The boy smiled. He made no attempt to obey. He turned to gaze at the creatures that had angered Annette.
They were standing in an attitude of savage threat. Their manes were bristling. The howl had given way to ferocious deep-throated snarls at a direction where the river lost itself in the dark forests to the northeast.
Annette stood up from her task of readjusting her fly. She had flung her capture amongst the round dozen of already stiffening fish that were lying on the grass. Her angry eyes watched the offending dogs.
She was tall for her twelve years; tall and lathlike. Her limbs were thin, and brown, and shapeless. Clad in a brief skirt that barely covered her bony knees, and in a dark worsted jersey, that seemed to flatten her body the more surely, there was little enough of the beauty of figure that might develop later.
It was different, however, with her dusky face, and the mass of raven-black hair that fell below her shoulders. Her hair was wonderful in its untrained profusion. And her face was already showing signs of a beauty that was almost classical. Her eyes were profoundly expressive of emotions that rarely knew discipline. Her whole expression was full of infinite possibilities. Certainly the half-breed was dominant in her, with all its potentialities for mischief.
The eleven years that had passed since an exhausted Luana had arrived at the door of Pideau Estevan’s dugout had brought little outward change in the half-breed’s mountain hiding, except for the development of Annette, and the boy the woman had brought with her.
The dugout showed no signs of the passage of years, or of the devastating mountain storms. For the rest the valley still served its purpose. The hills, the forests, the rivers, they were all as unchanging as the glacial fields and eternal snows that crowned the lofty summits where earth and sky met.
The unseen changes, however, were in the progress of Pideau’s fortunes. His illicit trade had gone on without interruption. He had bled the harassed settlers on the far eastern plains without mercy or scruple. And it was the smallness of his thefts which had assured his long success.
He never stole cattle in bulk. His thefts looked mean and small. But by a process of raiding in twos and threes, and never more than six head of cattle at a time, he had built up a herd which yielded him ample profit across the United States border to the south of him.
Pideau’s avaricious soul was comparatively satisfied. His fortune was growing and had already opened out pleasing visions of the future. But his astute mind was never resting, and he realized that his immunity from consequences could not continue indefinitely.