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.
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.”