We are speaking now of the wilder and less-inhabited parts of the great country, where grain-growing is only incidental, and the prevailing industry is stock-raising.  Where the land gradually rises towards the maze-like foothills before the mighty crags of the Rockies themselves be reached.  A part where yet is to be heard of the romantic crimes of the cattle-raiders; a part to where civilization has already turned its face, but where civilizaton has yet to mature.  In such a country is situate the Foss River Settlement.

The settlement itself is like dozens of others of its kind.  There is the school-house, standing by itself, apart from other buildings, as if in proud distinction for its classic vocation.  There is the church, or rather chapel, where every denomination holds its services.  A saloon, where four per cent. beer and prohibition whiskey of the worst description is openly sold over the bar; where you can buy poker “chips” to any amount, and can sit down and play from daylight till dark, from dark to daylight.  A blacksmith and wheelwright; a baker; a carpenter; a doctor who is also a druggist; a store where one can buy every article of dry goods at exorbitant prices—­and on credit; and then, besides all this, well beyond the township limit there is a half-breed settlement, a place which even to this day is a necessary evil and a constant thorn in the side of that smart, efficient force—­the North-West Mounted Police.

Lablache’s store stands in the center of the settlement, facing on to the market-place—­the latter a vague, undefined space of waste ground on which vendors of produce are wont to draw up their wagons.  The store is a massive building of great extent.  Its proportions rise superior to its surroundings, as if to indicate in a measure its owner’s worldly status in the district It is built entirely of stone, and roofed with slate—­the only building of such construction in the settlement.

A wonderful center of business is Lablache’s store—­the chief one for a radius of fifty miles.  Nearly the whole building is given up to the stocking of goods, and only at the back of the building is to be found a small office which answers the multifarious purposes of office, parlor, dining-room, smoking-room—­in short, every necessity of its owner, except bedroom, which occupies a mere recess partitioned off by thin matchwood boarding.

Wealthy as Lablache was known to be he spent little or no money upon himself beyond just sufficient to purchase the bare necessities of life.  He had few requirements which could not be satisfied under the headings of tobacco and food—­both of which he indulged himself freely.  The saloon provided the latter, and as for the former, trade price was best suited to his inclinations, and so he drew upon his stock.  He was a curious man, was Verner Lablache—­a man who understood the golden value of silence.  He never even spoke of his nationality.  Foss River was content to call him curious—­some people preferred other words to express their opinion.