“I know that from past experience, Bill.  Now that the campaign has begun, what is the next move?”

The girl was all eagerness.  Her beautiful dark face was no longer pale.  It was aglow with the enthusiasm of her feelings.  Her deep, meaning eyes burned with a consuming brilliancy.  Framed in its setting of curling, raven hair, her face would have rejoiced the heart of the old masters of the Van Dyke school.  She was wondrously beautiful.  Bill gazed upon her features with devouring eyes, and thoughts of the wrongs committed by Lablache against her and hers teemed through his brain and set his blood surging through his veins in a manner that threatened to overbalance his usual cool judgment.  He forced himself to an outward calmness, however, and the lazy tones of his voice remained as easy as ever.

“On the result of the next move much will depend,” he said.  “It is to be a terrific coup, and will entail careful planning.  It is fortunate that the people at the half-breed camp are the friends of—­of—­Retief.”

“Yes, and of mine,” put in the girl.  Then she added slowly, and as though with painful thought, “Say, Bill, be—­be careful.  I guess you are all I have in the world—­you and uncle.  Do you know, I’ve kind of seen to the end of this racket.  Maybe there’s trouble coming.  Who’s to be lagged I can’t say.  There are shadows around, Bill; the place fairly hums with ’em.  Say, don’t—­don’t give Lablache a slant at you.  I can’t spare you, Bill.”

The tall thin figure of her companion stepped over towards her, and she felt herself encircled by his long powerful arms.  Then he bent down from his great height and kissed her passionately upon the lips.

“Take comfort, little girl.  This is a war, if necessary, to the death.  Should anything happen to me, you may be sure that I leave you freed from the snares of old Shylock.  Yes, I will be careful, Jacky.  We are playing for a heavy stake.  You may trust me.”

CHAPTER XV

AMONG THE HALF-BREEDS

Lablache was not a man of variable moods.  He was too strong; his purpose in life was too strong for any vacillation of temper.  His one aim—­his whole soul—­was wrapt in a craving for money-making and the inevitable power which the accumulation of great wealth must give him.  In all his dealings he was perfectly—­at least outwardly—­calm, and he never allowed access to anger to thwart his ends.  An inexorable purpose governed his actions to an extent which, while his feelings might undergo paroxysms of acute changes, never permitted him to make a false move or to show his hand prematurely.  But this latest reverse had upset him more than he had ever been upset in his life, and all the great latent force of his character had suddenly, as it were, been precipitated into a torrent of ungovernable fury.  He had been wounded deeply in the most vulnerable spot in his composition.  Thirty-five thousands of his precious dollars ruthlessly torn from his capacious and retentive money-bags.  Truly it was a cruel blow, and one well calculated to disturb the even tenor of his complacency.