“It don’t matter the way he’s dressed.”
Pideau sucked in a whistling breath.
“You daresn’t!”
The half-breed’s challenge came in a hoarse whisper. The thing in his mind seemed to him to be too good to be true—the Wolf—Sinclair—Annette. Fierce glee had replaced every other emotion. If the Wolf took a hand——
He breathed deeply and waited.
“You don’t get it, Pideau,” the Wolf said quietly. “I’m your pardner, and you’ve to play your hand right now. You’ve got to run those cargoes while I stop around here. I’m goin’ to marry Annette. Get that firm in your mind. She belongs me. She’s always belonged me, right from the days we scratched dirt together ’way back in the hills. Do you think that scum Sinclair’s goin’ to take her from me? Do you? I’d think you knew better. Just make your mind up, Annette’s fer me. Annette’s my little play-girl, an’ she’s goin’ to be my wife. Ther’s nothin’ out o’ hell to stop it.”
The Wolf refastened his coat, stuck his cigarette into the corner of his mouth, and lit it. Then his smile became a laugh, and he turned and moved off swiftly in the direction of the door of the store.
Pideau watched him go. His mood was jubilant. But before the other had reached the door his joy had departed.
His suspicious mind was at work again. Suddenly he beheld everything in a different light. The Wolf’s threat. It was not only against the man, Sinclair. What did his last words mean? It was plain, quite plain. They could only have one meaning. The youth had delivered an ultimatum. It was an ultimatum to him, Annette’s father. He had demanded that Annette should be his wife. And he, Pideau, must do his share in achieving that end.