to his own comfortable quarters in the Calford barracks looked to be a matter of the near future, with another flattering entry of good work accomplished, on his police record. But he was not satisfied. He was far from satisfied.
He had seen the frozen corpse of his murdered comrade. He had discovered the source of the flood of poisonous liquor that was pouring from his district across the United States border, and causing an element of friction between the authorities of the two countries. He had had clear demonstration of the manner of the murder, and the murderer’s provocation. Annette’s story seemed without flaw.
But he was not satisfied. As he turned into his quarters, and off-saddled his mare, he was thinking of the murderer’s gun. He was thinking of Annette’s witness of the murder, the subject of which he was[216] reserving for to-morrow night. And then, too, he was thinking of the girl herself, and of that elusive something about her of which he could not free his mind.
And as he passed into his sleeping quarters and prepared for his blankets, he once more repeated to himself the warning that had first leaped to his mind. The whole thing was “too easy—too darned easy.”
CHAPTER XI
THE BATTLE
PIDEAU ate noisily. There was something of animal greed in his obvious appreciation of his food. It was a revolting spectacle. His appetite was always large, and he greedily devoured large mouthfuls, breathing stertorously in the process, while he belched without disguise.
The man was at the table alone. A table that was without cover, and furnished only with the implements imperative for his feeding. Annette was there to minister to him. But the Wolf was back in the store until such time as his partner returned.
Annette had already eaten her supper. That was her custom. At no time did she take her meals with her menfolk. As for her father, no familiarity, no use could accustom her to the revolting with which his eating filled her.
But on the evening following her night journey with Stanley Fyles she had more than disgust to make her desire to avoid her parent. She knew she must be there. She knew she must do the work that was hers. But nothing, no effort of hers could conceal the brooding which was writ large in her smouldering eyes.
[218]And Pideau saw and read. And, as was inevitable, he searched his mind for a right explanation. Nothing in his child, and in his partner, ever escaped his watchfulness. With him it was only a question of the rightness of interpretation.
The man’s mind had been as busy as his jaws, and his narrowed eyes, so intent upon his food, no less. But not for an instant during his meal did he permit the betrayal of a single passing thought. He simply sat in verbal silence, and ate till he could eat no more.
Then it was that he pushed back from the table, awaiting the replenishment of his massive coffee cup. Annette supplied his want. She set the cup on the table with a clatter, and with the contents slopping. And as she did so the man broke the silence between them.
“I bin figgerin’ ’bout Fyles,” he said harshly.
Pideau’s black eyes blinked into Annette’s face as she turned back to him.
She did not reply at once. The man’s words had startled her.
“We’ll need to figger hard, with Fyles around,” she agreed at last.
“You know the feller he is then?”
The girl shrugged her shapely shoulders. But her face betrayed nothing. Even the brooding of her eyes had vanished under the quickening of her mental processes.
[219]“Everybody knows about him,” she said. “He’s their special man. His comin’ means things.”
“Sure. His comin’ means things. Maybe it’s only that Sinclair has—ain’t around. It looks that way.”
Pideau was endeavoring to draw Annette into the open. He was trying to test out the thing his mind had decided was the cause of her new manner. He knew what Sinclair meant to her. He had seen Sinclair lying dead, and the Wolf’s gun lying beside his body. And he wanted to find out just how much the girl knew of the shooting, and that which had brought it about.
Annette shrugged. Her father’s efforts were obvious to her.
“Yes. It looks that way,” she replied.
Pideau drank half his coffee and shook his head.
“It ain’t the liquor. It ain’t our play. It’s Sinclair, sure. Queer about Sinclair.”
Annette looked straight into the black eyes.
“Yes,” was all she replied, and turned away.
“Sinclair was good to you?”
Annette nodded as she was going.
“Maybe he was too good?”
Annette swung about and faced her father. Tempestuous fires were raging instantly. Pideau saw their reflection in her eyes. He saw the reaction of them in the heaving of her bosom.
“You ken cut that stuff right out,” she cried hotly.[220] “You’re my father. I can’t help that. But it ends right there. You get on with your play. With Fyles around that’ll take all your spare worry.”
Pideau remained unruffled.
“Oh, the liquor’s all right. That’s fixed. It’s been away days, an’ the dollars pouched. We’ll sit right down on our play till Fyles is through, an’ they send Sinclair—or some other—back to mother us. I wonder wher’ he’s quit to. You wouldn’t say he’s skipped across the border?”
“He ain’t skipped. He was hot for his job.”
The man’s eyes sparkled.
“I guessed you’d know.” Pideau drank the rest of his coffee. “Does the Wolf know? I bin wonderin’ days. Y’know, Annette, I am your father, an’ maybe it goes further than you reckon. The way I see it ther’s two boys want you bad. An’ one of ’em, anyway, ain’t the sort to lose you easy. Would you say the Wolf knows—why—Sinclair ain’t been around fer two weeks?”
Pideau’s nimbleness was driving the girl. She drew a deep breath. A wild impulse urged. But she withstood it. She avoided the search of her father’s eyes and stood gazing down at the yellow flame of the oil lamp on the table. Her reply came slowly, and in a low voice.
“You needn’t beat around,” she said. “If the Wolf knows why Ernie Sinclair ain’t around I reckon[221] it’s bad fer him a man like Fyles has come around.” Then her eyes sought his, and the manner of it told Pideau all he wanted to know. “The Wolf’s been my playmate since I can remember. But if I’d proof he’d—he’d killed Ernie Sinclair I’d do all I knew to make him pay.”
Pideau’s eyes twinkled cunningly.
“That’s tough. I’d lose a swell partner.”
The girl was moving away. But she flashed around at him.
“Partner?” she cried. “That’s not a thing to what I’ve lost.”
She was gone. And Pideau looked after her as she passed to the cook stove. He stood up and remained standing for a moment. Then he called out.
“Guess I’m gettin’ back to the store, and the Wolf’ll be along t’ eat.”
He heaved his sturdy body into his furs and buried his black head in his greasy fur cap. And as he passed out there was no sign of his customary ill humor in his mean face.
Stanley Fyles filled his wood stove and sent the consuming flames roaring up the stovepipe by widening the opening of the damper. Then he stood up, moved over to a small table and lit a second oil lamp. Then he turned to the tall figure of the Wolf, who stood silently watching him and curiously observing the[222] bare surroundings of the private room of the police quarters.
The Wolf’s face expressed only his curiosity. Nothing else. There was neither doubt, nor the faintest shadow of apprehension. His easy confidence was quite undisturbed as he watched each movement of the renowned and feared Stanley Fyles going about his chores.
But the Wolf was actively searching. Every fibre of the man was strung alertly. The policeman’s movements were telling him so much.
The Wolf was standing just within the doorway of the room, and near by to the desk on which lay Sinclair’s official diary. He was still wearing his furs, cap and coat. For the room was none too warm in the bitter temperature.
At last Fyles came over to the desk. He sat in the chair which he turned about to face the stove. He looked up into the Wolf’s face, and his scrutiny, while officially cool, had nothing particularly harsh or threatening in it.
“Say, you best shed that coat, boy, and pass over to the stove and thaw some of the cursed ice out of your bones. We got to make a long talk before we’re through, and it’s not good to sit around in furs. I had to ask you to come along over. But I left it till you were through with your day’s business before worrying you. I’m here to learn things about Sinclair.”
[223]The Wolf inclined his head and unfastened his coat. He flung it off and removed his cap. And, as Fyles watched him pass across to the chair beside the stove it was with eyes of frank admiration. The Wolf’s manhood could not be disguised under the roughness of his hard prairie clothing.
The policeman’s thought flew to the only creature that to his mind was comparable with the body he was observing. It had all the grace, muscle, and sinuous activity of a tiger. There flashed through his mind in that instant a queer gladness that he had carefully prepared for any eventuality. He knew that unarmed, for all his experience, for all his own physical strength, if it came to a “show-down” between them his chances would be small indeed.
“I reckoned that way, Sergeant,” the Wolf replied, taking possession of the chair set ready for him, and thrusting his moccasined feet on the stove rail. “How d’you figger I can help you?”
The man’s smile intrigued Fyles no less than had the personality of the woman of the trail, only in a totally different way. He possessed a strange attraction, such as, for all her beauty and youth, for Fyles at least, Annette had failed to exercise. The Wolf’s quiet assurance, his never-failing, rather pleasant smile, his superb body, and obvious nerve made a tremendous appeal.
Yet Fyles saw in him a murderer, and a law-breaker[224] in perhaps every direction. He wondered what was his born name.
“Say, you’re nicknamed ‘the Wolf’?” Fyles put his question with the abruptness of which he so well understood the value.
The other shook his head.
“That’s my name,” he said.
“Born name?”
The Wolf’s smile became real.
“Guess I haven’t a born name.”
Fyles’ eyes widened.
“But you must have?”
“No, Sergeant, it’s a fact I haven’t. I haven’t a notion of my father or mother. Nor has anybody around me. I bin ‘the Wolf’ all the time, an’ I’ll have to go on being that way.”
There was a shade of regret in the man’s tone. Fyles was swift to appreciate it. It was almost unthinkable to him that anyone could go through life without a name, and with no knowledge of his origin.
“I came along down on this trip thinking you to be—belonging Pideau Estevan in some way.”
“You came down figgerin’ about us?”
Fyles smiled at the man’s intense quickness.
“I always need to think of the folks where my work lies.”
“So you thought of us?”
[225]There was no escape. And Fyles made no further attempt.
“Why, yes. You see there’s things doing here one way and another. There’s all sorts of stories make our headquarters.”
“’Bout liquor?”
The Wolf laughed outright. And his laugh was without offence and good to hear.
“Yes, and other things.”
“Sure. Sinclair.”
The Wolf’s downrightness was almost disconcerting. Fyles was puzzled. His experience taught him to look for evasion, shuffling, watchfulness. The Wolf displayed none of these. So the officer drove straight to his purpose.
“Exactly—Sinclair.”
“He’s on a trip,” the Wolf smiled. “You told Pideau yesterday. I was there. You’re relievin’ him.”
Fyles shook his head.
“He’s on no trip—we know about. He should be sitting right here. And he isn’t. He was keen for his job. He was trailing the liquor that pours across the border in this neighborhood. Well, he hasn’t been seen or heard of for more than two weeks. I wonder. It’s queer. And before I quit here I’ve got to know why. I’d be glad for any talk you——”
Fyles broke off. He turned an ear listening, and his manner carefully conveyed a start of surprise.
[226]The Wolf’s eyes were on the door communicating with the outer room. He, too, was showing something like surprise. But his brows had drawn sharply, and there was clearly no pretence in him.
There was a sound in the outer room. It was unmistakable. It was the pad of moccasined feet. And the sound was approaching the door of the room in which they sat. Fyles was watching. He saw the lithe figure stir as though about to spring to its feet. And in a moment the man of authority anticipated him. He was on his feet and moving to the door.
Fyles flung the door wide. Annette stood framed in the doorway as once before in the night she had stood there.
It was an intense moment. The dusky beauty was pale under the low-pressed fur cap when the door opened. But it flushed darkly the instant the girl’s eyes took in the tall, standing figure of the Wolf near the stove. The Wolf was staring wide-eyed. The smile that would not leave his eyes was now without meaning. He was frankly amazed at the sight of Annette. And a queer look of trouble somehow marred his recent air of assurance.
Fyles lost nothing of what was passing. The thing he saw in the girl’s face needed no searching to interpret. All her ungoverned anger had leaped at the sight of her old playmate. But the Wolf was only questioning, painfully questioning.
[227]Fyles stood aside for the girl to enter. Annette did so. And recklessness seemed to urge her gait. For a moment Fyles feared for what she might do. He closed the door, and, all unobserved, slipped the catch of the spring lock. Then he indicated the chair on which the Wolf had been sitting.
“Will you sit right here by the stove?” he said, addressing Annette. Then he quickly set another chair near by to the desk, and offered it to the Wolf. The youth moved automatically towards it and sat. Annette remained standing at the stove.
Fyles turned to her.
“Is there a thing I can do for you?” he asked quietly.
“Yes.” Annette’s gaze was fixed. Her expression had died to a smoulder of its original fury, as she looked straight into the eyes of her old playmate. “You ken take him. You ken hand him to penitentiary. He’s shot Ernie Sinclair to death. I saw him!”
For an instant her eyes blazed. Then she turned to the stove and looked down at the glowing patch where the iron had reddened.
The atmosphere of the gathering had become electrical. It was charged with every possibility which human emotion could suggest. The yellow lamplight fostered significance of it all. Fyles sat down at the desk and looked at both his visitors in turn.
These two had been raised together—he knew that—like[228] brother and sister—playmates. Now they were confronting each other in a deadly encounter. One, at least, was in a fury of hate, seeking a vengeance that knew no limits. It was a dire exhibition of the driving passions which go to make up the sum of human life.
“You saw him? You saw the Wolf shoot Constable Sinclair to death? You’re charging him with murder? Will you tell us?”
Fyles spoke sharply. He spoke coldly, warningly. He was there with a balance he meant to hold firmly. He was the hardened investigator once more, accustomed to delve in the deepest mire of human nature.
“I tell you he shot Ernie to death. I—saw him!” Annette’s tone was icy. “I can tell to his face what I told you before. And he can’t deny. No!”
The Wolf flashed round at the policeman. And Fyles understood. The man recognized that he had been trapped. But the look was gone in a moment. For the youth was absorbed in the girl he worshipped. He offered no word. He just sat silent, motionless, as the girl went on, patiently enduring the storm of invective she hurled at him.
“You Wolf!” she cried hotly. “You thought you’d get away with it an’ rob me of my man. Oh, you’ve robbed me. Sure you have. But you ain’t gettin’ away with it. No. You’re goin’ to pay good. You’re goin’ to pay all I ken make you. D’you know how much? Maybe you don’t. It’s your life for his.[229] Your life for my man’s. You’re goin’ to hang, cos you shot my Ernie to death!”
The girl ceased speaking. Perhaps she was hoping for reply. Swift, hot retort, the same as it had always been between them. But the Wolf sat gazing at her, and her fury was further goaded by his attitude.
“You crazy fool,” she shrilled at him. “I was to cut him out, cos you said so. I was to marry you! You! Never in your life! Oh, I know. I know the way you did it. Spyin’! That’s it! You spied on me. Ernie an’ me, when we fixed it—you Wolf! But you didn’t figger on me. I was the fool girl to act the way you said. I was a no-account. You planned to get around waitin’ on him, when Ernie came along. That way you’d fix him, an’ no one ’ud be wise. That was you. If you hadn’t a mind to kill him you could have quit your plans, an’ set your liquor play earlier. But it wouldn’t suit the man who figgered to kill Ernie. No. You needed to kill him. So you got around ahead an’ when he came you shot him up from behind, scared to face him. You got him cold. I saw. I was there, too. Watchin’. If I’d had a gun I could have dropped you in your tracks. But I hadn’t a gun. An’ anyway ther’ was better than that, you Wolf. The rope! The rope they’ll set about your fool neck! The rope fer killin’ my man!”
Annette turned to Fyles and gestured in the Wolf’s direction.
[230]“There he is!” she cried, with deadly venom. “That’s your killer. I saw him! I’m witness!”
Neither sound or movement followed the girl’s final denunciation. The Wolf simply looked into Annette’s fiercely accusing eyes. Fyles was watching both. And what he saw stirred him with a feeling of uncertainty.
The girl’s story, and the manner of it’s telling, left him without alternative. He felt it to be real. It rang with the stormy spirit of avenging. This man had murdered her lover. No one could witness her confronting of him and doubt that. Then what was it that gave him his feeling of uncertainty? Was it some unexpressed emotion in the girl, some emotion of which Annette was herself unaware, stirring under the insensate burden of her fury? And if so, what was that emotion? Surely it was not fear? Certainly it was not pity for her old playmate? Fyles wondered. These half-breed women were creatures of mad passion. Was it love for the dead man driving this girl? Or was she actuated solely by a furious desire for revenge?
In the Wolf he saw less to puzzle him. There was enough to amaze, but not to puzzle. The calm of the man’s attitude told its own story. There was neither resentment, nor fear in it. But there was a queer sort of understanding patience.
He was gazing at Annette much as might a faithful dog who accepts chastisement at the hands of one it[231] loves. He was obviously concerned. But it was not for himself. Only was it for her.
“Why were you there? You’d done your work. You’d betrayed them to your lover. Why were you watching?”
Fyles’ questions rapped sharply in the silence.
“Because he was my man.”
“You were scared for him—your man?”
Annette laughed harshly.
“I knew Pideau, an’—the Wolf.”
“You went to protect a policeman?”
“I went to watch an’ warn. But the Wolf was too quick.”
Fyles turned on the Wolf, looking for some reply. None was forthcoming. The man only had eyes for the girl who meant the whole of life to him.
Suddenly Fyles made up his mind. He must break through the youth’s defences by the only means to his hand. The brutality of it must not even be considered.
“Sinclair was the father of your child that’s going to be born?” he flung at Annette.
Annette almost leaped from her chair. She seemed about to spring at the throat of the man who had proclaimed her shame. Her eyes lit wildly, and her arms flung out. She stood. And then, as though drawn by a magnet, her gaze turned on the Wolf. Then it fell.
“Yes,” she admitted.
But Fyles had achieved his purpose. Annette’s[232] reply meant nothing to him. He was watching the Wolf.
The change in the Wolf was almost demoniac. He was leaning forward in his seat, and his hands were gripping the chair arms as though they were striving to crush the hard wood under them. His widened eyes were almost insane, and the thick young veins stood out like ropes on his forehead.
Fyles went on relentlessly.
“And Sinclair was to marry you? He was to give your child its rightful father? And you were to betray your own father, and—the Wolf here? That was Sinclair’s price—for marriage?”
Annette seemed to collapse in her chair.
“Ye-es.”
The answer came faintly. But as it did so the Wolf suddenly relaxed.
It was an amazing reaction, like the passing of a fierce summer storm. The man’s hands, those hands that looked so tremendous in their power to crush, released their hold upon the chair. Then he leaned back comfortably, and his eyes, which only a moment before had looked murder, had returned again to the calm of their pleasant smile.
The officer strove hard for the meaning of it all. Certain things were clear enough. But they were not all. No. It was obvious to him that Annette’s admission that marriage was the price of her betrayal had[233] restored calmness to the Wolf’s murderous mood. But why? What difference did it make to the other? The thing that had maddened him. Why should so sordid a transaction have made so much difference? The girl’s baby, that was yet to be born, still remained the child of another man.
Fyles felt himself to be as far from real comprehension as ever. He felt there was something in the Wolf’s mind which the man had no intention of letting him read. If only——
But he was given no time for speculation. The Wolf started up from his chair. He stood up tall and straight, and his smile had become real laughter as he gazed down into the policeman’s cold eyes. It was a laugh of derision, yet lacking in offence. He thrust out his arms, and his fists were clenched. They were pressed together with knuckles upwards, and the gesture bared the massive wrists from his coat sleeves.
“You heard?” he cried, in a tone that matched his laugh. “Your Sinclair! He’s dead! Murdered! Well?”
Fyles never hesitated for a second. He acted on the instant. Those great wrists. He reached out, and the shackles snapped on those outheld wrists almost with the last sound of the Wolf’s taunting challenge.
But, later, as he took up the telephone to speak with his superiors at Calford, that haunting phrase of his came back to him again. “It’s too darned easy!”
CHAPTER XII
THE BLOOD OF THEIR FOREFATHERS
“HE’S taken him—the Wolf!”
Annette’s eyes were gloomy. Her cheeks seemed to have lost something of their roundness, something of their youthful bloom. They were pale, almost green in the yellow light of the smoky oil lamp. She stood in the doorway of the little office at the back of the store, her swelling bosom rising and falling stormily under her emotion. She was an all-unconscious figure of tragedy.
Pideau merely glanced in her direction. His quick eyes took in the picture, and, instantly, turned again to his stove. He was lounging in a hard chair with his feet on the stove rail. Not for an instant did he betray any feeling at the girl’s announcement. There was not even the lift of his lowering brows to suggest further inquiry. The Wolf might have been a stranger to him for the interest he displayed. Yet interest was there. His reply was a growl.
“Best come right in an’ shut that darn door,” he said. He stooped and set the stove damper wide open. “Did you shut the outer one, girl?”
Annette glanced over the littered room. Somehow it possessed even less attraction for her than ever with[235] her father its sole occupant. Her eyes rested for a moment on the chair which the Wolf usually occupied. There was something dreadful in its emptiness. She came at once to the stove, closing the door behind her with a slam.
Pideau sat back in his chair again. His muscular body filled it to its uttermost. His look expressed the man, no more, no less. But his eyes were very active.
“It’s—Fyles?” he said. “Arrested him?”
Annette made no verbal response. There was just a nod.
“Why? What’s he got agin him? What’s he located?”
There was urgency in Pideau’s final question.
“He’s killed Ernie Sinclair!”
Annette had asked Sergeant Fyles for protection against her father. She had given him the impression of real fear. Yet, within an hour of leaving the police quarters, where she had seen the steel handcuffs snapped upon the Wolf’s wrists, she was confronting her father with the announcement of his partner’s arrest, risking all the chances of whither her act might lead.
Annette was the daughter of Pideau. But her wit was supported, at least, by courage. Reflection had told her of her necessity. In years of association she had learned of her parent’s weaknesses as well as his brutalities. She felt it safest, and easiest, for her to show him that which had been done. She knew she[236] had a deeper place in his life than he would have admitted. Besides, she was not really afraid of him and never had been. At least never since that moment, years ago, when she and the Wolf had defied him together.
“I know.”
There was almost a grin on the face looking up into Annette’s.
“You know?”
Pideau turned to the tin lamp with its dirty chimney.
“Yes. He showed it me.” Pideau nodded at the lamp. “Guess it was at our getaway with the liquor. I was waitin’ around at the bluff with the team. An’ he came along in a hurry. He took me right over to the cache.”
“He told you he’d—killed him?”
There was incredulity as well as a dash of awe in the girl’s manner.
Pideau’s head shook.
“His gun was lyin’ right ther’ wher’ he’d flung it—beside Sinclair. I showed him. He just grinned.”
“He admitted?”
Again Pideau denied. His eyes were snapping.
“He said he hadn’t.”
There was a sudden flaming in Annette’s cheeks.
“But he had! He did!” she cried stridently.
“I know.” Pideau’s tone became his surliest. His[237] eyes were on the stove again. “The Wolf’s gun didn’t make the cache on its own two feet. Guns ain’t that way. It can’t pull its own darn trigger. A police boy don’t get shot up ’cos a gun’s lying around. It needs the feller belongin’ it behind it, handlin’ it right. The Wolf shot up Sinclair. Oh, yes. Did he tell you? How did you know?”
While Pideau was growling out his argument Annette was looking into his unlovely face. But she was gazing through and beyond it. She was looking at the pictures her mind conjured. But his question brought her back on the instant.
“I saw,” she said. “I went along, an’ I saw. Sinclair was dead—stone dead, an’ the Wolf’s gun shot him. One shot. Just one shot—from behind. Like you, I saw.”
“You wer’ ther at the cache? What for?” Pideau’s challenge rapped out harshly.
Annette flung up her head.
“Ernie Sinclair meant to beat your play. Your’s an’ the Wolf’s!”
“You sent him?” The man’s retort spat fiercely.
“Well?”
Tense moments swept by. For Annette they were moments of crisis. She saw the storm and was waiting, watching. Pideau? Who could tell?
“Why?”
Pideau’s monosyllable was the girl’s cue.
[238]“Because Ernie was my man. Mine. You understand? I bin his woman.”
Pideau drew a deep breath. He aimed a vicious kick at the stove damper, closing it with a clatter. Then he stared down at the red-hot patch in the stove’s iron top.
“It’s good the Wolf shot him,” he snarled.
“Is it? The Wolf’ll know about it later.”
Pideau made no reply. He continued to stare at the red-hot patch. His eyes were hidden and his face told nothing of that which was going on within his bullet head.
Again Annette was gazing through and beyond him. Suddenly the man looked up. A sound broke from him.
“An’ you sent him to the rope?”
His words came harshly, but without feeling. They were simply provocative.
Annette was fighting the woman in her with all the ugliness of her mixed breed. She had sent the Wolf, her childhood’s playmate, the man who had killed the father of her unborn child, to the rope. But the fog of the battle cleared swiftly, and victory remained with the side that had been bound to win from the first.
“An’ I’m glad!”
Pideau noted the vicious snap of the reply.
[239]“Maybe it’ll hand me penitentiary, too,” he protested, without real apprehension.
The girl’s retort was instant.
“Not on your life,” she said. “An’ you know it. You’re too hot for the Wolf, an’ the p’lice. It’s always bin that way. I know. An’ you know. Guess you’ve seen to it there ain’t a thing at the cache to fix you. The p’lice can get it all. But not you. Only the fool Wolf. An’ you’ll gamble on his not squealin’. You can’t hand me that stuff an’ get away with it. You’ve seen to it the Wolf’s the liquor man. They ken only beat you on the border with a cargo on your sleds.”
“It’s the game played out anyway.”
“D’you think I care? No! Have I had part in your play? Has your game handed me a thing of profit or pleasure? No! You an’ the Wolf have pouched every dollar. An’ I—I jest cooked your hash so you could eat when you needed it. Yes. Your play’s through an’ I don’t care.”
At last Pideau gave a sign. The sting of the girl’s bitterness had driven home at last. He had listened all unmoved to her arraignment of the Wolf. Even his own risk, and the complete wrecking of his trade seemed to have strangely enough left him unmoved. But her final charge set a dark flush staining his ugly brow, and his wicked eyes sparkling.
“That ain’t true, girl,” he cried angrily. “I raised you an’ done all I could to fix you right. I got a big[240] pile that’s someday goin’ to hand you the things o’ life you need. It’s goin’ to hand it you so the swell looks o’ you won’t have to feel shame fer the clothin’ of your body. It’s goin’ to tell you you’ll be able to eat right for all your days. An’ it’s goin’ to show you a home place to make you feel good. That’s along to come. Sure. Say, I’ve had to do most every crook play to raise you. I’ve raised you from a brat to a woman. An’ fed you, an’ cleaned you, when you hadn’t more sense than to breathe right. You was my kid. See? You was bone o’ my bone, flesh o’ my flesh, blood o’ my blood. An’ you’re that way still. Your fool blood’s got away with you, an’ you’ve had this boy, Sinclair. I guess I didn’t know, or it wouldn’t have needed the Wolf to kill him.”
“You’d have killed my man?”
The girl’s eyes flamed. Pideau looked squarely into them.
“The Wolf’s my partner. I raised him along with you. But sure to hell if the Wolf had monkeyed around you he’d have got it good. Same as he’s handed it Sinclair. Say, you, you’ve queered the play that’s been good to us. You’ve passed the Wolf along to the rope. You’ve raised all the hell in our outfit only a crazy slut could. But you’re my gal, part o’ me. Wal, go beat it so I ken look around an’ figger the thing needed after they choked the life out that boy, Wolf.”
The man sprang up from his chair with a movement[241] that suggested the last of a sorely tried violent temper. He stood for a second threateningly, while his fierce eyes searched the face of his daughter. He saw the sudden receding of all color from Annette’s cheeks. He saw an actual shrinking before the lash of his final words. He knew the girl’s reckless temper and looked for a comeback. But there was none. The light died out of the girl’s eyes abruptly. She turned. And he watched her go off towards the door moving almost like an automaton.
Pideau looked after her. He watched her till she reached the door, and opened it. He saw the darkness of the store, beyond, swallow her up. Then, and not till then, he dropped back into his chair.
But he was soon bestirring again. He reached the fuel box and fed the stove. He pulled open the damper, and leaned forward with his hands outspread to the warmth, for he hated the cold and worshipped the warmth that so pleasantly eased his body.
And, somehow, as he sat there contemplating the iron that was again reddening, there was no trace of any disturbance in the eyes that were no longer forced to mask the thoughts behind them. He was almost smiling.
CHAPTER XIII
THE WOLF AT BAY
STANLEY FYLES was back in his quarters at Calford. And Buffalo Coulee was left behind him somewhat chastened by his visit.
The Buffalo Coulees of the prairie were everyday experiences of Sergeant Fyles. And the people of them were his most intimate study. No one knew better than he how swiftly human nature, in these far-flung places, can drift back to the primitive. No one knew better than he that human nature without stern control was by no means a pleasing thing. He was fully conscious that his visit of less than a week and his arrest of the Wolf for the murder of Constable Sinclair had had an extremely salutary effect upon the men of the prairie township.
His quarters overlooked Calford’s barrack square. They were just a single small room furnished in the usual scant fashion ruling in Mounted Police life. But the sergeant had contrived to impress his own personality even on such an unpromising background.
Sergeant Fyles had completed a long morning’s work. He was sitting at the small whitewood table which served him as a desk. It was set under the double-glassed window, through which he could see[243] such movement as went on in the snow-covered square, centred by its water tower, and surrounded by the barrack buildings. His work had been the setting forth of his case against the Wolf, and it occupied the many sheets of official foolscap which were scattered over the table.
His gaze was focussed on a small fatigue party engaged in clearing snow from the barrack sidewalks. But he was not seriously interested in it. He was pondering, sorting, sifting, arguing to himself the points of the case he had just set out for his superior officer.
The truth was Stanley Fyles was more troubled and less sure of himself than he would have cared to admit. He knew his case was complete. The Wolf was not only arrested, but safely under bolt and bar in the barrack guardroom. He had arranged for Annette’s quarters in Calford. And furthermore Sinclair’s body had been brought back for official identification and burial. Then the illicit still in the hills had been duly destroyed, while he had received Superintendent Croisette’s congratulations and commendations for his work.
But the whole thing left him dissatisfied and uneasy. Ever since his arrest of the Wolf his mind had been haunted by the thought of a bad time yet to come. For the life of him he was unable to rid himself of the vision of a pair of derisively smiling black eyes, and[244] those two clenched fists with their massive, bared wrists thrust out at him, inviting the cold embrace of steel handcuffs.
The haunt of that grim picture was very disturbing. Fyles was too familiar with crime and criminals of all sorts to be easily affected by their tricks. But the picture stuck with him, and somehow it robbed him of considerable confidence.
To his mind the Wolf was certainly the murderer of Sinclair. The matter of bootlegging did not arise now. That aspect of the case was lost under the greater charge of murder. The gang had been clever enough to clear all liquor. There was only the hidden still. That in itself was insufficient evidence. A conviction required that the men should have been taken red-handed with the making of their liquor.
No. He had only to consider the murder of Sinclair. And of that the case looked clear enough against the Wolf. There was the motive clear as daylight. There was the eyewitness’ evidence. But it made no difference. As he sat gazing out of his window, it was not the snow-sweeping fatigue party he beheld, it was not the many barrack buildings or the water tower, it was not even the gray sky frowning down upon his world. He saw only those two clenched fists thrust out at him, and the derision in the Wolf’s laughing eyes.
Of course he knew the Wolf’s gesture might[245] have been a simple act of bravado. That sort of thing was not uncommon in youthful criminals. But somehow bravado did not fit the Wolf. He was clearly a man of unusual nerve, a criminal of simple, but utterly fearless type. But he was also a man with only the strangling grip of the hangman’s rope to which to look forward. Then why? He had invited arrest.
Fyles’ conclusion had been obvious from the first, in a man of cold reason. He warned himself that the Wolf was confident in his defence. He was certain of his own innocence.
Fyles stirred irritably. He turned from the window and stood up. Then he began to pace the narrow limits of his room.
His conclusion drove him to a further consideration of the girl Annette and of her evidence. He had done it all before, not once but many times. With tireless concentration, however, he went over the ground again as he strode to and fro.
He could see nothing unusual in her. He knew the type so well. There were all too many Annettes amongst the bastard races of the prairie. Beyond her beauty and youth she had nothing to recommend her. She was just a foolish, headlong, half-breed wench, whose native treachery had been brought to the surface the moment she had captured her white lover. She was ready to betray anybody in the interests of the white man who had promised to marry her. Her[246] father—the Wolf, with whom she had been raised—she would sacrifice everything in fact, so long as Sinclair would——
Fyles ceased his perambulation. He halted abruptly and stood staring out of the window. And staring thus his whole expression transformed. Then came a grim smile.
Had Annette really captured her white man? Sinclair. Sinclair’s weaknesses were well known to him. She had said Sinclair was going to marry her. Sinclair! Was he?
Fyles moved to his door where his fur coat was hanging. Then in a moment he was hurrying along the well-swept sidewalk in the direction of the Orderly Room.
A shadow descended upon the grating which lit the guardroom cell. The Wolf shot a quick glance of inquiry from where he sat on his wooden bunk.
He could make out the black of a sheepskin coat beyond the grating, that was all.
There was a clank of iron levers moving. Then the cell door opened, and the Wolf discovered two figures beyond. He recognized Sergeant Fyles. The other he knew to be the sergeant of the guard. It was Fyles who spoke.
“I want you to come right along with me, Wolf,”[247] he said. “And we can have a yarn. Maybe you’ll feel glad to see daylight for awhile?”
Fyles’ tone had none of his official abruptness in it. And the Wolf sprang from his hard seat without a moment’s hesitation.
“I certainly will, Sergeant,” he replied. “Say, I’m sick to death of these wood walls and a light that ’ud depress a blind man. They haven’t passed word to hang me yet? Can’t I be set where I ken see daylight an’ breathe air?”
Fyles studied the clean-cut features. And somehow what he saw there made him glad he had come to the guardroom.
“I’m goin’ to do better for you while you’re here. Though I guess you’ll soon be sent along to the city jail. I’ve permission for you to come right across to my quarters where you and me can talk freely. If you feel like giving your word to make no breaks you won’t be worried with troublesome precautions. Feel that way?”
The Wolf’s smile broadened.
“You don’t have to worry, Sergeant,” he replied simply.
Fyles inclined his head and moved away. The Wolf was beside him. And as they passed down the guardroom passage it needed no special understanding to tell the prisoner that the man beside him had ample means to his hand for his safeguarding.
[248]But the Wolf had no intention of making any trouble; only was he speculating. He was wondering what purpose the policeman had in the unexpected invitation.
They passed from the guardroom into the biting winter air. The Wolf breathed deeply. He drew great gusts of Nature’s purity into yearning lungs. And as he did so his thought bridged the years.
His mind swept back to the old mountain life. That time when the whole horizon of his budding manhood was bounded by the smile or frown of an impish child whose best delight was his unceasing torment.
Fyles was watching him closely. And his watch was mainly that of the student. But the Wolf wore impenetrable armor. Fyles had to content himself with a picture of splendid manhood that betrayed not a sign of the anxiety or fear which the hideous position confronting his prisoner should have inspired.
They exchanged no word until Fyles’ quarters were reached. Then the Wolf was quietly shepherded across to the neatly arranged bed-cot, which occupied one end of the room across the whole length of the far wall.
The prisoner submitted readily. He sat on the comparative luxury of the neatly spread blankets and watched while Fyles possessed himself of the chair at the desk. The Wolf realized that the other was seated directly between him and the only exit from the room.
[249]Fyles drew a packet of cheap cigarettes from his fur coat pocket.
“Have they taken your smoke?” he asked.
The Wolf eyed the packet hungrily. He nodded.
“Every darn thing.”
“Take these.” Fyles pitched the packet across to him. “Smoke all you need.”
The Wolf flashed a look of gratitude.
“Say, Sergeant,” he cried, “that’s pretty swell of you. I’ll likely remember till they hang me.”
The man’s fingers literally tore the packet open. The tobacco hunger with which he thrust a cigarette into his mouth was pathetic. Fyles sympathized.
“I’ve been nigh crazed for one o’ these,” the Wolf sighed. “May I have a light?”
“Surely. It’s hell without smoke.”
Fyles passed the matches and waited. The Wolf took them hastily and struck one. Then he watched his companion as he lit his cigarette.
“You’re going to need counsel in a while,” Fyles said presently.
The Wolf inhaled deeply. He breathed the tobacco smoke with intense enjoyment. He repeated the operation before replying. Then he shook his head.
“Guess I don’t need any attorney,” he said, with simple decision.
Fyles bestirred. His brows drew across his forehead. A spasm of irritation sounded in his voice.
[250]“But you got to have one. If you haven’t got counsel the Court will appoint one for you.”
The Wolf seemed absorbed in the consumption of his cigarette. His eyes were smiling down at it in the friendliest manner. But he saw the policeman’s change of expression. He was alive to his tone.
“It don’t cut any ice, Sergeant,” he said, with a shake of the head.
Fyles glanced at his desk. He looked up at the window above it. He sat thinking for some silent moments while the Wolf smoked furiously. Then he turned to his prisoner again as the latter took a fresh cigarette from the packet and lit it from the stump of his first.
“Do you get it all?” he asked quietly, but significantly. “It’s murder, boy. It’s a straight case. I’ve never had a straighter. There’s a rope lying around at the finish.”
The Wolf nodded and smiled pleasantly.
“An’ a boy to get busy with it.”
“Just so.”
Gazing across at the Wolf surrounded by a haze of tobacco smoke Fyles thought of a stone wall. But he felt it to be a rather fine stone wall, nothing crude or ugly. Somehow, he knew, he must get beyond it. The man’s attitude was unaltered from that at the time of his arrest.
Fyles suddenly sat forward in his chair.
[251]“I don’t think it’s quite filtered through yet, Wolf,” he said, using his prisoner’s name for the first time. “If you go to the Court without proper defence you’ll hang—sure as hell. We’re talking man to man now. This is no third degree. I’m not trying to make you incriminate yourself. It’s the reverse. There’s not a soul within earshot of us to bear witness. So I want to tell you right here I don’t believe you shot Sinclair. And I think I know who did!”
The stone wall was passed in one clean leap. It was not that the Wolf moved a muscle of his body to indicate the home thrust. On the contrary, he sat without movement beyond the process of smoking heavily. But Fyles was watching his eyes. It was only momentary. It flashed and was gone. It was not fear. Just a quick, anxious question. That was all.
“And so do you,” Fyles added, after a pause.
But the stone wall was back in place again, and the policeman saw its setting up. The Wolf turned from the man who was honestly trying to befriend him.
The window came into his view. There was considerable movement going on beyond it. A double bobsleigh was moving over the snow, with several men in brown stable uniforms and woollen tuques in it. A bugle sounded. It was “officers’” call. A small squad of men in single file were passing along the sidewalk, armed with brooms and shovels.
“Say, Sergeant,” the Wolf said challengingly.[252] “You’re wise to things. They mostly ask a boy if he’s guilty or not guilty?”
“Sure.”
“If he says ‘guilty’?”
“A man can’t plead ‘guilty’ in a murder case. They enter his pleading as ‘not guilty.’ The Crown must prove him guilty. What’s the big notion?”
“Just nothin’.”
The Wolf went on smoking. It was his third cigarette.
“I said you know who shot Sinclair?” Fyles said. “Don’t forget, boy, it’s a hanging. Hanging isn’t easy. Life’s mostly good while we got it. It’s not worth a cent when we haven’t. Won’t you talk?”
The Wolf nodded.
“Talk? Sure, Sergeant,” he laughed. “Why I’m crazy to talk. Later maybe I won’t be able to.”
His cigarette hung on his lower lip. The man was breathing its smoke as though it were the sweetest thing in life. His eyes were alert and flashing with good humor.
“You’re a swell feller, and I haven’t a thing on you, Sergeant,” the Wolf went on amiably. “Not a thing. I can’t forget these smokes you handed me. You’re white, anyway, which I wouldn’t say of all the police. You see right here, I’m not a fool, though maybe you reckon me crazy. I got things clear in my head. An’ the way I see things is the way I mean ’em[253] to go. Your hangin’ don’t worry me a thing. I could buy all the defence I needed if I felt like it. But I’m not buyin’. If the Court sets a boy to defend me it’s up to them. But he won’t get a thing, nor a cent from me. You got a straight case. You never had a straighter. Then push it thro’. An’, when the time comes I’ll be glad fer that boy with the rope. I’ll thank him. When they hang me it’ll be good an’ fixed who killed Sinclair.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Eh?”
The Wolf’s startled gaze leaped at the policeman’s face.
They sat eye to eye. It was a wordless duel. The sergeant’s smile was grimly taunting. The Wolf’s study of him was a search capable of reading desperately. Suddenly the latter’s head went back and his laugh was cheerfully derisive.
“It’s all right, Sergeant,” he cried. “We ken just leave it that way. But you ken hand your folks my last noise. It’s no use fer an attorney boy to get around me. I haven’t use fer attorneys, anyway. An’ he’ll just be breathing up what little air they leave a feller to use in a prison cell.”
Superintendent Croisette was sitting back in his chair in the Orderly Room. Sergeant Fyles was facing him, standing just beyond his superior’s desk.[254] They were alone for a confidential word which would never be permitted to escape beyond the four walls surrounding them.
“It’s no use, sir, I’ve done my best,” Fyles jerked out in a disgruntled tone. “The man won’t talk. He won’t plead. He means to go straight to the rope, and—he’s innocent!”
“Innocent? You’re feeling sure as a result of your interview? Then he must have talked—unconsciously?”
Fyles nodded abruptly. He liked dealing with this man who was always so swift in the uptake.
“That’s just it, sir,” Fyles said sharply. “I guessed before. I’m sure now. The Wolf never killed Sinclair. It was that half-breed wench. And that crazy goat of a man intends to swing for a trollop that ought to be flayed alive. I feel hot, sir. They got me fooled between ’em, and it makes me sore. But that’s not the worst. I think that Wolf’s a pretty fine man. Oh, I know he’s a crook. He’s a bootlegger. Maybe he’s anything at all. But he’s a man. And if he dodges the gallows, one day he’ll show he is.”
Superintendent Croisette smiled. Sergeant Fyles was his favorite officer, and, in private, was distinctly privileged.
“It looks to me you’ve stirred a nasty mess for us.”
Fyles shook his head doggedly.
“No, sir. I think the police are going to get big[255] credit out of this yet, if things are the way I reckon them. That boy knows Annette Estevan killed Sinclair. How I can’t say. But he does. It’s the whole answer to everything. I told you ’bout his arrest. That beat me and set me thinking. It was my only clue, and I couldn’t get it out of my fool head. I watched him all through the girl’s story. And what I saw told me how it was with him. That boy was near crazed to think she was to have a baby by Sinclair. I’ve tried to work it out. And this is the way I see him. He was raised with that girl and is crazy for her. She won’t look at him. He’s the sort of fool kid that don’t reckon life worth a thing without her.”
Croisette nodded.
“Now, sir, let’s look at her side. This is where I tripped. But I’m not tripping now, if there’s a grain of savvy in my head. I know Sinclair. You know something of him now, sir, too. That girl hit his trail, and he fell for her. He outfitted her with a baby. She’s a Breed. He was white. She means that baby to make him marry her. How? It’s easy with a man like Sinclair. He’s crazy to pull Pideau and the Wolf. Well, Annette can help him. And she’s a Breed. He promises to marry her if she’ll show him that liquor cache and hasn’t a notion of carrying out his promise. That’s Sinclair, where a woman’s concerned. She takes him to the cache. But she’s wily. She talks that marriage there at the cache. He puts her off. Maybe[256] he laughs at her. Then she pulls one on him, with the Wolf’s gun, and leaves the gun there.”
Croisette nodded again and his eyes were far gazing with thought.
“And the Wolf?” he asked.
“She put it on him to save her own skin.”
“You think the Wolf—saw?”
Fyles stood thinking for some moments.
“It’s difficult. Maybe he did, though, sir. I think he did. The way he acts now makes me think so. He’s certain in his mind she killed Sinclair. And being the mad-headed fool he is, he’s crazy to save her skin for her.”
“Though she’s done her best to hang him?”
Superintendent Croisette shook his head.
“No, Sergeant, I’m sorry. It’s a good story. And I’ll not say but you may be right. But in my logic there’s not even a half-breed girl so callous that she’d wilfully send the boy she was raised with to the rope knowing him innocent. She believes him guilty, which—automatically clears her.”
CHAPTER XIV
THE CONFOUNDING OF JUSTICE
THE atmosphere of the Court was intolerably heavy. It was the reek of humanity and steam heat. But there was no desire for ventilation. Winter was winter to the people in Calford, and steam heat its only antidote. Besides, every soul amongst that very mixed gathering was absorbed in the drama being enacted.
It was the first day of the trial of the Wolf for the murder of Ernest Sinclair. That was the apparently simple case. There was no complication through the added charge of his liquor traffic. It was murder, just murder. And the official position of the victim of the crime made it the greatest “nine days’ wonder” which the people of the city of Calford had ever known.
The trial had proceeded swiftly, as was the way with the Supreme Court in Calford. Already the late winter day was drawing to its close. The carefully screened lights had been lit, and the heavy haze prevailing had contrived to depress their brilliancy.
The Court was crowded from end to end. A sea of intent faces filled the background of at least three walls. The fourth was where sat Chief Justice Pansarta, and other officials of the Court. Every face was slightly[258] raised and peering, even amongst the most hardened servants of the law. It was as though all were determined to miss nothing of interest, no display of emotion, no sign that might be given by any of the principals in the moving drama. It was all powerfully human. And it had the effect of reducing every soul in the place to a single level.
It was no different in the well of the Court. Counsel, and official, and privileged spectator, sat packed together in the limited space at disposal. And above the intense, though restless hush rose and fell the tones of the voices of the various actors; counsel, witness, judge, and ushers.
The only spectator with space at his disposal was Superintendent Croisette, who sat alone at the little table set aside for the use of Mounted Police officials. He sat with his alert face supported on his hand, and in such a position that the entire Court came under his scrutiny. His keen gray eyes were watching, searching. And his ears were strained for every inflection in the voices to which he was listening. He knew the crux of the trial had been reached. Annette Estevan was in the witness box. And she had just concluded her evidence in chief.
And what evidence it had been. The girl had told it with damning clarity under the skilful shepherding of the prosecuting counsel. It was full of all that[259] which drives the human soul to bitter partisanship against the wrongdoer.
But Superintendent Croisette had had enough of Annette, and the story he knew almost by heart. It was the same, dreadfully the same, as he and Fyles had searched together. The story Annette had told at the preliminary hearing had not been changed one iota.
Croisette had watched closely during the recital of the girl’s evidence. He had been looking for revealing signs. And he had not been wholly disappointed.
The dusky cheeks had become almost ashen under the girl’s ordeal. Her big eyes were restless and burning. There had been a telltale averting whenever it was possible to escape the compelling gaze of the counsel inviting her story. Furthermore, at no moment was her look steady. There were moments, too, when real passion swept the girl in fierce, stormy gusts. They were the moments when she was forced to bare her woman’s secrets to the Court.
Croisette realized Annette’s unquestioning belief in the Wolf’s guilt. And so he was able the more surely to dismiss the ultimate theory of Sergeant Fyles. But he also realized something else. Annette was nearly at the extremity of her nervous resources. And he wondered how she would endure the cross-examination now about to start.
He was glad to turn from the sight of Annette’s gripping hands upon the rail of the witness box to the[260] easy, lounging, unemotional figure of the prisoner in the dock.
The Wolf stood there leaning, with his arms folded. He had been unmoving from the moment Annette had entered the witness box. And his immobility had extended even to his unblinking eyes.
The man had given no sign. He had listened without one single flash of resentment to the awful indictment against him. Nor was there a sign of reproach whenever Annette turned accusingly upon him. Boundless devotion, which he was at no pains to conceal, shone in the dark depths of his eyes; that, and a subtle shadowy anxiety.
It was that unvoiced concern which Croisette fixed upon and pondered.
What was it the man feared? Croisette knew full well it had nothing to do with any personal concern. The man had shown from the first that his own ultimate fate was a matter of complete indifference to him. First, there had been the incidents connected with his arrest. Then he had rejected every assistance that might save him in his trial. It had been the same here as at the preliminary hearing. He had refused to plead. He had rejected the assistance of counsel by the simple process of remaining mute. Not a single word had passed his lips since he had been placed in the dock. Then where lay the source of his obvious anxiety?
John Danson K.C. rose to cross-examine.
[261]Croisette considered the defending counsel’s strong, full, clean-shaven face. The man’s brows were heavy and broad. His eyes were keen and sparkled under bushy gray brows. There was a truculent set to his jaws that reached his hard lips. And, somehow, as the superintendent watched that big figure rise from its seat, a feeling akin to pity for the half-breed girl in the witness box stirred in him. He, himself, had spent upwards of an hour in close conference with this man, before his appointment to the defence.
There was a sigh from the spectators and some clearing of throats as John Danson faced the witness. If possible, interest and emotion had deepened. Like Superintendent Croisette the eager crowd of onlookers understood that this man would somehow clear away the cobwebs of mystery surrounding the case.
The advocate began almost gently. There was no brow-beating at the start. None of the vicious bark for which he was renowned and feared. He almost smiled on the witness, whose restless eyes and clutching hands had told him so much already.
“The prisoner?” he questioned, in his blandest manner. “Who is he? What is he to you? A relation?”
Annette’s reply was instant with a sense of relief at his manner.
[262]“No. He’s no relation. We were raised together. That’s all.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
Annette failed to appreciate the note underlying the echo of her words.
“Sort of brother and sister, eh? You just played together? Maybe even fought together—as playmates will?”
Annette stirred. Croisette saw the grip of her hands tighten on the rail. She inclined her head.
“Yes.”
“In a city? Where?”
“No. The hills. West.”
“Ah! The hills. West. Forest and hill, valleys and rivers—all the wonderful things that set kiddies dreaming and playing. Where you’re free and unrestrained. Where companionship is everything. And the Wolf was your companion. You liked your playmate, and he liked you. You loved him—as a child?”
Annette turned from the questioner and found herself gazing into the Wolf’s now troubled eyes. Croisette saw a sudden lifting of her swelling bosom as she breathed deeply. And in that moment he felt that John Danson’s reputation had been well earned.
“Ye-es.”
It was Annette’s first falter.
But John Danson appeared not to notice. Certainly[263] he displayed no interest in it. He pursued his questioning with unruffled composure, and, to the uninitiated, in a direction that looked to be leading him no whither.
In reality, however, he was delving. He was delving deep into the soul of the girl while he held her under the anæsthetic of illusion. He was shrewdly recalling to her the almost forgotten past. He was returning the playmate of her youth to her; that lank fearless youth who had always been her willing slave.
Croisette understood.
For awhile Annette was clay in the man’s hands. At first she displayed no anxiety. His questions seemed to have so little to do with the case. She answered readily. It was almost as if she welcomed them.
But in a while the lawyer became more pressing. In a while his tone sharpened. And his jaws closed, snapping over his words. And very quickly reaction set in. First came the girl’s return of restlessness. She found it difficult to respond to the keen inquiry of his eyes. Then fear became apparent in a gaze that looked everywhere but at the questioner. Her replies came in a voice that had grown strident. Then, as the hunted look in her eyes grew, the half-breed in her became uppermost and she sought evasion and subterfuge.
The whole process was something that Croisette had witnessed often enough before. A witness in John Danson’s hands was rather like a snared rabbit. He[264] would wring any secret this girl was striving to keep from him out of her, as surely as someone had shot Sinclair. He turned to the prisoner.
There had come a significant change in the Wolf. He was no longer lounging. There was none of his earlier indifference. But much more of the anxious searching in his eyes. He was leaning over the rail of the dock, and the smile of his queer eyes was a tiger-smile.
He was following every word of his counsel. His every inflection. His every gesture. Danson was pointing at him.
“And that man there,” he was saying. “The man now grown out of the boy with whom you were raised, the boy you loved and played with, who only thought of your happiness and comfort, the boy you’ve just told the Court you even sided with against your father in some domestic affair. You wanted to send him to penitentiary, deliberately, callously, him and your father as well, both, so you could be free to satisfy your woman’s lust for a policeman whose propensities you knew only too well. Tell me. That man—and your father? You were betraying, sacrificing them, that you might have your lover—your husband?”
The scorn and revolting were devastating. The lawyer’s tone smote as it was intended to smite.
Annette shrank before its withering. Her nervous grip on the rail was pitiful. For an instant Croisette[265] had a vision of self-horror in the widened black eyes. Then the lids fell to conceal the world of shame they had been driven to betray.
“Answer!”
Like a gunshot Danson’s challenge rang out.
“He—reckoned he couldn’t marry me without—promotion.”
Annette’s voice was so low that every ear in the Court was set straining. A sigh broke like a wave over the spectators.
“And so you must betray them, the men who’d loved you, and raised you, and fed you, and clothed you. Penitentiary! That was his price—for marriage.”
“Ye-es.”
Croisette’s arms were folded on the table. The Wolf was forgotten.
“And you—believed?”
“Yes! Why shouldn’t I?”
There was a limp tone of defiance in the girl’s reply.
“In spite of the common knowledge of Sinclair, and the other woman and her baby?”
“Why not?” Again there was defiance. “I knew he would marry me. He swore it.”
“He swore it. You knew he would marry you. You were sure?”
“Yes.”
Annette snatched up the glass of water set for her use. She gulped down half of it.
[266]Danson’s gaze swept over the crowded court. The girl set her glass down with a clatter.
“You told him where to find the cache, the liquor, the still. You revealed the whole secret entrusted to you by these men who loved you?”
“Yes.”
“Then—why, why did you go there, stealing after him?”
“I—I——”
“Why did you follow him to witness what took place? Why did you go there to see the prisoner murder Sinclair? Answer!”
“That’s a lie!”
“Answer!”
“I didn’t go to see him murdered.”
“Don’t play with the question. Tell the Court why you went there at all. You had good reason. What was it?”
“I needed to be sure he located the cache right.”
“Sinclair! A skilled officer! He knew the country. Every foot. You’d told him. He was satisfied. Yet you must see he located it—right?”
“Yes.”
“You insist to the jury, to the Court, that was your reason?”
The sneer, the incredulity in the man’s voice were furiously provocative.
There was a metallic crash as a fist descended on[267] the rail of the prisoner’s dock. And a sound like the snarl of a wild beast drew every eye to the prisoner.
“Don’t answer, kid! Say!”
The Wolf’s eyes were ablaze, and he stood with a warning hand outflung. He was erect now. Dire urgency had broken down the barrier of silence he had set up.
Danson completely ignored the interruption. It might never have occurred.
“Answer me!” he roared at the girl in the box. “You followed Sinclair. Why?”
“I told you.”
“You’re on oath. The real reason. I want it. Why?”
“Not on your life, kid. It’s a trap! A lousy trap!”
The Wolf’s face had suddenly distorted with fury. The veins in his forehead stood out. His fists clenched. He flung them out in desperate appeal.
The lawyer’s face wore a sardonic smile. Annette had turned at the Wolf’s challenge. Croisette saw her sway as though about to collapse. She was shaking in every limb. Her eyes, those great appealing eyes were hunted. It was as though the voice of the Wolf had awakened her from some dreadful nightmare. John Danson’s voice rasped. Perhaps he understood.
“The prisoner can’t help you. He’s the man you tell the Court you saw murder Sinclair. Now this is[268] the simple truth. You went to see Sinclair didn’t escape you. Is that so?”
“Annette!”
The Wolf’s cry howled through the Court.
“Be silent!”
It was the Judge.
“You must not interrupt,” he went on sharply, frowning down from his bench. “You will have every opportunity given you of saying anything you have to say. You are delaying proceedings which I will not allow.”
Then he turned to Annette.
“You must answer Counsel’s question.”
But Annette was beyond answering any question. And Croisette, watching her, saw something of the miracle that was being wrought.
It was the Wolf. It was there in the girl’s frantically appealing eyes. It was there in the heaving bosom, the hands that now gestured towards the man she had been seeking to destroy. What was it? How had it come?
It was not terror of the inquisition to which she was being submitted that Croisette beheld in those agonized eyes. It was some tremendous, pitiful emotion. Some emotion that was tearing the girl’s soul with torturing agony.
There was no doubt now. Annette’s hate of the Wolf was dead. It had died in a moment, slain by[269] the mad impulse of the race to which she belonged. All that had driven her to witness against him had been swept away by some force of whose existence she had been wholly unaware. She was mutely gazing, appealing, praying forgiveness for the enormity of the thing she had done.
“Wolf! Help me! Wolf!” she wailed.
But it was the thunder of Danson’s voice that replied to her.
“I put it to you,” he cried. “It’s as I said. You went to make sure of your payment. And Sinclair laughed at you. You’d handed them over to him, your father; your playmate. He wanted no more of you. So you pulled the Wolf’s gun on him! You shot him cold! You murdered Sinclair!”
“It’s a lie! A foul, crazy lie!” the Wolf shouted frantically.
“It’s not a lie. It’s truth. Truth! Truth!” Annette screamed back in a wild burst of hysteria. Her eyes were blazing. She was beside herself. Her face was contorted with nervous twitchings. “It’s a lie, I tell you! I was lyin’ before! It was all lies, lies, lies! I didn’t see you shoot, because I shot him. Ernie lied to me! He lied like hell! An’ he laffed at me! He laffed in my face. He cursed me for a Breed—a dirty Breed! He cursed me, an’ sent me to hell with my kid! They can’t hang you, Wolf! You didn’t do it! I did! I stole your gun from your room. I done[270] it! I left him there dead, an’ I’m glad! They can’t hang you, boy. You didn’t do it! I did! I did! I——”
In a flash the Wolf came back.
“Don’t take notice of her!” he cried in a sweat of awful dread. “She’s crazy mad! She don’t know a thing she’s sayin’. You’ve drove her crazy between you! She didn’t kill Sinclair. I did!”
He broke off and gazed about him. He looked yearningly at the bowed figure in the witness box. The sight seemed to spur him. The next moment Croisette became aware of movement at the back of the Court as someone stood up and moved towards the door. Then the Wolf was talking again, but coldly, quietly, convincingly.
“You’ve mazed her! You may as well get the truth right here, so you ken let that pore kid alone. I shot Sinclair. An’ I’d do it all again if he was livin’ now. He stole my woman,” he went on, pointing at the huddled figure of Annette. “She’s my woman. Do you get what that means—any of you? An’ he made her bear his kid. I said I’d kill him. All she said first was right—dead right. Ther’ wasn’t one lie to it. She’s only lyin’ now, cos you’ve got her rattled. I shot that boy to the hell he belongs, an’ now you ken hang me right away.”
Croisette scrawled a note and passed it to Stanley[271] Fyles. But as the Wolf finished speaking Annette was galvanized into fierce rejection of his confession.
“I’m not mazed or crazy!” she cried at the Judge. “It’s that fool boy! He guesses to save me from hangin’. That’s been him always. He reckons me a crazy kid. I’m not. I’m a woman. I killed Ernie Sinclair ’cos he made me hate him. My kid. I killed him for my kid. I ken show you the way I did it. It wasn’t him. The Wolf didn’t shoot him. You can’t hang him! It’s me! You got to hang me!”
Croisette saw Fyles thrust his way out of the Court.
It was like the passing of a fantastic dream. Where before had pulsed a throng of eager life with every passion astir, now all was darkness, and the hush of desertion. The courthouse was closed, and locked up, and empty.
There had been one final half-hour when Judge and Counsel had battled laboriously with the astounding situation. But it was useless. The Wolf and Annette clung tenaciously to their conflicting claims. Had they entered that Court with the purpose of creating legal confusion it could have been never so grotesquely complete. Chief Justice Pansarta was left with no alternative.
The Court had adjourned.
CHAPTER XV
RELEASE
CHIEF JUSTICE PANSARTA sat back in his capacious chair. His stout legs were crossed comfortably. His somewhat benign personality was never more emphasized than as he sat there enjoying his first cigar of the day. His meditative gaze was on the great shaft of sunlight pouring in through the window of the room appointed for his private use at the Supreme Court of Calford.
Superintendent Croisette was interestedly observing him across the polished table intervening between them.
On either hand of the Judge the two leading counsels in the trial which had occupied the court on the previous day, were waiting for the decision which was to result from the lengthy legal discussion upon which they had engaged. John Danson sat facing the prosecuting counsel queerly confident. Eustace Mellor was smoking a cigarette and avoiding the gaze of his friendly opponent.
Croisette had heard all the argument of the learned counsel without very great interest. In truth he felt their little legal skirmish was hardly important. Judge Pansarta, he knew, had long since taken his decision.[273] Probably it had been taken over night. His only concern was as to what that decision might be.
But the learned Judge seemed to be in no great hurry. Snow had fallen in the night. But the morning was soft and the snow melting. It was the first real sign that winter was to reach its termination, however long it might be, however bitter. And the Judge seemed to be enjoying the pleasant augury of the brilliant sun.
At last he reluctantly turned to the men gathered at the table. His smile was cordial as he glanced from the defence to the prosecution. But it was no more. It was the smile of the man who is complete master of the situation and is quite aware of the fact.
Croisette found himself smiling responsively. The counsels had worked very hard to impress their viewpoints.
“Thank you, gentlemen, very much,” Pansarta said, in the genuine fashion of the amiably disposed. “It has all been most enlightening. Now since your discussion has closed I will, with your permission, give you my final interpretation of the position. It is given after due consideration of all the points you have raised, and the evidence, which yesterday’s fiasco set before the Court. Let me say at once, that in all my experience of the law I have never been confronted with a case quite like this murder of Constable Sinclair.”
[274]Croisette sat back in his chair. For a few moments, while the Judge reached out and very precisely dropped the remains of his cigar into an ash tray, his interest relaxed, and his thought drifted back to the closing scene before the adjournment of the court the day before.
It was curious how out of all the stirring moments of the day, one incident, alone, which had no apparent relation to the case, stood out above all others in his mind. It was the momentary vision of one of the spectators leaving the court, when feeling and interest were at their highest pitch.
But so it was. And in that moment his quick mind had been impressed with the significance of the incident. He was glad that Fyles had been present to act. He was thinking of the man, Pideau Estevan, now, as the Judge paused in his statement. For it was he who had so hastily left the court at the moment of the crisis that had caused the adjournment of the trial.
The Judge continued in even, dispassionate tones.
“There is no need for me to go over the evidence for you, gentlemen,” he said. “We had the evidence of a number of people which amounted to little or nothing. It simply gave us an insight into the lives of this man, the Wolf, and the girl, Annette. It is the sort of evidence I dislike in court, as it rarely sheds any real light upon the case under consideration, and often helps to prejudice it. It is the sort of evidence to be[275] well sorted and sifted by the police before the case comes on for trial.”
The pleasant eyes flashed into the police officer’s and carried their smile with them.
“I am a little at a loss to understand, however,” he went on, “just why the prosecution did not call the prisoner’s partner, the man, Pideau Estevan. He is the half-breed father of the girl Annette. He must have been intimately connected with the case, and his evidence might have proved valuable.”
Croisette sat up.
“The police were of opinion, sir, that Pideau Estevan would have been an unsatisfactory witness for the prosecution. You see he is, as you say, the father of the girl. He is also the prisoner’s partner. The situation in which he would have been placed would have been extremely awkward. And it would probably have made his evidence unreliable.”
Pansarta inclined his head.
“There may be a good deal in what you say. But—— Well, it is of no consequence now, in any case. The charge against the man, the Wolf, must be dismissed. He must be released. The girl, too, must go her way. It is the only possible course for the Court to take.”
It was interesting. Croisette had foreseen the decision. While his knowledge of the law was not comparable with that of the other man at the table, his[276] instinct was unerring. He watched the two counsels as the judge gave his decision. A half smile played about the grim lips of John Danson. But the other gave no sign. He sat with his eyes lowered to the sheet of paper on the table before him.
The Judge pursued his subject in the detached fashion of a mind absorbed in his problem.
“It is a case where we have to rule ourselves entirely by the laws of evidence. That which we believe ourselves, that of which any of us may be morally certain, must not be allowed to influence. Constable Sinclair has been undoubtedly murdered. He was murdered by a shot fired from a gun belonging to this Wolf. The bullet has been recovered and proves to be identical with the cartridges found in the sleeping room of the Wolf. We know that these people, both of them, are intimately interested in the death of the murdered man. And the logic of the case points to one of them as the murderer. That is all so. But in dealing with the case we are brought up against a position, which, under the laws of evidence, prevents us pursuing the trial to its logical end.”
Pansarta cleared his throat, and something of his absorption passed. He glanced at the faces about the table.
“What is it?” he went on quickly. “The man refuses to plead. He remains dumb, mute. He will utter no word to help in his defence. The only evidence[277] which the prosecution can bring against him is the evidence of the girl, Annette. True, it is direct evidence, and very complete, but its only other support is circumstantial. When our friend Danson gets after this girl and drives her into a corner, and appeals to her womanhood, what is the result? She breaks down. She flings her whole story to the winds of heaven and confesses herself to having committed the crime. Nor is it a bald confession. She gives it in detail and reveals her reasons. When this happens the man breaks his silence. Instantly he denies her confession. And then proceeds to claim for himself the very crime the prosecution has striven to bring home to him. And his story of the murder is no less convincing than the woman’s.”
“Well, gentlemen, we cannot go into a long dissertation on the laws of evidence now. You know them as well as I do. We all know they will not admit of two people, separately and alone, killing the same man, at the same time, with the same gun, and the same shot. That is clear. Furthermore they will not permit of a man being hanged for a crime confessed to by another without that confession is clearly proved untrue, even though he can make his own confession appear true. In short, had these two wild people acted in collusion they could have designed no better way of confounding justice.”
The calmly smiling face was turned again to the[278] brilliant sunbeam, and the thought behind the Judge’s pleasant eyes was very busy.
“Let us take the girl Annette,” he continued. “If her confession were true, which I am convinced it is not, then her evidence against the man falls to the ground as a mass of perjury. If her evidence is true, then her confession is not. Then consider the man. He is silent. He neither denies guilt nor admits it. Not a word passes his lips. He not only submits to the woman’s accusations, but actually seems to welcome them. He even goes to the length of warning her against his own counsel, the counsel for his defence. In fact, he tacitly welcomes the hanging confronting him. Why?”
“Then we come to the crux of the whole position. It is at the moment when this perverted woman he clearly loves better than his life, incriminates herself by confession. He promptly breaks through his barrier of silence and hurls himself to save her, by confessing, in a clear convincing manner, to his own perpetration of the crime.”
Pansarta drew a deep sigh and the smile left his eyes to be replaced by his slight frown of authority.
“We need to go no further. The details of evidence no longer matter. They can be dismissed. Their value does not arise now. The story lying back of those two opposing confessions is no concern of the Court at this moment. In other circumstances it may[279] very deeply concern the Court. This morning I shall direct the jury to find the prisoner ‘not guilty.’ And, Superintendent Croisette,” he added, smiling over at the officer, “it will be for your police to begin again.”
He ceased speaking. And as he did so the counsel for the prosecution inclined his head in reluctant approval. John Danson was frankly pleased. But the police officer found nothing in the learned Judge’s statement of the case to drag him from his preoccupation.
There came a sharp tap at the door communicating with the court. It was a begowned official to announce that all was in readiness for the opening of the court.
The Judge waved him away.
“Now, gentlemen,” he continued, as the door closed on the banished man, “having given you my ruling I want to pass from reality to the realms of conjecture. This case intrigues me deeply. I warned you that it is for Croisette’s police to begin again. I meant that. I meant that literally because I am convinced that neither the prisoner nor the woman, Annette, had anything to do with the killing of Sinclair. I am breaking a long-established rule of my life in saying that. But I will go farther. I am no less convinced that each of them honestly believes that the other committed the crime. And, furthermore, each believes they have irrefutable evidence of the other’s guilt.”
The Judge rose from his chair and passed over to his wig and robes laid across the back of a chair.
[280]“I think,” he proceeded, adjusting his robes on his ample person, “that this man they call the Wolf is an unusual character. He is a disreputable bootlegger. No doubt he is a ruffian. I am quite sure he would readily have claimed the privilege of shooting this man, Sinclair. But he is nevertheless a man who claims my respect for other virtues. As for the girl, Annette,” he went on, arranging his heavy wig before a mirror, “she seems to be a perverted, wayward, half-breed wench, without moral scruple. She’s headlong, wild, and steeped in the savagery of her Indian forbears. But she’s a woman. And she is quite beautiful. Furthermore, I rather think she is a woman who has found in the ashes of the conflagration she set going in Buffalo Coulee all that to which every woman has a right, and which, sooner or later, in her life comes her way. So, gentlemen,” he added, facing the men at the table, an imposing figure in his resplendent robes, and with a smile that seemed to permeate his whole being, “if you will favor me by preceding me into the court, I will do my best to persuade everybody that a scallawag bootlegger and potential killer, can still be a brave and gallant man.”
CHAPTER XVI
THE LAUGH OF THE WOLF
STANLEY FYLES noted the ease, the almost extravagant calm of the youth. And he could not but admire. The Wolf had sprawled himself on the bed as though his presence in the officer’s personal quarters in the barracks was the most natural thing in the world.
The man bore no trace of his recent ordeal, unless, perhaps, it was the avidity with which he smoked. In his fine face, in the frank smile of his dark eyes there was nothing to remind the officer of the wild beast he had seen looking out of the latter when the relentless counsel was driving Annette to her confession.
Fyles and the Wolf had left the court together. And it had been odd how the boy who had stood so recently under the shadow of the gallows was glad enough of the companionship of the man who had been instrumental in setting him in the prisoner’s dock.
So it was, however. Fyles had approached the Wolf in the friendliest spirit. And the man had responded at once. Fyles had invited him to the barracks before he left the city. And the Wolf had accepted the invitation without hesitation.
The underlying truth was really simple. Fyles still[282] had his problem of the murder of Sinclair to solve. And the one person in the world with whom the Wolf wanted to talk was the man with his problem before him. So, once more, the Wolf found himself sitting on the smooth brown blankets of the sergeant’s bed.
But this time Fyles was no longer keeping guard over the door. His chair was faced about from his desk so that he could gaze into the face of his visitor as the light from the window fell upon it.
“You know I think you’re lucky, Wolf,” Fyles said, sucking his big pipe thoughtfully. He smiled. “You see, you don’t get the law, and the ways of folks who administer it, like I do. One of the crazy things in life to me is the queer fashion in which the outward seeming of human nature transforms the moment it finds itself in the position of having to hand out correction to the other fellow. The balance of justice is the notion—in theory. But in practice I’d hate to say how heavy the scale turns against a victim. It’s just the effect of authority on the general run of the fool human mind. Set a club in a boy’s hand, and he fancies using it all the time. If there’s no one else around I guess he’ll beat his own mother over the head with it. Pansarta’s quite a boy. You certainly were lucky. It wasn’t only the crazy way you mussed things for him between you that you got clear away. He was dead sure you didn’t kill Sinclair.”
“An’ I’m sick to death he’s right.”
[283]There could be no mistaking the cold sincerity with which the Wolf spoke, as he sat gazing down at the burning cigarette in his fingers.
“Sure. I know.”
Fyles nodded. Then he added:
“But I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Why?”
The two men sat eye to eye. In the shadow Fyles’ expression was largely hidden. The Wolf’s sharp inquiry was there for all to see. The man had no thought of concealment. He was concerned for but one thing at the moment.
“I wasn’t yearning to see you drop to the bottom of the pit of hell for—Sinclair.”
A warm grin flashed into the Wolf’s face and passed as suddenly as it appeared. He sat up, leaning forward intensely.
“Wher’s Annette?”
The man’s moods seemed to change with kaleidoscopic rapidity. Now he was a living volcano of scarcely suppressed emotion. His question was the whole reason for his presence there.
“In barracks.”
“Barracks? Why? Why’s she in barracks?”
The questions came with a rush. They seemed to whistle on the smoke haze of the room. Fyles removed his pipe and rubbed its bowl gently on the leg of his yellow-striped breeches.
[284]“You can’t let a lone girl, a half-breed, face the women of a city like this.”
“You haven’t arrested her?”
Fyles watched the eager face so tortured by anxiety. He shook his head and returned his pipe to his mouth.
“What makes you so crazy sure she killed Sinclair? She didn’t.”
The policeman’s quiet confidence had immediate effect. The Wolf caught himself under control. He flung his cigarette end into a cuspidor and lit a fresh one.
For some moments there was no verbal reply. But the Wolf was watching, watching. He was measuring the sturdy man in the chair. He was striving with all his might to read behind the unsmiling mask of the man who had committed the biggest failure of his career and yet was strong enough to feel no grievance against those who had helped him to it.
At last a sound broke seemingly from behind clenched teeth. The eyes that looked into the face of the policeman were almost pleading.
“Say, Sergeant, d’you reckon we’re men? Or are you just a red-coat, an’ me a bootlegger?”
The manner of it was superbly ingenious. And Fyles understood the simplicity of the nature lying behind it.
“We’re men enough, Wolf.”
“Yes. It’s how I thought. I guess I’d go right[285] out an’ blow my fool brains to pieces if I thought I was just a bootlegger.”
A shadowy smile hovered in the policeman’s eyes.
“And if I was just a red-coat I’d be scared to go meet my old mother when I’m through.”
A queer brooding settled in the Wolf’s eyes. He sat gazing into space for some moments, while his cigarette burned on unheeded. Suddenly he seemed to make up his mind.
“How’d you reckon if you’d been watching around an’ saw a gal standin’ over a dead Sinclair with the gun that shot him dead in her hand?” the Wolf asked abruptly.
Fyles uncrossed his legs. He removed the pipe from between his teeth.
“Why, that she was looking down at the work she guessed she had a right to figger you’d done.”
“God!”
The Wolf was sitting up. Every fibre in his big body was strung tense. His eyes were wide with the wonder in his mind.
Fyles shook his head.
“She didn’t do it, boy,” he said. “She hadn’t real reason anyway. One time I thought she had. That’s why Danson took the line he did and drove her hard. We fixed him to do that. We guessed that way we’d get further towards the truth. But we didn’t. All we did was to make her see what lay back of her[286] mind the whole time, and she didn’t know it was there. We made her wake to the thing that was real. That she was crazy for the boy she was raised with, and that she was setting a rope about his foolish neck. The result? It was easy. She’s just a woman, a wild, foolish, half-breed woman, all heart an’ hot temper. And she came back as she was bound to come back in the end. She reckoned to undo all she could. She jumped at what the hot head of hers thought was the only way. She played rattled and said she’d killed him herself. And she told the story of it just as Danson had put it up to her, feeling mighty sure no one could deny it. And that’s why you’re sitting around here free. Oh, she did her best to pull the coals from the fire she’d set burning. But there wasn’t a word of truth in it. You see, though Sinclair was crooked around women he wasn’t a darn fool. With his game half-played he wouldn’t have turned her down. That would have come later—when you were in penitentiary. Annette didn’t take your gun there. She just found it.”
The Wolf was gazing hungrily. His cigarette was forgotten. Everything was forgotten while he learned that truth which had set him stumbling blindly into a hideous pitfall. Annette had not killed her lover. A crazy gladness surged. But almost on the instant came reaction. If Annette were innocent of the crime then how did Sinclair come by his death?
The Wolf remained gazing at the man in the chair[287] as though fascinated. Something was hammering in his brain. It was something that drove him blindly, headlong; and Fyles was watching. He saw the flush mount suddenly to cheeks and brow. He saw the queer light that flashed into the man’s eyes. So he waited.
The Wolf seemed to gulp, swallowing with difficulty.
“That’s why she wasn’t set in the cells?” he asked thickly.
Fyles shook his head and further clouded the atmosphere.
“You saved her that.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You said she was lying. You told us how you shot Sinclair.”
The flush had faded from the face of the Wolf. He passed a hand up over his forehead with a weary gesture.
“I—don’t get it,” he said.
“No,” Fyles smiled. “It don’t matter. It’s the law. You both swore you killed Sinclair.” He shrugged his heavy shoulders.
“I think I get it now.”
The Wolf lit a fresh cigarette.
“You ain’t—holding her?”
The question came in a cloud of cigarette smoke.
“You can go to her and take her right home—just when you fancy.”
[288]The Wolf stood up. His movement was so sudden as to be almost startling. It was like the spring of a young puma.
“I’ll go to her right away.”
Fyles found himself standing, too.
“We’re still men, Wolf?”
The younger thrust out an impulsive hand. Fyles took it and gripped it. And he released it as though it were the hand of a friend he was reluctant to lose.
“Who killed Sinclair?”
Fyles’ eyes were boring as he searched the smile whose fixity made it no less pleasant.
The smile deepened. It grew into a laugh. It was a queer hard laugh that had something fierce lying behind it. But no verbal reply accompanied it. The Wolf just looked squarely into the face before him and shook his head.
Then Fyles reached his fur coat and pulled it on. He buttoned it deliberately. And as his fingers moved amongst the fur, and his eyes were hidden in his search for the buttons, his voice came, speaking in the casual fashion of a man without great interest.
“What’s Pideau Estevan got on you, boy?” he asked.
And again came the Wolf’s hard laugh as he flung the remains of his cigarette into the cuspidor.
CHAPTER XVII
THE WOLF BAYS THE TRAIL
STANLEY FYLES was in no easy mood. He had passed through a particularly bad time as a result of the Buffalo Coulee affair. He knew it was failure. And failure hurt him as nothing else in the world could hurt.
From the moment of his first meeting with Annette on the night trail he had apprehended disaster. It had truly enough been only vague apprehension. But that simply made it all the worse. From his point of view disaster had certainly supervened. And his one thought now was to get back on the ill fortune of it all by doing what was possible to remedy it.
As he made his way towards the troop stables his eyes were shining with the light of battle.
He had spent an hour at the Orderly Room with Superintendent Croisette, and another half-hour with his sergeant-major. Now, at last, he was free to pursue the course upon which he had finally decided.
His mare was standing saddled and bridled at the entrance to the stables. A trooper was putting a finishing touch to the mud-brown creature’s toilet. Fyles glanced quickly round her. He felt the cinches of the[290] saddle. He examined the heavy bits in her mouth. And, the while, the creature restlessly pawed the snow and snatched for freedom.
Fyles turned up his collar and pulled on his fur mitts. The next moment he was in the saddle. The trooper clapped the dancing mare over the quarters, by way of friendly parting, and the eager creature leaped forward in one of those cat-jumps by which the broncho so dearly loves to express its satisfaction.
Fyles moved out on to the barrack square and passed down towards the sergeant-major’s quarters to report departure. It was the final act of official procedure.
As the mare ambled over the hard-beaten snow Fyles had a full view of the barrack square, right down to the front gate on the far side, where stood the guardroom. It was the latter in which he found interest. Two saddle horses were standing there, near to the barrack gate, beyond the sentry’s beat.
They were long-tailed, lean, tough-looking prairie horses, with none of the sleekness of the mare under him. The man in charge of them had their reins linked over his arm, and was smoking a cigarette.
It required no second glance for Fyles to recognize the figure of the Wolf. Besides, he knew the man had already been waiting with his charges for some time. And of the object of that waiting he was fully aware.
[291]It was Annette, and the policeman smiled to himself as he remembered that those two would soon be travelling the same trail as himself, at the best gait they could get out of their prairie horses.
The sight merely interested him. It gave him no particular concern. He intended to reach Buffalo Coulee first, considerably first, no matter at what pace they urged their horses. For much depended on the speed of his journey, and he knew he could trust the creature under him to behave generously.
No. The sight of the Wolf standing there waiting to set out for his home, gave him no anxiety as to his own plans. But as, a few minutes later, he nodded farewell to Sturt and left the barracks by a back way to avoid the waiting man, he wondered profoundly to what extent the Wolf and Annette, if left to their own headlong methods, would further complicate their foolish lives. How absurdly they would contrive to destroy the limited chances of human happiness which life was still willing to afford them.
The Wolf had smoked many cigarettes. He had smoked incessantly. He would probably go on smoking indefinitely. It was an expression of his preoccupation.
The man was hard set by his purpose, from which nothing would be permitted to deflect him. The delay[292] in Annette’s coming gave him no anxiety. She would come, he knew. For it was a very different Annette returning with him to Buffalo Coulee from the fury who had determined upon his destruction.
But the Wolf was not now thinking of Annette. At no time in his life had she been far from his thoughts before. But now, for once at least, she found no place in them. The journey before him, that rush back to Buffalo Coulee and the thing it meant, preoccupied him to the exclusion of all else.
The Wolf had undergone one of those swift transformations to which, under stress, human nature is so susceptible. He was bitterly determined. Scruple was flung to the winds.
Hitherto he had looked on all life tolerantly. He had seen good in all men, in all things. He had always felt that the simple fact of life, with all its tremendous appeal, all its human possibilities, was something for which to be joyously thankful. But that wholesome phase had gone, shattered beyond repair. The confining bars of a prison had brought him his awakening. He had delved to the true meaning of his presence in Calford.
The man’s mood was written large in eyes that still smiled, but which shone coldly, implacably, in spite of their natural expression. It was there in his set jaws, in the tight-set lips closed over his cigarette. It[293] was in his calm patience, awaiting Annette’s coming. He was master of himself, steeled to the last fibre of his being for the bitter task he had set himself.
Finally she came. Annette came alone. She came padding, a bundling, fur-clad figure over the snow, from one of the long, low huts of the barrack married quarters, where she had been housed since her coming to Calford. She came slowly, almost reluctantly. And she was carrying a bundle of clothing tied up hastily, without care for appearance.
At sight of her the Wolf bestirred out of his preoccupation.
The change in Annette was even more pronounced than was the change in the Wolf. All the old wilful spirit and impishness had gone out of her. And as she came to the horses and to the waiting man, her peering eyes were apprehensive within the depths of her storm collar. She came with that uncertainty, that dreadful diffidence that suggested imminent, precipitate flight were her inclination given free play. She looked pathetically lonely and helpless.
There was no verbal greeting. For an instant the Wolf’s expression softened. That was all. He took the girl’s bundle from her and tied it on his saddle. Then he flung the reins over the horses’ heads, and the girl leaped astride of her saddle and moved off.
Their way lay through the heart of the city with[294] its morning traffic in full tide. It was down one of the broad avenues, dotted with automobiles and horse sleighs, and heavy double-bob commercial vehicles. The way was lined with houses and stores heavily burdened with slowly melting snow. Then there were the besmirched drifts rotting against the sidewalks.
The horses ambled their way through the traffic. The Wolf had no desire to draw attention to their going. And it was not till the river bridge was crossed, and they breasted their way out of the valley to the plains above, that the eager horses stretched out into the devouring gait that was to bear them to their destination.
As the last habitation fell away behind them the Wolf breathed his relief.
There in the city he felt he had no place. It was the world of civilization to which his claim had always been small enough, and now less than ever. Down there the snow had been soft and rotten, and it appealed to him as though it were symbolical of the life that was lived there. Up on the plains, with the keen breath blowing down from the far hills, the trail was iron hard, and he was glad.
He rode on beside the girl with the silence unbroken between them. Pace was increased to something commensurate with Fyles’ anticipation. And the Wolf’s mood eased under the influence of activity and the friendliness of his surroundings.
[295]This was the world to which he belonged. The wintry sky, the keen wind that could leap to storm in minutes, the depths of snow, and then—the hills.
Those hills of his childhood. It was good to think of them. And particularly so now. The deeps of forest. The chaos of snowy crests. The vast hidden valleys that only knew the denizens of the wilderness and Nature’s flaming moods. The wild life of it all. The intense hush and infinite solitude.
The dreams of boyhood came again to the Wolf. Those early vanities and schemings. But were they dreams? It almost seemed as though they were not. Perhaps they were visions vouchsafed to him of realities to come. At any rate now the memory of them revived, and he found them to be alive with new and profound meaning.
“Wolf!”
Annette had turned. She had released the storm collar from about her throat, and the sting of the wind had restored the flush of well-being to the oval of her cheeks. Apprehension had abated in her eyes. And the Wolf’s heart quickened at the sight of it.
“Why, Wolf?” she cried quickly, anxiously. “What d’you need me back home for? It’s no sort of good my ever goin’ ther’ again. I—I just can’t. It’s cruel! Quit me, an’ let me beat it back to the city. I can get work. I can clean for folks in their houses.[296] That way things wouldn’t seem so—so bad. I don’t want to see ’em. Any of ’em. I can’t face it.”
The Wolf reined his horse to a walk. Annette’s pony responded on the instant.
It was so different. A few weeks ago the girl’s tone, her words, would have been so very different. There would have been no appeal. She would have spoken her will and none too easily. And somehow the Wolf would rather have listened to the old hectoring.
His reply did not come at once. There flashed before his mind a picture of all that had brought about the pitiful change in this girl who could never be less than all the world to him. Those dreadful last moments of his trial. And then the almost brutal method he had used in forcing her present obedience to his will. He thrust it all aside. He had learned his lesson.
“You won’t need to face it, kid,” he said quietly. “We’ll make home at nightfall. By mornin’ we’ll be makin’ the hills.”
Annette’s lips moved, but no sound came. Her eyes were wide with incredulous amazement.
The Wolf rolled a cigarette and lit it. He left his reins hanging loose over the horn of his saddle.
Suddenly he heard the girl’s whisper.
“The hills?”
[297]“Sure. The home we’ll make ther’ together.” A sound followed the Wolf’s announcement. It was something like a laugh. But it was without mirth. “Ther’s fish in the creeks, an’ pelts in the forests. Same as ther’ was years back when we reckoned those things figgered bigger than the pile of dollars I’ve pouched in Buffalo Coulee. We’re goin’ to the hills, when I’m through to-night.”
As though the man’s words impelled her, Annette turned upon the long line of the western hills. The Wolf watched her out of the tail of his eye. He saw the stormy rise and fall of her bosom, which had nothing to do with the movement of the horse under her. He warmed. A sense of gladness swept through him.
“You want me up in the hills?”
The girl was still gazing at the far-flung rampart whose jagged outline cut the wintry sky.
The Wolf pitched his cigarette end away with a vicious jerk.
“Say, kid, have I got to tell you?” he cried roughly. The man’s eyes lit as he spoke. There flashed into them the light of sudden passion, all that passion which nothing the girl could do, or say, had ever had power to abate. “Haven’t you got it yet you’re mine? Can’t I beat it into your fool head you belong me? Have always belonged me? Ther’ ain’t no life fer you without me. An’ I guess ther’s no life I ken see without you. Ther’ hasn’t ever been. We’re[298] goin’ to those old hills, wher’ ther’s all the things we know. It’s goin’ to be the same as when we were fool kids. Only you’ll be mine. Mine fer good an’ all. An’ there won’t be any Pideau.”
The sight of the vast mountains seemed to hold the girl fascinated.
“But—ther’s—the——”
The Wolf suddenly reached out. He caught the girl’s arm in a grip and swung her round in the saddle so that she faced him. The storm in his eyes was something that found her thrilling with an emotion she had never yet known. The dusky blood receded from her cheeks. But she looked back into his eyes unafraid.
“God in heaven! Do I care?” he cried hoarsely. “Do you reckon Sinclair’s kid ken rob me of you? Do you guess his dirt to you makes me want you less? He don’t figger with me. An’ I guess that baby thing’ll seem good to me, seein’ it’s mostly part of you. Ther’s goin’ to be no fool talk that way. Fate handed you to me years back an’ I’ve a grip on things I ain’t lettin’ go. I’ve told you love for years, kid, when you fancied laffin’ in my face, or shoutin’ murder at me. I don’t need tell you more now. It goes all the time. It goes jest as long as I got air to breathe.”
The last of the girl’s fear fell from her. It fell away like a nightmare before the golden sun of day. Her bosom suddenly seemed to fill to choking with[299] some queer wonderful sensation such as she had never known before.
She turned away to the hills again, and their crystal purity seemed to be shining with a new light that set her yearning. And in her ears rang those fierce, savage tones which told her that which the Wolf had never told her before.
Oh, she knew it now. She gladly saw it and admitted it. It had been so all along, but she had been blind to it. The Wolf was her master. She was his slave.
The hills? With him? Yes, yes! A thousand times, yes! The ends of the earth! Anywhere! She felt that sinewy body near her. She knew the physical strength of those great hands. The trunk-like neck that held that head so fearlessly confident. At that instant she would have been glad to feel the crushing strength of his hands in chastisement for the things she had done to hurt him.
Suddenly she swung round from the mountains.
“The hills!” she cried urgently. “Wolf! Wolf! Why did you do it? Oh, I’m not grievin’ you killed him. But why did you? Yes. Sure. It means the hills, an’ I’m ready. But it’ll be the hills always—for you—or——”
“Yes. After to-night. But not for other reason!”
The Wolf stared out ahead over the white expanse[300] of winter. Far away beyond the bare horizon lay Buffalo Coulee, and that—to-night. He was glad of to-night. There was no other emotion in him than satisfaction as he contemplated it. A sharp ejaculation broke.
“Tcha! Say, kid, why talk that fool stuff? Ain’t it beat from your head yet? I didn’t kill that skunk Sinclair. You know it, unless you’re crazy. Get it right here. I didn’t—kill—Sinclair.”
“But I saw. You’d been ther’! Your gun! An’ he was dead!”
It was the old Annette. All the old spirit. And it gladdened the man’s heart.
The Wolf flung back his head and laughed. It was a laugh of sheer joy, carefree, and good to hear. She had come back. It was the old Annette riding beside him.
“Say, kid, we got a dope of sense between us that wouldn’t save a maggot from the bughouse. You saw my gun, with Sinclair dead. Maybe you did. I saw you standin’ with my gun in your hand lookin’ down at the carcass you’d shot the life right out of. Well?”
“I didn’t! I didn’t! I guessed it was you.”
“Sure. An’ I felt good they should choke me to death so you could get all the daylight comin’ to you.”
“Man, man! You’re crazy. Who killed Sinclair?”
The Wolf was preparing another smoke.
[301]“You’ll be wise to-night,” he said, pouring the grains of tobacco into the paper.
“An’ the hills—after to-night.”
There was the hush of awe in the girl’s voice.
“After—to-night.”
Annette reached out. She caught the man’s arm with a jerk that shot his tobacco from its paper.
“Father—Pideau!”
The Wolf was grinning into twin black depths of horror. Annette’s grip on his arm tightened spasmodically.
“You shan’t! You crazy fool, I tell you, you shan’t!” she cried.
With his other hand the Wolf took hold of her. He tore her hand from his arm and crushed it violently in his great palm.
“You’re my woman, kid,” he said, in a tone that brooked no denial. “You’re mine, now. Ther’s not a thing to this life fer you but—me. I say it’s the hills—to-morrow!”
CHAPTER XVIII
THE “FOUR-FLUSH”
THE stillness was grave-like. The room was lit by a glimmer of light percolating through the thickly smoked glass of a kerosene lamp. The shadows were deep in the angles of the room, while around the stove, and on the table near by, upon which the lamp stood, the light was no more than sufficient for the barest visibility.
It was the office at the back of Pideau’s store, that small, partitioned-off apartment where the half-breed was in the habit of seeking hours of brooding solitude, pondering the reflections of a disreputable life. Just now its atmosphere was heavy with tragedy, and Stanley Fyles would gladly have exchanged it for the more wholesome chill of the night outside.
The policeman was standing quite still. He had been standing so for several minutes. Perhaps he was feeling the reaction of his discovery. Perhaps he was merely considering, studying, reading, translating the ugly thing upon which he was gazing. It may even have been that the sense of desolation prevailing, the human disaster of it all, had smote its way clear through the case-hardening with which the years of[303] delving into criminal motive and psychology had armored him.
In spite of inadequate light, or, perhaps because of it, the details of the scene were arresting. There were the misty shadows where dust and cobwebs had accumulated through years of half-breed neglect and uncleanness. There were the shelves which looked to have been gone over by someone, careful that no private document should remain for prying eyes. Then the desk, littered with masses of papers, with every drawer in it standing open. The place had been ransacked from end to end.
An overturned chair lay directly in front of the stove which was itself by no means free from the general wreckage. The faint glimmer of fire in its heart was almost choked out of existence by masses of burned paper that filled the fire box. Then, directly in front of it, sprawled on the unclean floor immediately beside the overturned chair, lay the cold remains of a human life.
Fyles knew that defeat was complete.
It was all that remained of the Wolf’s partner, Pideau Estevan. He was stone dead and cold. He was shot through the mouth, with the result that half the crown of his head had been shattered. And the wreckage of it was splashed in every direction.
No great discerning was needed to tell the policeman[304] what had occurred. For there, beside the body, just where it must have fallen from the hand that fired the exterminating shot, lay a heavy, old-time, seven-chambered gun, with the bore of a miniature cannon.
With the examination of that weapon had come much enlightenment. It had given Fyles a pretty full understanding of the man it had slain. Only one chamber had been discharged. The other six were still loaded. They were loaded with soft-nosed, explosive bullets!
Fyles’ search was over. It had been thorough. And it had not gone unrewarded. Now he was considering the sprawled body and telling himself many things which the sight of it suggested.
He knew that that shattered life represented the simple logic of events. To him it was the natural sequence of them consequent upon those last moments in the courthouse at Calford, when Superintendent Croisette had passed him his hastily written note.
Yes. It was the result of the breaking down of Annette’s evidence by the man, John Danson, that had flung Pideau into headlong panic. That was the hoisting of the red light of danger. With the conflict of testimony before the Court, with Annette and the Wolf confounding each other, Nemesis had arisen before the haunted mind of the half-breed. The suspicious, nimble Pideau, had needed no more. There could be only[305] one development from that. The truth! The plain deadly truth! And he knew, he very surely knew, what that meant. The Wolf would be set free.
It was the Wolf’s freedom wherein lay the real answer to Pideau’s death. Fyles negatived the idea that any fear of the processes of the law could have driven the man to his desperate act. No. A creature of his type, who loaded his murderous gun with explosive bullets, was not the man to blow his own head to pieces out of fear of any process of the law. It was some far greater fear that appalled him. It was something infinitely more devastating than that; something vital, more personal. Something, the contemplation of which robbed him of the last shred of his brutish manhood.
With the Wolf certain to be set free Pideau had fled from Calford, headlong, pursued by all the hounds of hellish fear. And Fyles knew that that fear was well enough founded. With the Wolf free, and baying the trail, God help the man who had sought to do him injury.
At last the policeman removed his pipe and knocked it out on the stove, and his gaze at once lifted to an ill-scrawled envelope propped against the oily stand of the lamp. He gazed at it thoughtfully. It was addressed to the Wolf.
He was just a little curious. Had the letter been[306] addressed by the dead man to Annette, Fyles would unquestionably have opened it. But with the superscription of the Wolf’s name he had refrained.
Now he speculated. What did it contain? Would it contain a clue to the queer association of these men? Would it tell him the answer to those many questions with regard to the Wolf which had puzzled his mind since his first contact with these people? Or, on the other hand, would it contain merely the cowardly defiance of a man, who, in his panic and despair could still find pleasure in the fact of having robbed the other of his vengeance?
Well, it was of no very great consequence now. And, anyway, he would be present when the Wolf opened it.
He dismissed the matter, and turned to the chair at the desk. He drew it up and set it near the stove so that the dead body of the half-breed was almost hidden from him. Then he sat himself down. And as he did so the door at the front end of the store crashed to.
The Wolf and Fyles were standing together. Where the Wolf stood he was in full view of the dead Pideau. And his dark eyes were held fascinated by the gruesome spectacle. Fyles, with the stove barring his view, was closely observing his companion.
After the slamming of the far door Fyles had[307] waited. He had known at once the meaning of that crash. It was the thing for which he had planned and waited. It could only be the coming of the Wolf, and possibly Annette. He hoped and expected it would be the Wolf alone.
When the man pushed his way into the little office there had been one sharp ejaculation of amazement that seemed to hiss with the Wolf’s intake of breath as he made his discovery. Fyles said nothing. He watched. He was reading in his own way the flood of emotion the other’s expressive face was at no pains to conceal. He wanted the Wolf to realize every detail of the scene before he spoke.
When at last the Wolf turned from the man on the floor and looked at the policeman, the latter had risen from his chair.
“So you came right along—at once?” Fyles questioned. “The moment you saw the light in the window? Why?”
There was an instant change in the expression of the Wolf’s face. Fyles saw it abruptly harden. His eyes lit with a frigid gleam that warned the other of the ugly depths he had deliberately probed.
“To kill him!” the Wolf snapped. And the downright simplicity of it left no doubt whatever.
The policeman looked squarely into the fierce eyes and nodded.
[308]“That’s why I had to get around ahead of you,” he smiled without provocation. “I meant to see you didn’t set that rope about your fool neck for good and all. I came for that. But I came to get him, too. He’s fooled us—both.”
Then Fyles indicated the letter propped against the lamp.
“For you,” he said.
The Wolf moved round to the table. Fyles watched the careful manner in which he avoided the body of his partner. He saw him tear the letter open and glance at its contents. Then he saw him thrust it into the pocket of his pea-jacket.
After that he picked his way round to the stove, and began to shake it down in the preoccupied fashion of a man whose physical action has nothing to do with his thought.
But Fyles wanted to know the contents of the letter.
“May I read it?” he asked simply.
The Wolf passed the letter without a moment’s hesitation.
“Sure,” he said. “You best read it.”
Fyles unfolded the paper. It was stained and dirty, like the envelope. He moved to obtain a better light. Then he read. The message was scrawled across the sheet in clumsy characters.
“Be good to my girl or I’ll bring all hell back at you.”
[309]There was no signature. And certainly none was needed.
Fyles pondered the brief message, and he knew that here, at least, was the man. There was no attempt at disguise. His dying thought was for his daughter, Annette, and it was hopelessly mixed up with the almost childish impotence of a brutish threat.
“That’s Pideau!” The Wolf crushed the paper in his hand, and pitched it into the stove. “A ‘four-flush’!”
“He hated you good.”
Fyles began to button his fur coat. He had had enough of that place.
“Yes.”
The policeman pulled his fur cap down over his ears.
“But I’d say Annette meant something to him.”
“Yes.”
The Wolf’s monosyllable was devoid of interest.
“We best get along to the police shack,” Fyles suggested. “We can talk there.”
The Wolf looked down at the dead man. It was almost as though he were reluctant. As though, even with the man dead, he hated that he should escape him. He suddenly looked up into the policeman’s face.
“God! I needed to kill him bad!” he cried. Then with an outburst of bitter feeling: “That feller was hell’s own! A ‘four-flush’! My God! That don’t[310] say haf. Ther’ wasn’t crime enough in the world fer him. He’d kill all the time, if he was sure he’d get away with it. But he was scared. Plumb scared! Say, he wasn’t human. Not from the day his mother got him. I’m sick. Yes. Plumb sick! He’s pulled his ‘four-flush’ on me an’ got away with it.”
Fyles looked into the troubled face.
“Has he?” The Wolf’s response was an impatient gesture, and Fyles shook his head. “You’re alive and free,” he added quietly. “You’ve got your stake and—Annette. You got all the world ahead of you. He’s—dead!”
CHAPTER XIX
THE HILLS
THERE was something wholesome and comforting in the police quarters after the stark hideousness of the scene in the office of the store across the township.
To Stanley Fyles it was an environment that never failed in its appeal. The sink of crime in which all his work lay made the bare walls, the hard chairs, the carpetless floors and rough sleeping blankets seem like luxury of the most superlative quality.
The Wolf was impressed in another direction.
He was sitting in a chair with his moccasined feet thrust up on a cheerfully roaring wood stove. And he was thinking of his last visit to that station.
Fyles had produced a capacious flask of rye whisky. He had poured a stiff “four fingers” into the glass he had carefully wiped with a coarse towel. He left his desk and crossed to the stove, and offered the drink to the Wolf.
“It’ll take the bad taste out of your mouth, Wolf,” he said pleasantly. “We got hours before us till the boy that runs this station pulls in for the night. The weather’s good and he won’t rush. It’s good to get a wash when you’ve mixed with dirt.”
The Wolf shook his head in refusal.
[312]“I haven’t use fer the stuff, Sergeant, anyway. You see, I’ve been years makin’ it. I’m through with liquor now. But I got to smoke.”
Fyles made no attempt to press his offer. He just drew up a chair while the Wolf pulled out his tobacco sack. He sat down and set the glass and his flask near by on the bare floor. Then, as the other’s nimble fingers turned in his paper and twisted the ends of it, he nodded smilingly and drank down half the liquor.
“You can tell me,” he urged, as the well watered spirit warmed him. “You’re the only feller can—now.”
The Wolf inhaled. He shifted his feet, which were becoming uncomfortably hot. His gaze came round with its quaint smile.
“Are we still just men, Sergeant?”
“Surely.”
“Yes, that’s so,” the Wolf nodded. “I always feel that way with you.”
Fyles ignored the frank compliment, but it came pleasantly.
“Say, boy,” he said, “it’s a cinch you reckoned Annette killed Sinclair. And Annette was dead sure you’d killed Sinclair. And it was Pideau contrived you should both think that way. How?”
The Wolf sucked his cigarette for a reflective moment and finally blew a cloud of smoke.
[313]“It’s easy now,” he said thoughtfully. “You see, Annette’s told me the things I didn’t know. After Sinclair set out fer the cache Annette had a crazy worry. I guess she was scared fer the thing she’d done. Maybe she was scared fer Sinclair—or me—or both. You can’t ever tell with a woman. Maybe she didn’t know herself. Anyway, she followed along, an’—she found Sinclair dead, an’ my gun lyin’ along with him. One guess was all she took. An’ it set her stark crazy.” He paused. Then he went on quickly. “I was beating fer the cache to clear the liquor. I got there. The lamp was alight. Annette was standin’ over Sinclair with my gun in her hand. I went crazy, too. It was Annette. An’ she’d shot up a police boy. That’s how I got it. I ought to’ve jumped in right ther’. But I didn’t. An’ in my craziness I let her beat it without a word.”
The Wolf spread out his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
“Then she didn’t see you as she said she did?” Fyles asked sharply.
“No. She just said that. She figgered sure I’d pulled on Sinclair, and reckoned to make it red hot fer me.”
Fyles nodded. He recognized the half-breed in Annette’s deliberate lie in support of her accusation.
“But Pideau didn’t plan any of that,” he objected.
[314]“No. I guess they were chances he hadn’t figgered. He only figgered one play. To have it so I shot up Sinclair. Pideau played his hand good till his nerve broke.”
The Wolf sucked his cigarette and held his great hands to the stove so that their wrists were bared. Fyles saw the wrists, and his memory went back. The Wolf raised his head.
“You see, Sergeant,” he said. “Pideau reckoned he had a big score on me. I knew it. I’d known it years. An’ someday I was dead sure he’d try and pay it. But he played this so bright I didn’t guess. He certainly did.”
The Wolf laughed.
“The thing in Pideau was his father feelin’ fer Annette. An’ even that wasn’t the big thing it needed to be. But Annette was his an’ he felt good about it. He just hadn’t use fer me and was sick to death I was crazy fer Annette. Oh, I knew it. But he never said a word. Then he got wise to what Sinclair had done, an’ he was madder than a bull at breedin’ time. Sinclair’s number went right up when Pideau got wise. But Pideau, bein’ what he was, reckoned to have me do the killin’. If I didn’t feel that way then he’d play his hand. I’m wise now. I wasn’t then. Pideau played me, an’ I was surely crazy to kill. But I didn’t know all Sinclair had done then.”
Fyles nodded.
[315]“There wouldn’t have been waiting if you had?”
“Waitin’? Say, I’d have pulled on sight an’ shot him to death in his tracks!”
Again Fyles nodded, and the Wolf went on.
“No. I didn’t know. An’ like a crazy kid I went along to Annette. I went along an’ pulled all I could say. It was a big lot. Maybe it was too much. But I was just mad. There was a tough time, but I reckoned I had my way. Annette swore to cut Sinclair right out. So I quit the notion of killin’ an’ meant to get after the liquor with Pideau.”
“That night Pideau an’ I sat in on the play. An’ I told him I wasn’t killin’ Sinclair. He was rough, but he took it. An’ I told him Annette was cuttin’ Sinclair out. He figgered she couldn’t. But I didn’t guess even then. I handed out the game. You see, I always handed things out to him. And while we were talkin’ we heard somethin’ out in the store.”
“Suspicious?” Fyles’ interest was absorbing.
The Wolf laughed mirthlessly.
“It pulled Pideau quick. He went out in a hurry. When he came back he talked ‘rats in the crackers.’ And I ate it at a gulp.”
“It was Annette—listening to your talk?”
“Sure. But I didn’t know. I guess Pideau did, though. Maybe it was that showed him the way to the things that seemed good to him. Anyway, I quit[316] him that night with our plans all fixed fer next night at eight o’clock.”
“Just how were the plans?”
“He’d to have two teams to the bluff. I was to make the cache an’ tote the kegs across to him.”
“You think he figgered Annette was listening to carry the plans to Sinclair? He must have been quick?”
“Oh, Pideau was quick. He’d a nose filled with suspicion. He was the brightest proposition in locatin’ the other feller’s play you’d find in a year. But I take it he saw more to this thing than he’d hoped for. I’d quit on killin’ Sinclair. He hadn’t. Then there was that score on me.”
“He calculated Sinclair meant to ambush you—being single-handed?”
“Yes.”
“So he figgered to ambush Sinclair—with your gun?”
The Wolf nodded. Fyles poured himself another drink and refilled the pipe that had burned out.
“He was taking a big chance,” Fyles demurred. Then he added: “For a scared man.”
The Wolf shook his head.
“He hadn’t time for his scare. His scare would come—after. I’ve seen it act that way before.”
“I think I get it.”
[317]“He’d kill Sinclair. An’ he’d have me where he figgered it ’ud be good fer me to be.”
“Yes. And then?”
“Why he put it through better than he guessed. Chances played fer him. He got his sleighs set an’ went along to the cache early. When Sinclair got around he got it jest where Pideau fancied that sort of shooting—through his back. An’ he left my gun with him. Then he quit in a hurry an’ went back to his teams. Then Annette got around. An’ after I came along and saw Annette. Then, like a crazy fool, I went along to Pideau, who was waitin’ at the bluff, an’ brought him along over. When he saw, his ugly grin was ready. He jest laffed at me an’ told me the crazy fool I was to leave my gun around after shooting Sinclair. An’ all through I jest hadn’t a suspicion. I thought sure Annette had killed Sinclair, an’ when I learned the thing he’d done to her I jest knew it was so. It was that last that fixed things. Annette! My little kid. I felt glad for a rope to choke the life out of me. I was sick. Sick to death then. That kid was Sinclair’s. Annette, I figgered, wanted just him. Well, there wasn’t a thing to keep me livin’ so—— An’ that way I could fix it, so they couldn’t ever touch her. She’d killed Sinclair, an’ I was glad.”
Fyles kicked in the damper. The stove was getting red hot. He picked up a hot cinder and dropped it into his pipe. For a moment he smoked heavily.
[318]“I’d—be—glad for—the rest?” he said presently.
The Wolf looked up with a start. Their eyes met. And the steady regard of the policeman conveyed enlightenment.
“You see, Wolf, we’re still just plain men,” Fyles added, as he knocked the cinder from his pipe. “You don’t have to, unless you feel that way.”
The Wolf spread out his great hands.
“It don’t matter—with him dead,” he said. “It was when I was a kid. Annette, too. Y’see, Pideau fed me those days. That’s why I wouldn’t have told—ever. He never believed I wouldn’t. He felt I had him where I wanted him. That was the trouble. It was the dirt in his mind. He was a cattle rustler—in the hills.”
“Ah! When?”
“Eleven year back. An’ before that.”
Fyles’ eyes brightened with a consuming interest.
“We wanted him bad—then,” was all he said.
“Yes. It was the last play he made. A swell bunch. Cows and steers. I was back home with Annette. I got out on a play after wolves. I’d my pony an’ dogs. The only wolf I located was one, Pideau. I trailed him down and when I brought up with him it was in time to see him shoot up two boys who hadn’t got sense. He shot ’em cold. An’ they hadn’t more chance than Sinclair had. They wore red[319] coats the same as him. An’ he stripped ’em an’ dumped ’em in the muskeg. I told him that way. I helped him. I had to—fer my life. I pulled through with him on my nerve. He’d have killed me else, an’ dumped me, too.”
Fyles removed his pipe.
“McDonald and Lester,” he said. “I remember. They never got back.”
“No. The muskeg don’t let go its grip.”
“No.”
The two men sat staring at the stove. Fyles looked up.
“Yes, I’d say Pideau would have been glad to be quit of you. And now?”
“Now?”
The Wolf cocked an ear as a sound in the outer office warned of the return of the constable in charge of the station. He stood up.
“Guess I’ll beat it, Sergeant,” he said and held out a muscular hand.
Fyles took it and gripped it.
“Annette?” he questioned.
The Wolf nodded.
“We’re quittin’ to-night. The folks of Buffalo won’t see us. We’re takin’ all we reckon to. Guess we’ll have two teams, an’ all they can haul. Between us our stake’s more than good. First we’re goin’ to[320] get fixed by a passon. Then the hills we know. Y’see, ther’s room in the hills. Then I haven’t a name but ‘Wolf.’ An’ that ain’t good amongst folks.”
Fyles watched him go. He moved out almost without a sound. There was just a faint, soft, padding of his moccasined feet. And the sound impressed itself on the man he had just left. The Wolf.
THE END
