Her uncle was watching her with a gaze half uneasy and wholly tender.  She was the delight of his old age, the center of all his affections, this motherless child of his dead brother.  His cheek twitched painfully as he thought of the huge amount of his losings to Lablache.  He shivered perceptibly as he rose from his seat and went over to the cooking stove.

“I believe you people have let the stove out,” the girl exclaimed, as she noted her uncle’s movement.  She had no intention of mentioning the game they had been playing.  She feared to hear the facts.  Instinct told her that her uncle had lost again.  “Yes, I declare you have,” as she knelt before the grate and raked away at the ashes.

Suddenly she turned to the money-lender.

“Here, you, fetch me some wood and coal-oil.  Men can never be trusted.”

Jacky was no respecter of persons.  When she ordered there were few men on the prairie who would refuse to obey.  Lablache heaved his great bulk from before the table and got on to his feet.  His bilious eyes were struggling to smile.  The effect was horrible.  Then he moved across the room to where a stack of kindling stood.

“Hurry up.  I guess if we depended much on you we’d freeze.”

And Lablache, the hardest, most unscrupulous man for miles around, endeavored to obey with the alacrity of any sheep-dog.

In spite of himself John Allandale could not refrain from smiling at the grotesque picture the monumental Lablache made as he lumbered towards the stack of kindling.

When “Lord” Bill returned Lablache was bending over the stove beside the girl.

“I’ve thrown the harness on the horses—­watered and fed ’em,” he said, taking in the situation at a glance.  “Say, Doc,” turning to Abbot, “better rouse your good lady.”

“She’ll be down in a tick,” said Jacky, over her shoulder.  “Here, doctor, you might get a kettle of water—­and Bill, see if you can find some bacon or stuff.  And you, uncle, came and sit by the stove—­you’re cold.”

Strange is the power and fascination of woman.  A look—­a glance—­a simple word and we men hasten to minister to her requirements.  Half an hour ago and all these men were playing for fortunes—­dealing in thousands of dollars on the turn of a card, the passion for besting his neighbor uppermost in each man’s mind.  Now they were humbly doing one girl’s bidding with a zest unsurpassed by the devotion to their recent gamble.

She treated them indiscriminately.  Old or young, there was no difference.  Bunning-Ford she liked—­Dr. Abbot she liked—­Lablache she hated and despised, still she allotted them their tasks with perfect impartiality.  Only her old uncle she treated differently.  That dear, degenerate old man she loved with an affection which knew no bounds.  He was her all in the world.  Whatever his sins—­whatever his faults, she loved him.

CHAPTER IV