She was a very active-minded girl.  It was not her way to sit wondering and puzzling over anything she could not understand.  She had a knack of setting herself to unravel problems which required explanation in the most common-sense way.  After giving her uncle time to leave the house—­intuition told her that he would do so—­she rose and rang the bell.  Then she moved to the window while she waited for an answer to her summons.  She saw the burly figure of her uncle walking swiftly down towards the settlement and in the direction of the saloon.

She turned with a sigh as a servant entered.

“Did any one call last night while I was out?” she asked.

“Not for you, miss.”

“Oh!”

“No, miss, but Mr. Lablache was here.  He was with your uncle for a long time—­in the office.”

“Did he come in with Mr. Allandale?”

“Oh, no, miss, the master didn’t go out.  At least not that I know of.  Mr. Lablache didn’t call exactly.  I think he just came straight to the office.  I shouldn’t have known he was there, only I was passing the door and heard his voice—­and the master’s.”

“Oh, that will do—­just wait a moment, though.  Say, is Silas around?  Just find him and send him right along.  Tell him to come to the veranda.”

The servant departed, and Jacky sat down at a writing-table and wrote a note to “Lord” Bill.  The note was brief but direct in its tone.

“Can you see me this afternoon?  Shall be in after tea.”

That was all she put, and added her strong, bold signature to it.  Silas came to the window and she gave him the note with instructions to deliver it into the hands of the Hon. Bunning-Ford.

The letter dispatched she felt easier in her mind.

What had Lablache been closeted with her uncle for?  This was the question which puzzled—­nay, alarmed her.  She had seen her uncle early on the previous evening, and he had seemed happy enough.  She wished now, when she had returned from visiting Mrs. Abbot, that she had thought to see if her uncle was in.  It had become such a custom for him lately to be out all the evening that she had long ceased her childhood’s custom of saying “Good-night” to him before retiring to bed.  One thing was certain, she felt her uncle’s strange behavior this morning was in some way due to Lablache’s visit.  She meant to find out what that visit meant.

To this end several plans occurred to her, but in each case were abandoned as unsuitable.

“No,” she murmured at last, “I guess I’ll tax him with it.  He’ll tell me.  If Lablache means war, well—­I’ve a notion he’ll get a hustling he don’t consider.”

Then she left the sitting-room that she might set about her day’s work.  She would see her uncle at dinner-time.

Foss River had not yet risen to the civilized state of late dinners and indigestion.  Early rising and hard work demanded early meals and hearty feeding.  Dinner generally occurred at noon—­an hour at which European society thinks of taking its dejeuner.  By rising late society can thus avoid what little fresh, wholesome air there is to be obtained in a large city.  Civilization jibs at early rising.  Foss River was still a wild and savage country.