like it none too much; it takes no end of worry to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear; Jack has blossomed too quick; he’s a booze fighter, and that kind always laps up mental stimulants to keep the blue devils away.”
“You’re doing the lad an injustice, I think,” Cameron said. “I was prejudiced myself at first.”
Slade pulled a heavy hand three times down his big beard, spat a shaft of tobacco juice, took his hat off, straightened out a couple of dents in it, and put it back on his head:
“You best stick to that prejudice feeling, Boss—first guesses about a feller most gener’ly pans out pretty fair. And I’d keep an eye kinder skinned if you have any fuss with Jack; I see him look at you once or twice when you corrected his way of doin’ things.”
Cameron laughed.
“’Tain’t no laughin’ matter, Boss. When a feller’s been used to cussin’ like hell he can’t keep healthy bottlin’ it up. And all that dirtiness that’s in the Wolf’ll bust out some day same’s you touched a match to a tin of powder; he’ll throw back.”
“There’s nobody to worry about except the little school teacher,” Cameron said meditatively.
This time it was Slade who chuckled. “The schoolmam’s as safe as houses. She ain’t got a pint of red blood in ’em blue veins of hers, ’tain’t nothin’ but vinegar. Jack’s just tryin’ to sober up on her religion, that’s all; it kind of makes him forget horse stealin’ an’ such while he makes a stake workin’ here.”
Then one morning Jack had passed into perihelion.
Cameron took his double-barreled shot gun, meaning to pick up some prairie chicken while he was out looking over his men’s work. As he passed the shack where his men bunked he noticed the door open. This was careless, for train dogs were always prowling about for just such a chance for loot. He stepped through the door and took a peep into the other room. There sat the Wolf at a pine table playing solitaire.
“What’s the matter?” the Scotchman asked.
“I’ve quit,” the Wolf answered surlily.
“Quit?” Cameron queried. “The gang can’t carry on without a chain man.”
“I don’t care a damn. It don’t make no dif’rence to me. I’m sick of that tough bunch—swearin’ and cussin’, and tellin’ smutty stories all day; a man can’t keep decent in that outfit.”
“Ma God!” Startled by this, Cameron harked back to his most expressive Scotch.
“You needn’t swear ’bout it, Boss; you yourself ain’t never give me no square deal; you’ve treated me like a breed.”
This palpable lie fired Cameron’s Scotch blood; also the malignant look that Slade had seen was now in the wolfish eyes. It was a murder look, enhanced by the hypocritical attitude Jack had taken.
“You’re a scoundrel!” Cameron blurted; “I wouldn’t keep you on the work. The sooner Fort Victor is shut of you the better for all hands, especially the women folks. You’re a scoundrel.”
Jack sprang to his feet; his hand went back to a hip pocket; but his blazing wolfish eyes were looking into the muzzle of the double-barrel gun that Cameron had swung straight from his hip, both fingers on the triggers.
“Put your hands flat on the table, you blackguard,” Cameron commanded. “If I weren’t a married man I’d blow the top of your head off; you’re no good on earth; you’d be better dead, but my wife would worry because I did the deed.”
The Wolf’s empty hand had come forward and was placed, palm downward, on the table.
“Now, you hound, you’re just a bluffer. I’ll show you what I think of you. I’m going to turn my back, walk out, and send a breed up to Fort Saskatchewan for a policeman to gather you in.”
Cameron dropped the muzzle of his gun, turned on his heel and started out.
“Come back and settle with me,” the Wolf demanded.
“I’ll settle with you in jail, you blackguard!” Cameron threw over his shoulder, stalking on.
Plodding along, not without nervous twitchings of apprehension, the Scotchman heard behind him the voice of the Wolf saying. “Don’t do that, Mr. Cameron; I flew off the handle and so did you, but I didn’t mean nothin’.”
Cameron, ignoring the Wolf’s plea, went along to his shack and wrote a note, the ugly visage of the Wolf hovering at the open door. He was humbled, beaten. Gun-play in Montana, where the Wolf had left a bad record, was one thing, but with a cordon of Mounted Police between him and the border it was a different matter; also he was wanted for a more serious crime than a threat to shoot, and once in the toils this might crop up. So he pleaded. But Cameron was obdurate; the Wolf had no right to stick up his work and quit at a moment’s notice.
Then Jack had an inspiration. He brought Lucy Black. Like woman of all time her faith having been given she stood pat, a flush rouging her bleached cheeks as, earnest in her mission, she pleaded for the “wayward boy,” as she euphemistically designated this coyote. Cameron was to let him go to lead the better life; thrown into the pen of the police barracks, among bad characters, he would become contaminated. The police had always persecuted her Jack.
Cameron mentally exclaimed again, “Ma God!” as he saw tears in the neutral blue-tinted eyes. Indeed it was time that the Wolf sought a new runway. He had a curious Scotch reverence for women, and was almost reconciled to the loss of a man over the breaking up of this situation.
Jack was paid the wages due; but at his request for a horse to take him back to Edmonton the Scotchman laughed. “I’m not making presents of horses to-day,” he said; “and I’ll take good care that nobody else here is shy a horse when you go, Jack. You’ll take the hoof express it’s good enough for you.”
So the Wolf tramped out of Fort Victor with a pack slung over his shoulder; and the next day Sergeant Heath swung into town looking very debonaire in his khaki, sitting atop the bright blood-bay police horse.
He hunted up Cameron, saying: “You’ve a man here that I want—Jack Wolf. They’ve found his prospecting partner dead up on the Smoky River, with a bullet hole in the back of his head. We want Jack at Edmonton to explain.”
“He’s gone.”
“Gone! When?”
“Yesterday.”
The Sergeant stared helplessly at the Scotchman.
A light dawned upon Cameron. “Did you, by any chance, send word that you were coming?” he asked.
“I’ll be back, mister,” and Heath darted from the shack, swung to his saddle, and galloped toward the little log school house.
Cameron waited. In half an hour the Sergeant was back, a troubled look in his face.
“I’ll tell you,” he said dejectedly, “women are hell; they ought to be interned when there’s business on.”
“The little school teacher?”
“The
