He searched the youth’s face while he waited. And strangely enough his profoundest dislike and distrust of his partner was uppermost in his mind. He should have been glad. He should have warmed to the man. He should have been grateful. For it was the genius of the Wolf that had brought him prosperity and poured the dollars he loved into his greedy hands.
But in ten years of association Pideau had known no peace of mind, no content. Unease was the keynote of his life with the Wolf. He had never been able to rid himself of his original suspicions. And now they had become an obsession. From the beginning the Wolf had been a threatening shadow brooding over his life. Now he gazed at him with the desperate feeling with which a devastating storm about to break might have inspired him. He never looked at the Wolf without the memory that his partner held over him the power of life and death.
The half-breed’s weakness had grown with the years. Violent, inhuman, ready murderer as he was, cowardice had completely undermined such manhood as he had originally possessed. In years of association with the fearlessness and confidence of the Wolf it had fallen away like a hill mist before a rising sun. There was not a single day that had passed, since the Wolf had set his authority at defiance, that Pideau had not regretted his failure to defy the merciless gun which the boy had levelled at him while he claimed his right to bury the dead Luana.
Even now, as the man calmly smoked beside the wood stove, with every sign of their prosperity surrounding him, Pideau remembered more poignantly than ever that the Wolf knew!
But never was a spectre more surely a figment of distorted imagination. The Wolf had neither desire nor intent to take advantage of his knowledge of Pideau’s early crimes. Pideau to him was just a necessary evil in his life. He was an unlovely cross which he must bear. He was Annette’s father. Then, of lesser importance, the Wolf could never forget that shelter had been afforded him, however hatefully, in the days when he could not help himself. It was Pideau who had made possible his early childhood.
The Wolf spread his hands to the warmth.
“I shut her down at that,” he said. “It’s ther’, kegged. The liquor. It’s ready fer the teams right away. An’ we need to act quick.”
He sucked his cigarette and inhaled. Then a faint cloud of smoke escaped his nostrils.
“Teams?”
Pideau’s question was sharp. The Wolf nodded.