“Bill—­Bill, send him away.  It’s—­it’s too horrible.”

“Lord” Bill fixed his gray eyes on the Breed.

“Scatter—­we’ve had enough.”

“Eh?  Guess yer per-tickler.”

There was a truculent tone in Baptiste’s voice.

Bill’s revolver was out like lightning.

“Scatter!”

And in that word Baptiste realized his dismissal.

His face looked very ugly, but he moved off under the covering muzzle of the white man’s pistol.

Bill watched him until he was out of sight.  Then he turned to Jacky.

“Well?  Which way?”

Jacky did not answer for a moment.  She gazed at the mountains.  She shivered.  It might have been the chill morning air—­it might have been emotion.  Then she looked back in the direction of Foss River.  Dawn was already streaking the horizon.

She sighed like a weary child, and looked helplessly about.  Her lover had never seen her vigorous nature so badly affected.  But he realized the terrors she had been through.

Bill looked at her.

“Well?”

“Yonder.”  She pointed to the distant hills.  “Foss River is no longer possible.”

“The day that sees Lablache—­”

“Yes—­come.”

Bill gazed lingeringly in the direction of the settlement.  Jacky followed his gaze.  Then she touched Nigger’s flank with her spur.  Golden Eagle cocked his ears, his head was turned towards Bad Man’s Hollow.  He needed no urging.  He felt that he was going home.

Together they rode away across the keg.

* * * * *

Dr. Abbot had been up all night, as had most of Foss River.  Everybody had been present at the fire.  It was daylight when it was discovered that John Allandale and Jacky were missing.  Lablache had been missed, but this had not so much interested people.  They thought of Retief and waited for daylight.

Silas brought the news of “Poker” John’s absence—­also his niece’s.  Immediately was a “hue and cry” taken up.  Foss River bustled in search.

It was noon before the rancher was found.  Doctor Abbot and Silas had set out in search together.  The fifty-acre pasture was Silas’s suggestion.  Dr. Abbot did not remember the implement shed.

They found the old man’s body.  They found Lablache’s confession.  Silas could not read.  He took no stock in the writing and thought only of the dead man.  The doctor had read, but he said nothing.  He dispatched Silas for help.

When the foreman had gone Dr. Abbot picked up the black wig which Bill had used.  He stood looking at it for a while, then he put it carefully into his pocket.

“Ah!  I think I understand something now,” he said, slowly fingering the wig.  “Um—­yes.  I’ll burn it when I get home.”

Silas returned with help.  John Allandale was buried quietly in the little piece of ground set aside for such purposes.  The truth of the disappearance of Lablache, Jacky and “Lord” Bill was never known outside of the doctor’s house.