attened folds of
sacking, to the distended proportions of miniature balloons. No, he
desired a girl, the only relation of a man whom he had helped to ruin--a
girl who could bring him no social distinction, and who could not add
one penny piece to his already enormous wealth. Moreover, strangely
enough, he had conceived for her a passion which was absolutely unholy
in its intensity. It is needless, then, to add, when, speaking of such a
man, that, willing or not, he intended that Jacky Allandale should be
his.

Thoughts of this wild, quarter-breed girl filled his brain as he sat
solitary in his little office on the night of the pusky. He sat in his
favorite chair, in his favorite position. He was lounging back with his
slippered feet resting on the burnished steel foot-rests of the stove.
There was no fire in the stove, of course, but from force of habit he
gazed thoughtfully at the mica sides which surrounded the firebox.
Probably in this position he had thought out some of his most dastardly
financial schemes and therefore most suitable it seemed now as he
calculated his chances of capturing the wild prairie girl for his mate.

He had given up all thoughts of ever obtaining her willing consent, and,
although his vanity had been hurt by her rejection of his advances,
still he was not the man to be easily thwarted. His fertile brain had
evolved a means by which to achieve his end, and, to his scheme-loving
nature, the process was anything but distasteful. He had always, from
the first moment he had decided to make Jacky Allandale his wife, been
prepared for such a contingency as her refusal, and had never missed an
opportunity of ensnaring her uncle in his financial toils. He had
understood the old man's weakness, and, with satanic cunning, had set
himself to the task of wholesale robbery, with crushing results to his
victim. This had given him the necessary power to further prosecute his
suit. As yet he had not displayed his hand. He felt that the time was
barely ripe. Before putting the screw on the Allandales it had been his
object to rid the place, and his path, of his only stumbling block. In
this he had not quite succeeded as we have seen. He quite understood
that the Hon. Bunning-Ford must be removed from Foss River first. Whilst
he was on hand Jacky would be difficult to coerce. Instinctively he knew
that "Lord" Bill was her lover, and, with him at hand to advise her,
Jacky would hold out to the last. However, h