Pideau concerned himself with none of these things as he approached his doorway. His gaze became focussed on the instant upon two figures standing at the gateway in the lateral log fence surrounding the police quarters on the far side of the town. A man and a girl were there talking together.
For a moment Pideau remained in full view. Then he drew back and partially closed the door. For some reason he had become desirous of remaining unseen. The sight had stirred him to the profoundest anger. It was Annette, now grown to full womanhood, and Constable Ernest Sinclair of the Mounted Police.
In the ten years since Pideau had abandoned the mountains for the open life of the prairie the change in his fortunes was considerable. The man himself was incapable of change, except possibly in his outward appearance. In that he had done his best to disguise the hill tough and cattle thief, and not without a measure of success. But there were so many features that admitted of no disguise and would dog him to the end of his days.
His color—nothing could alter that, even though he had introduced himself to the luxury of a daily application of horse soap and water. Then his eyes—those beady, snapping eyes, which never really smiled, whatever his mood. They would remain a permanent indication of the man behind them.
Prosperity, however, had made some outward impression. It had forced on him a limited concern for at least some of the decencies of life. His lank hair was no longer a greasy mat. His beard was trimmed close to his brutish face and looked clean. Then his greasy buckskin had given place to store tweeds. And a weekly, clean, variegated shirt produced a striking contrast against the dark skin where its rolled sleeves left his dusky forearms bare.
The man was consumed with greed for money. It had always been so. And it was his money hunger that had made him grudgingly yield to a show of uplift. He had forced himself, in the prosecution of his schemes, to avoid outraging the community in which he had pitched his camp. He had for ten years contrived to fling dust in the eyes of those with whom he contacted in Buffalo Coulee. And even the watchful eyes of the police, in the person of Constable Ernest Sinclair, had failed to discover the full depths of his iniquities.
A storm was raging behind the man’s eyes as he watched the two figures at the police quarters. Annette was a beautiful woman, and the only spark of humanity in Pideau made him glad of her. Those two were philandering. He knew. It had been going on for months. His girl was philandering with a red-coat! To Pideau the thought was simply maddening. Anyone else, no matter who, amongst his civilian neighbors, would have given him no concern whatever. But a red-coat!
But then Annette had developed as she had been bound to do. The beauty of her mother had come to her, just as she had inherited through those channels which had created Pideau, himself. The result was no easy blending. She was alive with headlong, passionate impulse; she possessed a spirit of unthinking recklessness; all the sex in her was a demonstration of her mixed blood. She knew no authority but her own will and dismissed the father, who had once purposed to destroy her, from her consideration. She went her own headlong way and only served the plans of her menfolk in so far as they did not clash with her own.
Suddenly Pideau spat and turned from the sight that infuriated him. And as he did so a man approached his door, and a cheerful voice greeted him.
“It’s thirst, Pideau. The thirst of a desert! I’m going right across to hew old Amos Smith. Give me support. The biggest, yellowest schooner of lager your capacious, if reprehensible cellar, can provide. Thank the good Lord we Canadians aren’t quite dry yet. Thank the good Lord for a disreputable Pideau.”