steadily and Lablache felt his last grip on his
courage relax. A terrible fear crept upon him as his courage ebbed.
Slowly Bill turned his eyes in the direction of the still kneeling
Jacky. The girl's eyes met his, and, in response to some mute
understanding which passed between them, she rose to her feet.

Bill did not speak. He merely looked at his pistol. Jacky spoke as if
answering some remark of his.

"Yes, this is my affair."

Then she turned upon the money-lender. There was no wrath in her face,
no anger in her tones; only that horrid, stony purpose which Lablache
dreaded. He wished she would hurl invective at him. He felt that it
would have been better so.

"The death which you have dealt to that poor old man is too good for
you--murderer," she said, her deep, somber eyes seeming to pass through
and through the mountain of flesh she was addressing. "I take small
comfort in the thought that he had no time to suffer bodily pain. You
will suffer--later." Bill gazed at her wonderingly. "Liar!--cheat!--you
pollute the earth. You thought to cozen that poor, harmless old man out
of his property--out of me. You thought to ruin him as you have ruined
others. Your efforts will avail you nothing. From the moment Bill
discovered the use of your memorandum pad"--Lablache started--"your fate
was sealed. We swore to confiscate your property. For every dollar you
took from us you should pay ten. But now the matter is different. There
is a justice on the prairie--a rough, honest, uncorruptible justice. And
that justice demands your life. You shall scourge Foss River no longer.
You have murdered. You shall die!--"

Jacky was about to go further with her inexorable denunciation when the
door of the shed was flung wide, and eight Breeds, headed by Gautier and
Baptiste, came in. They came in almost noiselessly, their moccasined
feet giving out scarcely any sound upon the floor of the room.

"Lord" Bill turned, startled at the sudden apparition. Jacky hesitated.
Here was a contingency which none had reckoned upon. One glance at those
dark, cruel faces warned all three that these prairie outcasts had been
silent witnesses of everything that had taken place. It was a supreme
moment, and the deadly pallor which had assumed a leadenish hue on
Lablache's face told of one who appreciated the horror of that silent
coming.

Baptiste stepped over to where Jacky stood. He looked at her, and then
his gaze passed to the dead man upon th