m that such was the
case.

The girl sprang, unaided, to the ground and hitched her picket rope to a
tying-post. For a moment she stood on the great veranda which ran down
the whole length of the house front. It was a one-storied,
bungalow-shaped house, built with a high pitch to the roof and entirely
constructed of the finest red pine-wood. Six French windows opened on to
the veranda. The outlook was westerly, and, contrary to the usual
custom, the ranch buildings were not overlooked by it. The corrals and
stables were in the background.

She was about to turn in at one of the windows when she suddenly
observed Nigger's ears cocked, and his head turned away towards the
shimmering peaks of the distant mountains. The movement fixed her
attention instantly. It was the instinct of one who lives in a country
where the eyes and ears of a horse are often keener and more
far-reaching than those of its human masters. The horse was gazing with
statuesque fixedness across a waste of partially-melted snow. A stretch
of ten miles lay flat and smooth as a billiard-table at the foot of the
rise upon which the house was built. And far out across this the beast
was gazing.

Jacky shaded her eyes with her hand and followed the direction of the
horse's gaze. For a moment or two she saw nothing but the dazzling glare
of the snow in the bright spring sunlight. Then her eyes became
accustomed to the brilliancy, and far in the distance, she beheld an
animal peacefully moving along from patch to patch of bare grass,
evidently in search of fodder.

"A horse," she muttered, under her breath. "Whose?"

She could find no answer to her monosyllabic inquiry. She realized at
once that to whomsoever it belonged its owner would never recover it,
for it was grazing on the far side of the great "Muskeg," that mighty
bottomless mire which extends for forty miles north and south and whose
narrowest breadth is a span of ten miles. She was looking across it now,
and innocent enough that level plain of terror appeared at that moment.
And yet it was the curse of the ranching district, for, annually,
hundreds of cattle met an untimely death in its cruel, absorbing bosom.

She turned away for the purpose of fetching a pair of field-glasses. She
was anxious to identify the horse. She passed along the veranda
towards the furthest window. It was the window of her uncle's office.
Just as she was nearing it she heard the sound of voices coming from
within. Sh