He watched them till they reached the river bank. He saw the Wolf gently set his burden down. Then he turned back to his cattle and morosely continued his work of feeding.
PART II
CHAPTER I
TEN YEARS OF PROSPERITY
PIDEAU ESTEVAN had spent a busy morning in his long, low, iron-roofed store at Buffalo Coulee, which for ten years had become the home of his partnership with the Wolf.
It was the time of year when the prairie winter was the most uncertain. Christmas and New Year’s had been left behind, but as yet there was little easing of conditions and no sign of coming spring. There was a momentary respite in the depths of cold, but that was all. The temperature had been relaxed by a softening wind and the threat of snow.
Pideau’s busy morning had nothing to do with custom. Buffalo Coulee was not buying. It was the time of year when local trade was practically stagnated to the purchase of the barest necessities of life. He had been distributing about his shelves a large shipment of new season’s goods.
He hated the work of his store. Ten years of weighing, and measuring, and endeavoring to retain his customers’ good will had inspired him with an utter detestation of the work which bored his ruthless temperament to extinction. He only submitted to it because it was his share in a carefully considered plan which the Wolf and he had evolved in their pursuit of fortune.
Now he was standing warming his body at the central stove, gazing at the result of his work without a shadow of enthusiasm.
At last he moved away and passed down towards his open doorway, through which no customer had passed since it had first been unfastened that morning. His purpose was part of years of habit. He would lounge there lazing until the cold or an arriving customer drove him back to his counter.
There was nothing in the outlook to attract. Buffalo Coulee was a primitive prairie township that had grown up as a whim of a handful of settlers seeking some sort of companionship, and a community upon which to centre their lives. Just now it consisted of an open space buried under snow that was churned by sled-runners and the wheels of a few decayed automobiles, fringed about by a straggling of mean habitations heavily encrusted with snow. There were no trees in view. The woods lay somewhere behind the store where the solidly frozen river was wrapped in its winter slumber. There were, however, the tattered crests of the distant mountains beyond the houses. And over all the gray dour of a leaden sky.