“Set down, you scum,” he thundered.  “Another move like that an’ I’ll let the atmosphere into yer.”  Then with a Sudden return to his grim pastime, as the other remained quiet, “Say, red pine makes powerful fine kindlin’.  I reckon they’ll see that light at the settlement.  You don’t seem pleased, man.  Ain’t it a beaut.  Look, they’ve started it the other side.  Now the smoke stack’s caught.  Burn, burn, you beauty.  Look, Lablache, a sixty thousand dollar fire, an’ all yours.  Ain’t you proud to think that it’s all yours?”

Lablache was speechless with horror.  Words failed to express his feelings.  The Breed watched him as a tiger might contemplate its helpless prey.  He understood something of the agony the great man was suffering.  He wanted him to suffer—­he meant him to suffer.  But he had only just begun the torture he had so carefully prepared for his victim.

Presently the roof of the building crashed in, and, for the moment, the blaze leapt high.  Then, soon, it began to die down.  Retief seemed to tire of watching the dying blaze.  He turned again to his prisoner.

“Not ’nough, eh?  Not ’nough.  We can’t stop here all night.  Let’s have the rest.  The sight’ll warm your heart.”  And he laughed at his own grim pleasantry.  “The boys have cleared out your stud ‘plugs.’  And, I guess, yer barns are chocked full of yer wheel gearing and implements.  Say, I guess we’ll have ’em next.”

He turned from his silent captive without waiting for reply, and rapidly discharged the remaining five barrels of his pistol.  For answer another five bonfires were lighted round the barns and corals.  Almost instantly the whole place became a gorgeous blaze of light.  The entire ranch, with the exception of one little shack was now burning as only pine wood can burn.  It was a terrible, never-to-be-forgotten sight, and Lablache groaned audibly as he saw the pride of his wealth rapidly gutted.  If ever a man suffered the money-lender suffered that night Retief showed a great understanding of his prisoner—­far too great an understanding for a man who was supposed to be a stranger to Lablache—­in the way he set about to torture his victim.  No bodily pain could have equaled the mental agony to which the usurer was submitted.  The sight of the demolishing of his beautiful ranch—­probably the most beautiful in the country—­was a cruelly exquisite torture to the money-loving man.  That dread conflagration represented the loss to him of a fortune, for, with grasping pusillanimity, Lablache had refused to insure his property.  Had Retief known this he could not have served his own purpose better.  Possibly he did know, and possibly that was the inducement which prompted his action.  Truly was the money-lender paying dearly for past misdeeds.  With the theft of his cattle and the burning of his ranch his loss was terrible, and, in his moment of anguish, he dared not attempt to calculate the extent of the catastrophe.