“S’long.”

“Lord” Bill vaulted into the saddle, and Golden Eagle moved restively away.

It was as well that Foss River was a sleepy place.  “Lord” Bill’s precautions were not elaborate.  But then he knew the ways of the settlement.

Dr. Abbot chanced to be standing in the doorway of the saloon.  Bill’s shack was little more than a hundred yards away.  The doctor was about to step across to see if he were in, for the purpose of luring his friend into a game.  Poker was not so plentiful with the doctor now since Bill had dropped out of Lablache’s set.

He saw the dim outline of a horseman moving away from the back of “Lord” Bill’s hut.  His curiosity was aroused.  He hastened across to the shack.  He found it locked up, and in darkness.  He turned away wondering.  And as he turned away he found himself almost face to face with Baptiste.  The doctor knew the man.

“Evening, Baptiste.”

“Evening,” the man growled.

The doctor was about to speak again but the man hurried away.

“Damned funny,” the medical man muttered.  Then he moved off towards his own home.  Somehow he had forgotten his wish for poker.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE LAST GAMBLE

The fifty-acre pasture was situated nearly a quarter of a mile away to the left of John Allandale’s house.  Then, too, the whole length of it must be crossed before the implement shed be reached.  This would add another half a mile to the distance, for the field was long and narrow, skirting as it did the hay slough which provided the ranch with hay.  The pasture was on the sloping side of the slough, and on the top of the ridge stretched a natural fence of pines nearly two miles in extent.

The shed was erected for the accommodation of mowers, horse-rakes, and the necessary appurtenances for haying.  At one end, as Lablache had said, was a living-room.  It was called so by courtesy.  It was little better than the rest of the building, except that there was a crazy door to it—­also a window; a rusty iron stove, small, and—­when a fire burned in it—­fierce, was crowded into a corner.  Now, however, the stove was dismantled, and lengths of stove pipe were littered about the floor around it.  A rough bed, supported on trestles, and innocent of bedding, filled one end of this abode; a table made of packing cases, and two chairs of the Windsor type, one fairly sound and the other minus a back, completed the total of rude furniture necessary for a “hired man’s” requirements.

A living-room, the money-lender had said, therefore we must accept his statement.

A reddish, yellow light from a dingy oil lamp glowed sullenly, and added to the cheerlessness of the apartment.  At intervals black smoke belched from the chimney top of the lamp in response to the draughts which blew through the sieve-like boarding of the shed.  One must feel sorry for the hired man whose lot is cast in such cheerless quarters.