oes
on the brisk morning air with the full-toned note of his bark.

"Lord" Bill found one or two hands quietly enjoying their
after-breakfast smoke, but the majority had not as yet left the kitchen.
Outside the barn two men were busily soft-soaping their saddles and
bridles, whilst a third, seated on an upturned box, was wiping out his
revolver with a coal-oil rag. Bill passed them by with a nod and
greeting, and went into the stable. The horses were feeding, but as yet
the stalls had not been cleaned out. He returned and gave some
instructions to one of the men. Then he walked slowly back to the house.
Usually he would have stayed down there to see the work of the day
carried out; now, however, he was preoccupied. On this particular
morning he took but little interest in the place; he knew only too well
how soon it must pass from his possession.

Half-way up the hill he paused and turned his sleepy eyes towards the
south. At a considerable distance a vehicle was approaching at a
spanking pace. It was a buckboard, one of those sturdy conveyances built
especially for light prairie transport. As yet it was not sufficiently
near for him to distinguish its occupant, but the speed and cut of the
horses seemed familiar to him. He continued on towards the house, and
seated himself leisurely on the veranda, and, rolling himself another
cigarette, calmly watched the on-coming conveyance.

It was the habit of this man never to be prodigal in the display of
energy. He usually sat when there was no need for standing; he always
considered speech to be golden, but silence, to his way of thinking, was
priceless. And like most men of such opinion he cultivated thought and
observation.

He propped his back against the veranda post, and, taking a deep
inhalation from his cigarette, gazed long and earnestly, with
half-closed eyes, down the winding southern trail.

His curiosity, if such a feeling might have been attributed to him, was
soon set at rest, for, as the horses raced up the hill towards him, he
had no difficulty in recognizing the bulky proportions of his visitor.
Seeing the driver of the buckboard making for the house, two of the
"hands" had hastened up the hill to take the horses. Lablache, for it
was the fleshy money-lender, slid, as agilely as his great bulk would
permit him, from the vehicle, and the two men took charge of the horses.
Bill was not altogether cordial. It was not his way to be so to anybody
but his frie