The Story of the Foss River Ranch Part 7

His address came to an abrupt end, and he gave emphasis to his words by a prolonged expectoration. Jacky, her eyes sparkling with anger, was quick to reply.

"Look you here, Silas, just go right off and throw your saddle on your pony--"

"Guess it's right thar, missie," the man interrupted.

"Then sling off as fast as your plug can lay foot to the ground, and give John Allandale's compliments to Jim Donoghue and say, if they don't send a capable man, since they've been appointed to find the 'captain,'

he'll complain to the a.s.sociation and insist on the penalty being enforced. What, do they take us for a lot of 'gophers'? Sim Lory, indeed; why, he's not fit to prise weeds with a two tine hay fork."

The men went off hurriedly. Their mistress's swift methods of dealing with matters pleased them. Silas was more than pleased to be able to get a "slant" (to use his own expression) at his old enemy, Sim Lory. As the men departed "Poker" John came and stood beside his niece.

"What's that about Sim Lory, Jacky?"

"They've sent him to run this 'round-up.'"

"And?"

"Oh, I just told them it wouldn't do," indifferently.

Old John smiled.

"In those words?"

"Well, no, uncle," the girl said with a responsive smile. "But they needed a 'jinning' up. I sent the message in your name."

The old man shook his head, but his indulgent smile remained.

"You'll be getting me into serious trouble with that impetuosity of yours, Jacky," he said absently. "But there--I daresay you know best."

His words were characteristic of him. He left the entire control of the ranch to this girl of two-and-twenty, relying implicitly upon her judgment in all things. It was a strange thing to do, for he was still a vigorous man. To look at him was to make oneself wonder at the reason.

But the girl accepted the responsibility without question. There was a subtle sympathy between uncle and niece. Sometimes Jacky would gaze up into his handsome old face and something in the twitching cheek, the curiously-shaped mouth, hidden beneath the gray mustache, would cause her to turn away with a sigh, and, with stimulated resolution, hurl herself into the arduous labors of managing the ranch. What she read in that dear, honest face she loved so well she kept locked in her own secret heart, and never, by word or act, did she allow herself to betray it. She was absolute mistress of the Foss River Ranch and she knew it.

Old "Poker" John, like the morphine "fiend," merely continued to keep up his reputation and the more fully deserve his sobriquet. His mind, his character, his whole being was being slowly but surely absorbed in the l.u.s.t of gambling.

The girl laid her hand upon the old man's arm.

"Uncle--what was Lablache talking to you about? I mean when I came for the field-gla.s.ses."

"Poker" John was gazing abstractedly into the dense growth of pines which fringed the house. He pulled himself together, but his eyes had in them a far-away look.

"Many things," he replied evasively.

"Yes, I know, dear, but," bending her face while she removed one of her buckskin gauntlets from her hand, "I mean about me. You two were-discussing me, I know."

She turned her keen gray eyes upon her relative as she finished speaking. The old man turned away. He felt that those eyes were reading his very soul. They made him uncomfortable.

"Oh, he said I ought not to let you a.s.sociate with certain people."

"Why?" The sharp question came with the directness of a pistol-shot.

"Well, he seemed to think that you might think of marrying."

"Ah, and--"

"He seemed to fancy that you, being impetuous, might make a mistake and fall--"

"In love with the wrong man. Yes, I understand; and from his point of view, if ever I do marry it will undoubtedly be the wrong man."

And the girl finished up with a mirthless laugh.

They stood for some moments in silence. They were both thinking. The noise from the corrals behind the house reached them. The steady drip, drip of the water from the melting snow upon the roof of the house sounded loudly as it fell on the sodden ground beneath.

"Uncle, did it ever strike you that that greasy money-lender wants to marry me himself?"

The question startled John Allandale more than anything else could have done. He turned sharply round and faced his niece.

"Marry you, Jacky?" he repeated. "I never thought of it."

"It isn't to be supposed that you would have done so."

There was the faintest tinge of bitterness in the girl's answer.

"And do you really think that he wants to marry you?"

"I don't know quite. Perhaps I am wrong, uncle, and my imagination has run away with me. Yes, I sometimes think he wants to marry me."

They both relapsed into silence. Then her uncle spoke again.

"Jacky, what you have just said has made something plain to me which I could not understand before. He came and gave me--unsolicited, mind--"a little eagerly, "a detailed account of Bunning-Ford's circ.u.mstances, and--"

"Endeavored to bully you into sending him about his business. Poor old Bill! And what was his account of him?"

The girl's eyes were glowing with quickly-roused pa.s.sion, but she kept them turned from her uncle's face.

"He told me that the boy had heavy mortgages on his land and stock. He told me that if he were to realize to-morrow there would be little or nothing for himself. Everything would go to some firm in Calford. In short, that he has gambled his ranch away."

"And he told this to you, uncle, dear." Then the girl paused and looked far out across the great muskeg. In her abrupt fashion she turned again to the old man. "Uncle," she went on, "tell me truly, do you owe anything to Lablache? Has he any hold upon you?"

There was a world of anxiety in her voice as she spoke. John Allandale tried to follow her thought before he answered. He seemed to grasp something of her meaning, for in a moment his eyes took on an expression of pain. Then his words came slowly, as from one who is not sure of what he is saying.

"I owe him some--money--yes--but--"

"Poker?"

The question was jerked viciously from the girl's lips.

"Yes."

Jacky turned slowly away until her eyes rested upon the distant, grazing horse. A strange restlessness seemed to be upon her. She was fidgeting with the gauntlet which she had just removed. Then slowly her right hand pa.s.sed round to her hip, where it rested upon the b.u.t.t of her revolver.

There was a tight drawnness about her lips and her keen gray eyes looked as though gazing into s.p.a.ce.