“It isn’t to be supposed that you would have done so.”

There was the faintest tinge of bitterness in the girl’s answer.

“And do you really think that he wants to marry you?”

“I don’t know quite.  Perhaps I am wrong, uncle, and my imagination has run away with me.  Yes, I sometimes think he wants to marry me.”

They both relapsed into silence.  Then her uncle spoke again.

“Jacky, what you have just said has made something plain to me which I could not understand before.  He came and gave me—­unsolicited, mind—­“a little eagerly, “a detailed account of Bunning-Ford’s circumstances, and—­”

“Endeavored to bully you into sending him about his business.  Poor old Bill!  And what was his account of him?”

The girl’s eyes were glowing with quickly-roused passion, but she kept them turned from her uncle’s face.

“He told me that the boy had heavy mortgages on his land and stock.  He told me that if he were to realize to-morrow there would be little or nothing for himself.  Everything would go to some firm in Calford.  In short, that he has gambled his ranch away.”

“And he told this to you, uncle, dear.”  Then the girl paused and looked far out across the great muskeg.  In her abrupt fashion she turned again to the old man.  “Uncle,” she went on, “tell me truly, do you owe anything to Lablache?  Has he any hold upon you?”

There was a world of anxiety in her voice as she spoke.  John Allandale tried to follow her thought before he answered.  He seemed to grasp something of her meaning, for in a moment his eyes took on an expression of pain.  Then his words came slowly, as from one who is not sure of what he is saying.

“I owe him some—­money—­yes—­but—­”

“Poker?”

The question was jerked viciously from the girl’s lips.

“Yes.”

Jacky turned slowly away until her eyes rested upon the distant, grazing horse.  A strange restlessness seemed to be upon her.  She was fidgeting with the gauntlet which she had just removed.  Then slowly her right hand passed round to her hip, where it rested upon the butt of her revolver.  There was a tight drawnness about her lips and her keen gray eyes looked as though gazing into space.

“How much?” she said at last, breaking the heavy silence which had followed upon her uncle’s admission.  Then before he could answer she went on deliberately:  “But there—­I guess it don’t cut any figure.  Lablache shall be paid, and I take it his bill of interest won’t amount to more than we can pay if we’re put to it.  Poor old Bill!”

CHAPTER V

THE “STRAY” BEYOND THE MUSKEG

The Foss River Settlement nestles in one of those shallow hollows—­scarcely a valley and which yet must be designated by such a term—­in which the Canadian North-West abounds.