“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. “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 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.”