The only sign in the man was a deep intake of breath.
He saw the girlhood he worshipped under its simple covering of silk, and a brief, knee-length cloth skirt that revealed flesh-hued stockings below it, and he was satisfied. It was all sufficient. Annette’s moods were her own. They were of no serious matter. He knew them all. He had known them in her as a babe. He knew them no less in the grown woman. He accepted her now as he would have accepted the wayward child of years ago. It was only the man with whom he had seen her who would learn the measure of the devil that was driving him.
“I’m through,” he said. He unbuttoned his coat and began to roll himself a cigarette. “There’s five hundred gallons standin’ ready for the teams. It goes across to-morrow night.”
Annette was startled. But she watched the moving fingers, missing nothing of the Wolf’s expression.
Her mind had leaped back to her lover, and the thing he had said to her. It was almost like Fate. Five hundred gallons, the Wolf had said. And it was to be passed across the border to-morrow night.
“Five hundred gallons?”
Her echo of the Wolf’s announcement was much in the manner of Pideau’s. She watched the thrusting of the cigarette into the man’s mouth, and the lighting of it.
“It’s a swell bunch,” he observed easily. “It’s the biggest brew yet.” He inhaled deeply. Then he gestured with an expressive hand. “I’ll run you into Calford so you can make a big buy for yourself out of my share. That’s right after to-morrow night, when we’ve pouched the dollars, an’ got away with it.”
Annette regarded him in silence. She saw in him the most picturesque creature in Buffalo Coulee. His tall figure, his dark, intelligent eyes. His clean-cut features and shining black hair. But then there was his manner, his maddening assurance. Now, as always, it stirred the flame of her stormiest resentment.
The Wolf looked for no gratitude, and found none. Annette occupied his whole soul. It was not only his privilege to minister to her pleasure, it was not simply a right, a happiness; it was his most treasured duty.