In his scheme for obtaining wealth Victor had omitted to take into consideration one of the great factors of a life of wrong-doing. A man may not engage in crime with those whom he has wronged.
Victor had sought to obtain good service, forgetting the manner in which he had treated the sister of Jean. The ways of the half-breed are loose in the matter of morals. Davia, he knew, loved him. She was a strong, passionate woman, therefore he had not bothered about Jean. That Jean could possibly have scruples or feelings, had never entered his head. Davia had given her love, then what business of her brother’s was the manner in which he, Victor, chose to accept it? This is how he argued when he fully realized the position in which he had thrust himself. But his argument went no further.
Jean was a man strong and purposeful. He had waited long for such an opportunity, and he was not the one to forego his advantage without enforcing his will. If Victor wanted his share of the proceeds of the robbery he must fulfil the promise, which, in a passionate moment, he had bestowed. Davia was as clay in his hands. Jean was different. He was possessed of all the cunning of the half-breed nature, but, looked at from a half-breed point of view, he was a good man, an honest man. A half-breed will shoot an enemy down in his tracks, while yet he is a good father and husband, or a dutiful son. He is a man of much badness and some good. Jean was a little above the average. Possibly it was because his affections were centred upon but one creature in the world, his sister Davia, that he felt strongly in her cause. He knew that, at last, he held Victor in a powerful grip, and he did not intend to relax it.
Jean was as good as his word and took up his abode in Victor’s store. Nor would he permit the removal of the treasure under any pretext. This brother of Davia’s understood the trader; he did not watch him; it was the chest that contained the money that occupied his vigilance.
Victor was resourceful and imaginative, but the stolid purpose of the other defied his best schemes. He meant to get away with the money, but the bulldog watchfulness of Jean gave him no opportunity. He was held prisoner by his greed, and it seemed as if, in the end, he would be forced to bend to the other’s will.
And no word came from Davia. No word that could cause alarm, or tell them of the dire tragedy being enacted in the mountains. And the two men, one for ever scheming and the other watching, passed their time in moody silence.
It was the third day after the foregoing events had taken place, and midday. Victor was in the store standing in the doorway gazing out across the mighty foothills which stretched far as the eyes could reach to the east. He was thinking, casting about in his mind for a means of getting away with the money. Jean was at his post in the inner room.
It was an unbeautiful time of the year. The passing of winter in snow regions is like the moulting season of fowls, or the season when the furred world sheds its coat. The dazzling whiteness of the earth is superseded by a dirty drab-grey. The snow lasts long, but its hue is utterly changed. And now Victor was looking out upon a scene that was wholly dispiriting to the mind used to the brilliancy of the northern winter.
The trader’s thoughts were moving along out over the stretch of country before him, for in that southeastern direction lay the town of Edmonton, which was his goal. It would be less than a fortnight before the melting snow would practically inundate the land, therefore what he had to do must be done at once. And still no feasible scheme presented itself.
He moved impatiently and a muttered curse escaped him. He asked himself the question again and again while his keen, restless eyes moved eagerly over the scene before him. He took a chew of tobacco and rolled it about in his mouth with the nervous movement of a man beset. He could hear Jean moving heavily about the room behind him, and he wondered what he was doing. But he did not turn to see.