e floor. His beady, black eyes
turned fiercely upon the cowering money-lender.

"Ow!" he grunted. And his tone was the fierce expression of an Indian
roused to homicidal purpose.

Then he turned back to Jacky, and the look on his face changed to one of
sympathy and even love.

"Not you, missie--and the white man--no. The prairie is the land of the
Breed and his forefathers--the Red Man. Guess the law of the prairie'll
come best from such as he. You are one of us," he went on, surveying the
girl's beautiful face in open admiration. "You've allus been mostly one
of us--but I take it y'are too white. No, guess you ain't goin' ter muck
yer pretty hands wi' the filthy blood of yonder," pointing to Lablache.
"These things is fur the likes o' us. Jest leave this skunk to us. Death
is the sentence, and death he's goin' ter git--an' it'll be somethin'
ter remember by all who behold. An' the story shall go down to our
children. This poor dead thing was our best frien'--an' he's
dead--murdered. So, this is a matter for the Breed."

Then the half-breed turned away. Seeing the chalk upon the floor he
stooped and picked it up.

"Let's have the formalities. It is but just--"

Bill suddenly interrupted. He was angry at the interference of Baptiste.

"Hold on!"

Baptiste swung round. The white man got no further. The Breed broke in
upon him with animal ferocity.

"Who says hold on? Peace, white man, peace! This is for us. Dare to stop
us, an'--"

Jacky sprang between her lover and the ferocious half-breed.

"Bill, leave well alone," she said. And she held up a warning finger.

She knew these men, of a race to which she, in part, belonged. As well
baulk a tiger of its prey. She knew that if Bill interfered his life
would pay the forfeit. The sanguinary lust of these human devils once
aroused, they cared little how it be satisfied.

Bill turned away with a shrug, and he was startled to see that he had
been noiselessly surrounded by the rest of the half-breeds. Had Jacky's
command needed support, it would have found it in this ominous movement.

Fate had decreed that the final act in the Foss River drama should come
from another source than the avenging hands of those who had sealed
their compact in Bad Man's Hollow.

Baptiste turned away from "Lord" Bill, and, at a sign from him, Lablache
was brought round to the other side of the table--to where the dead
rancher was lying. Baptiste handed him the chalk and then pointed