At last “Lord” Bill effected this purpose, but at considerable loss to himself.  He had a fairly good hand, but not, as he knew, sufficiently good to win with.  Lablache and he were left in.  The money-lender had in one plunge raised the bet to the “limit.”  Bill knew that he ought to drop out, but, instead of so doing, he saw his opponent.  He lost the “pot.”

“Thank you, gentlemen,” he said, quietly rising from the table, “my losses are sufficient for one night.  I have finished.  It is daylight and the storm is ‘letting up’ somewhat.”

He turned as he spoke, and, glancing at the staircase, saw Jacky standing at the top of it.  How long she had been standing there he did not know.  He felt certain, although she gave no sign, that she had heard what he had just said.

“Poker” John saw her too.

“Why, Jacky, what means this early rising?” said the old man kindly.  “Too tired last night to sleep?”

“No, uncle.  Guess I slept all right.  The wind’s dropping fast.  I take it it’ll be blowing great guns again before long.  This is our chance to make the ranch.”  She had been an observer of the finish of the game.  She had heard Bill’s remarks on his loss, and yet not by a single word did she betray her knowledge.  Inwardly she railed at herself for having gone to bed.  She wondered how it had fared with her uncle.

Bunning-Ford left the room.  Somehow he felt that he must get away from the steady gaze of those gray eyes.  He knew how Jacky dreaded, for her uncle’s sake, the game they had just been playing.  He wondered, as he went to test the weather, what she would have thought had she known the stakes, or the extent of her uncle’s losses.  He hoped she was not aware of these facts.

“You look tired, Uncle John,” said the girl, solicitously, as she came down the stairs.  She purposely ignored Lablache.  “Have you had no sleep?”

“Poker” John laughed a little uneasily.

“Sleep, child?  We old birds of the prairie can do with very little of that.  It’s only pretty faces that want sleep, and I’m thinking you ought still to be in your bed.”

“Miss Jacky is ever on the alert to take advantage of the elements,” put in Lablache, heavily.  “She seems to understand these things better than any of us.”

The girl was forced to notice the money-lender.  She did so reluctantly, however.

“So you, too, sought shelter from the storm beneath old man Norton’s hospitable roof.  You are dead right, Mr. Lablache; we who live on the prairie need to be ever on the alert.  One never knows what each hour may bring forth.”

The girl was still in her ball-dress.  Lablache’s fishy eyes noticed her charming appearance.  The strong, beautiful face sent a thrill of delight over him as he watched it—­the delicate rounded shoulders made him suck in his heavy breath like one who anticipates a delicate dish.  Jacky turned from him in plainly-expressed disgust.