“I’d—be—glad for—the rest?” he said presently.
The Wolf looked up with a start. Their eyes met. And the steady regard of the policeman conveyed enlightenment.
“You see, Wolf, we’re still just plain men,” Fyles added, as he knocked the cinder from his pipe. “You don’t have to, unless you feel that way.”
The Wolf spread out his great hands.
“It don’t matter—with him dead,” he said. “It was when I was a kid. Annette, too. Y’see, Pideau fed me those days. That’s why I wouldn’t have told—ever. He never believed I wouldn’t. He felt I had him where I wanted him. That was the trouble. It was the dirt in his mind. He was a cattle rustler—in the hills.”
“Ah! When?”
“Eleven year back. An’ before that.”
Fyles’ eyes brightened with a consuming interest.
“We wanted him bad—then,” was all he said.
“Yes. It was the last play he made. A swell bunch. Cows and steers. I was back home with Annette. I got out on a play after wolves. I’d my pony an’ dogs. The only wolf I located was one, Pideau. I trailed him down and when I brought up with him it was in time to see him shoot up two boys who hadn’t got sense. He shot ’em cold. An’ they hadn’t more chance than Sinclair had. They wore red coats the same as him. An’ he stripped ’em an’ dumped ’em in the muskeg. I told him that way. I helped him. I had to—fer my life. I pulled through with him on my nerve. He’d have killed me else, an’ dumped me, too.”