things is fur the likes o’ us.  Jest leave this skunk to us.  Death is the sentence, and death he’s goin’ ter git—­an’ it’ll be somethin’ ter remember by all who behold.  An’ the story shall go down to our children.  This poor dead thing was our best frien’—­an’ he’s dead—­murdered.  So, this is a matter for the Breed.”

Then the half-breed turned away.  Seeing the chalk upon the floor he stooped and picked it up.

“Let’s have the formalities.  It is but just—­”

Bill suddenly interrupted.  He was angry at the interference of Baptiste.

“Hold on!”

Baptiste swung round.  The white man got no further.  The Breed broke in upon him with animal ferocity.

“Who says hold on?  Peace, white man, peace!  This is for us.  Dare to stop us, an’—­”

Jacky sprang between her lover and the ferocious half-breed.

“Bill, leave well alone,” she said.  And she held up a warning finger.

She knew these men, of a race to which she, in part, belonged.  As well baulk a tiger of its prey.  She knew that if Bill interfered his life would pay the forfeit.  The sanguinary lust of these human devils once aroused, they cared little how it be satisfied.

Bill turned away with a shrug, and he was startled to see that he had been noiselessly surrounded by the rest of the half-breeds.  Had Jacky’s command needed support, it would have found it in this ominous movement.

Fate had decreed that the final act in the Foss River drama should come from another source than the avenging hands of those who had sealed their compact in Bad Man’s Hollow.

Baptiste turned away from “Lord” Bill, and, at a sign from him, Lablache was brought round to the other side of the table—­to where the dead rancher was lying.  Baptiste handed him the chalk and then pointed to the wall, on which had been written the score of old John’s last gamble.

“Write!” he said, turning back to his prisoner.

Lablache gazed fearfully around.  He essayed to speak, but his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.

“Write—­while I tell you.”  The Breed still pointed to the wall.

Lablache held out the chalk.

“I kill John Allandale,” dictated Baptiste.

Lablache wrote.

“Now, sign.  So.”

Lablache signed.  Jacky and Bill stood looking on silent and wondering.

“Now,” said Baptiste, with all the solemnity of a court official, “the execution shall take place.  Lead him out!”

At this instant Jacky laid her hand upon the half-breed’s arm.

“What—­what is it?” she asked.  And from her expression something of the stony calmness had gone, leaving in its place a look of wondering not untouched with horror.

“The Devil’s Keg!”

CHAPTER XXIX

THE MAW OF THE MUSKEG

Down the sloping shore to the level of the great keg, the party of Breeds—­and in their midst the doomed money-lender—­made their way.  Jacky and “Lord” Bill, on their horses, brought up the rear.