ACROSS THE GREAT MUSKEG

It was on the stroke of four o’clock when Bunning-Ford left the saloon.  He had said that he would be at the ranch at four, and usually he liked to be punctual.  He was late now, however, and made no effort to make up time.  Instead, he allowed his horse to walk leisurely in the direction of the Allandales’ house.  He wanted time to think before he again met Jacky.

He was confronted by a problem which taxed all his wit.  It was perhaps a fortunate thing that his was not a hasty temperament.  He well knew the usual method of dealing with men who cheated at cards in those Western wilds.  Each man carried his own law in his holster.  He had realized instantly that Lablache was not a case for the usual treatment.  Pistol law would have defeated its own ends.  Such means would not recover the terrible losses of “Poker” John, neither would he recover thereby his own lost property.  No, he congratulated himself upon the restraint he had exercised when he had checked his natural impulse to expose the money-lender.  Now, however, the case looked more complicated, and, for the moment, he could see no possible means of solving the difficulty.  Lablache must be made to disgorge—­but how?  John Allandale must be stopped playing and further contributing to Lablache’s ill-gotten gains.  Again—­but how?

Bill was roused out of his usual apathetic indifference.  The moment had arrived when he must set aside the old indolent carelessness.  He was stirred to the core.  A duty had been suddenly forced upon him.  A duty to himself and also a duty to those he loved.  Lablache had consistently robbed him, and also the uncle of the girl he loved.  Now, how to restore that property and prevent the villain’s further depredations?

Again and again he asked himself the question as he allowed his horse to mouche, with slovenly step, over the sodden prairie; but no answer presented itself.  His thin, eagle face was puckered with perplexity.  The sleepy eyes gleamed vengefully from between his half-closed eyelids as he gazed across the sunlit prairie.  His aquiline nose, always bearing a resemblance to an eagle’s beak, was rendered even more like that aristocratic proboscis by reason of the down-drawn tip, consequent upon the odd pursing of his tightly-compressed lips.  For the moment “Lord” Bill was at a loss.  And, oddly enough, he began to wonder if, after all, silence had been his best course.

He was still struggling in the direst perplexity when he drew up at the veranda of the ranch.  Dismounting, he hitched his picket rope to the tying-post and entered the sitting-room by the open French window.  Tea was set upon the table and Jacky was seated before the stove.

“Late, Bill, late!  Guess that ‘plug’ of yours is a rapid beast, judging by the pace you came up the hill.”

For the moment Bunning-Ford’s face had resumed its wonted air of lazy good-nature.