Jean was a man strong and purposeful. He had waited long for such an opportunity, and he was not the one to forego his advantage without enforcing his will. If Victor wanted his share of the proceeds of the robbery he must fulfil the promise, which, in a passionate moment, he had bestowed. Davia was as clay in his hands. Jean was different. He was possessed of all the cunning of the half-breed nature, but, looked at from a half-breed point of view, he was a good man, an honest man. A half-breed will shoot an enemy down in his tracks, while yet he is a good father and husband, or a dutiful son. He is a man of much badness and some good. Jean was a little above the average. Possibly it was because his affections were centred upon but one creature in the world, his sister Davia, that he felt strongly in her cause. He knew that, at last, he held Victor in a powerful grip, and he did not intend to relax it.
Jean was as good as his word and took up his abode in Victor's store. Nor would he permit the removal of the treasure under any pretext. This brother of Davia's understood the trader; he did not watch him; it was the chest that contained the money that occupied his vigilance.
Victor was resourceful and imaginative, but the stolid purpose of the other defied his best schemes. He meant to get away with the money, but the bulldog watchfulness of Jean gave him no opportunity. He was held prisoner by his greed, and it seemed as if, in the end, he would be forced to bend to the other's will.
And no word came from Davia. No word that could cause alarm, or tell them of the dire tragedy being enacted in the mountains. And the two men, one for ever scheming and the other watching, passed their time in moody silence.
It was the third day after the foregoing events had taken place, and midday. Victor was in the store standing in the doorway gazing out across the mighty foothills which stretched far as the eyes could reach to the east. He was thinking, casting about in his mind for a means of getting away with the money. Jean was at his post in the inner room.
It was an unbeautiful time of the year. The passing of winter in snow regions is like the moulting season of fowls, or the season when the furred world sheds its coat. The dazzling whiteness of the earth is superseded by a dirty drab-grey. The snow lasts long, but its hue is utterly changed. And now Victor was looking out upon a scene that was wholly dispiriting to the mind used to the brilliancy of the northern winter.