“A horse,” she muttered, under her breath.  “Whose?”

She could find no answer to her monosyllabic inquiry.  She realized at once that to whomsoever it belonged its owner would never recover it, for it was grazing on the far side of the great “Muskeg,” that mighty bottomless mire which extends for forty miles north and south and whose narrowest breadth is a span of ten miles.  She was looking across it now, and innocent enough that level plain of terror appeared at that moment.  And yet it was the curse of the ranching district, for, annually, hundreds of cattle met an untimely death in its cruel, absorbing bosom.

She turned away for the purpose of fetching a pair of field-glasses.  She was anxious to identify the horse.  She passed along the veranda towards the furthest window.  It was the window of her uncle’s office.  Just as she was nearing it she heard the sound of voices coming from within.  She paused, and an ominous pucker drew her brows together.  Her beautiful dark face clouded.  She had no wish to play the part of an eavesdropper, but she had recognized the voices of her uncle and Lablache.  She had also heard the mention of her own name.  What woman, or, for that matter, man, can refrain from listening when they hear two people talking about them.  The window was open; Jacky paused—­and listened.

Lablache’s thick voice lolled heavily upon the brisk air.

“She is a good girl.  But don’t you think you are considering her future from a rather selfish point of view, John?”

“Selfish?” The old man laughed in his hearty manner “Maybe you’re right, though.  I never thought of that.  You see I’m getting old now.  I can’t get around like I used to.  Bless me, she’s two-an’-twenty.  Three-and-twenty years since my brother Dick—­God rest his soul!—­married that half-breed girl, Josie.  Yes, I guess you’re right, she’s bound to marry soon.”

Jacky smiled a curious dark smile.  Something told her why Lablache and her uncle were discussing her future.

“Why, of course she is,” said Lablache, “and when that happy event is accomplished I hope it will not be with any improvident—­harum-scarum man like—­like—­”

“The Hon. Bunning-Ford I suppose you would say, eh?”

There was a somewhat sharp tone in the old man’s voice which Jacky was not slow to detect.

“Well,” went on Lablache, with one of those deep whistling breaths which made him so like an ancient pug, “since you mention him, for want of a better specimen of improvidence, his name will do.”

“So I thought—­so I thought,” laughed the old man.  But his words rang strangely.  “Most people think,” he went on, “that when I die Jacky will be rich.  But she won’t.”

“No,” replied Lablache, emphatically.

There was a world of meaning in his tone.