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 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.