The girl was not looking at her books.  She was looking up and smiling at a remark her companion had just made.

“And so your friend, Pat Nabob, is going up into the mountains after gold.  Does he know anything about prospecting?”

“I think so—­he’s had some experience.”

Jacky became serious.  She rose and turned to the window, which commanded a perfect view of the distant peaks of the Rockies, towering high above the broad, level expanse of the great muskeg.  With her back still turned to him she fired an abrupt question.

“Say, Bill, guess ‘Pickles’ has some other reason for this mad scheme.  What is it?  You can’t tell me he’s going just for love of the adventure of the thing.  Now, let’s hear the truth.”

Unobserved by the girl, her companion shrugged his shoulders.

“If you want his reason you’d better ask him, Jacky.  I can only surmise.”

“So can I.”  Jacky turned sharply.  “I’ll tell you why he’s going, Bill, and you can bet your last cent I’m right.  Lablache is at the bottom of it.  He’s at the bottom of everything that causes people to leave Foss River.  He’s a blood-sucker.”

Bunning-Ford nodded.  He was rarely expansive.  Moreover, he knew he could add nothing to what the girl had said.  She expressed his sentiments fully.  There was a pause.  Jacky was keenly eyeing the tall thin figure at the stove.

“Why did you come to tell me of this?” she asked at last.

“Thought you’d like to know.  You like ‘Pickles.’”

“Yes—­Bill, you are thinking of going with him.”

Her companion laughed uneasily.  This girl was very keen.

“I didn’t say so.”

“No, but still you are thinking of doing so.  See here, Bill, tell me all about it.”

Bill coughed.  Then he turned, and stooping, shook the ashes from the stove and opened the damper.

“Beastly cold in here,” he remarked inconsequently.

“Yes—­but, out with it.”

Bill stood up and turned his indolent eyes upon his interrogator.

“I wasn’t thinking of going—­to the mountains.”

“Where then?”

“To the Yukon.”

“Ah!”

In spite of herself the girl could not help the exclamation.

“Why?” she went on a moment later.

“Well, if you must have it, I shan’t be able to last out this summer—­unless a stroke of luck falls to my share.”

“Financially?”

“Financially.”

“Lablache?”

“Lablache—­and the Calford Trust Co.”

“The same thing,” with conviction.

“Exactly—­the same thing.”

“And you stand?”

“If I meet the interest on my mortgages it will take away every head of fat cattle I can scrape together, and then I cannot pay Lablache other debts which fall due in two weeks’ time.”  He quietly drew out his tobacco-pouch and rolled a cigarette.  He seemed quite indifferent to his difficulties.  “If I realize on the ranch now there’ll be something left for me.  If I go on, by the end of the summer there won’t be.”