The Wolf rolled a cigarette and lit it. He left his reins hanging loose over the horn of his saddle.
Suddenly he heard the girl’s whisper.
“The hills?”
“Sure. The home we’ll make ther’ together.” A sound followed the Wolf’s announcement. It was something like a laugh. But it was without mirth. “Ther’s fish in the creeks, an’ pelts in the forests. Same as ther’ was years back when we reckoned those things figgered bigger than the pile of dollars I’ve pouched in Buffalo Coulee. We’re goin’ to the hills, when I’m through to-night.”
As though the man’s words impelled her, Annette turned upon the long line of the western hills. The Wolf watched her out of the tail of his eye. He saw the stormy rise and fall of her bosom, which had nothing to do with the movement of the horse under her. He warmed. A sense of gladness swept through him.
“You want me up in the hills?”
The girl was still gazing at the far-flung rampart whose jagged outline cut the wintry sky.
The Wolf pitched his cigarette end away with a vicious jerk.
“Say, kid, have I got to tell you?” he cried roughly. The man’s eyes lit as he spoke. There flashed into them the light of sudden passion, all that passion which nothing the girl could do, or say, had ever had power to abate. “Haven’t you got it yet you’re mine? Can’t I beat it into your fool head you belong me? Have always belonged me? Ther’ ain’t no life fer you without me. An’ I guess ther’s no life I ken see without you. Ther’ hasn’t ever been. We’re goin’ to those old hills, wher’ ther’s all the things we know. It’s goin’ to be the same as when we were fool kids. Only you’ll be mine. Mine fer good an’ all. An’ there won’t be any Pideau.”
The sight of the vast mountains seemed to hold the girl fascinated.