“Ah!”

He quickly turned again in the direction of the noisy water-fowl.  Their rollicking gambols sounded joyously on the brooding atmosphere of the place.  The wintry chill in the air was fast ousting the balmy breath of spring.  It was a warning of the lateness of the hour.

“Now listen to me,” he went on presently, turning again from the contemplation of his weird surroundings.  “I lost all that was left to me from the wreck of my little ranch this afternoon—­no, not to Lablache,” as the girl was about to pronounce the hated name, “but,” with a wintry smile, “to another friend of yours, Pedro Mancha.  I also discovered, this afternoon, the source of Lablache’s phenomenal—­luck.  He has systematically robbed both your uncle and myself—­” He broke off with a bitter laugh.

“My God!”

The girl had sprung to her feet in her agitation.  And a rage indescribable flamed into her face.  The fury there expressed appalled him, and he stood for a moment waiting for it to abate.  What terrible depths had he delved into?  The hidden fires of a passionate nature are more easily kept under than checked in their blasting career when once the restraining will power is removed.  For an instant it seemed that she must choke.  Then she hurled her feelings into one brief, hissing sentence.

“Lablache—­I hate him!”

And the man realized that he must continue his story.

“Yes, we lost our money not fairly, but by—­cheating.  I am ruined, and your uncle—­” Bill shrugged.

“My uncle—­God help him!”

“I do not know the full extent of his losses, Jacky—­except that they have probably trebled mine.”

“But I know to what extent the hound has robbed him,” Jacky answered in a tone of such bitter hatred as to cause her companion to glance uneasily at the passionate young face before him.  “I know, only too well.  And right thoroughly has Lablache done his work.  Say, Bill, do you know that that skunk holds mortgages on our ranch for two hundred thousand dollars?  And every bill of it is for poker.  For twenty years, right through, he has steadily sucked the old man’s blood.  Slick?  Say a six-year-old steer don’t know more about a branding-iron than does Verner Lablache about his business.  For every dollar uncle’s lost he’s made him sign a mortgage.  Every bit of paper has the old man had to redeem in that way.  What he’s done lately—­I mean uncle—­I can’t say.  But Lablache held those mortgages nearly a year ago.”

“Whew—­” “Lord” Bill whistled under his breath.  “Gee-whittaker.  It’s worse than I thought.  ‘Poker’ John’s losses during the last winter, to my knowledge, must have amounted to nearly six figures—­the devil!”

“Ruin, ruin, ruin!”

The girl for a moment allowed womanly feeling to overcome her, for, as her companion added his last item to the vast sum which she had quoted, she saw, in all its horrible nakedness, the truth of her uncle’s position.  Then she suddenly forced back the tears which had struggled into her eyes, and, with indomitable courage, faced the catastrophe.