e 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
passed round to her hip, where it rested upon the butt of her revolver.
There was a tight drawnness about her lips and her keen gray eyes looked
as though gazing into space.

"How much?" she said at last, breaking the heavy silence which had
followed upon her uncle's admission. Then before he could answer she
went on deliberately: "But there--I guess it don't cut any figure.
Lablache shall be paid, and I take it his bill of interest won't amount
to more than we can pay if we're put to it. Poor old Bill!"

CHAPTER V

THE "STRAY" BEYOND THE MUSKEG

The Foss River Settlement nestles in one of those shallow
hollows--scarcely a valley and which yet must be designated by such a
term--in which the Canadian North-West abounds.

We are speaking now of the wilder and less-inhabited parts of the great
country, where grain-growing is only incidental, and the prevailing
industry is stock-raising. Where the land gradually rises towards the
maze-like foothills before the mighty crags of the Rockies themselves be
reached. A part where yet is to be heard of the romantic crimes of the
cattle-raiders; a part to where civilization has already turned its
face, but where civilizaton has yet to mature. In such a country is
situate the Foss River Settlement.

The settlement itself is like dozens of others of its kind. There is the
school-house, standing by itself, apart from other buildings, as if in
proud distinction for its classic vocation. There is the church, or
rather chapel, where every denomination holds its services. A saloon,
where four per cent. beer and prohibition whiskey of the worst
description is openly sold over the bar; where you can buy poker "chips"
to any amount, and can sit down and play from daylight till dark, from
dark to daylight. A blacksmith and wheelwright; a baker; a carpenter; a
doctor who is also a druggist; a store where one can buy every article
of dry goods at exorbitant prices--and on credit; and then, besides all
this, well beyond the township limit there is a half-breed settlement, a
place which even to this day is a necessary evil and a constant thorn
in the side of that smart, efficient force--the North-West Moun