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 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 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.