But there was something about his doings of far deeper significance to the boy’s quick mind. Pideau’s work took him past the eastern entrance to the clearing on every journey. And every time he went to the stack empty-handed, he paused, searching the distance with eyes and ears.
Pursuit! The Wolf read the answer. Pideau was looking for pursuit, and pursuit meant either the red-coated police, or those who were far less to be feared, the settlers whose cattle Pideau had stolen. The half-breed was clearly in the grip of real fear.
The Wolf had no love for Pideau. But loyalty to him was almost as strong a bond. He realized instantly the thing he must do. If Pideau needed assistance it was for him to afford it.
In those moments an extravagant sense of his own manhood came to the boy. His soul was uplifted with a great joy, a superlative pride. He felt that his days of boyhood were over. He would be fighting beside Pideau on an equal footing.
The police? The Wolf knew what it meant to war with the police. Outlawry! Penitentiary! Even, possibly, hanging, if his weapon chanced to slay. Well, so be it. He grinned in complete disregard of all consequence.
Pideau was at the head of the eastern cutting. He had been standing there for many moments. He was listening. He was searching, too, with every faculty alert. Of a sudden he moved. The Wolf saw him make for his horse, snatch his rifle, which was slung on the horn of his saddle, and hastily mount.
The next moment horse and rider crashed their way through the undergrowth behind the hay store.
The Wolf made no movement. He, too, was watching and listening with every faculty alert. The sounds of Pideau’s hasty retreat died out abruptly. The boy was under no misapprehension. Pideau had not fled. He was not the man to abandon fifty head of cattle without a desperate fight. What next?
Fresh sounds came swiftly. They came out of the opposite distance. It was a low, soft hammering of hoofs over sun-baked soil, and the sound of it grew in volume, almost at the moment the Wolf first discovered it.