ould be
but a drop in the ocean. In Winnipeg he posed as the owner of Loon
Dyke Farm, and as such his credit was extensive. But now there were
clamourings for settlements, and Hervey knew that gaming debts and
hotel bills must be met in due course. Tradesmen can wait, they have
redress from owners of property, but the others have no such means of
repaying themselves, therefore they must be paid if he wished to
remain in the district. Now he meant to raise what he required from
Iredale. He had recognized the fact that Iredale was in love with
Prudence, nor was he slow to appreciate the possibilities which this
matter suggested as a money-raising means. Yes, Hervey intended that
Iredale should pay for the privilege of enjoying his sister's society.
Money he must have, and that at once.

It was a wild, desolate region which he rode through on his way to
Lonely Ranch. No one, finding themselves suddenly dropped into the
midst of those wood-covered crags and clean-cut ravines, the
boulder-strewn, grassless land, would have dreamed that they were
within half-a-dozen miles of the fertile prairie-lands of Canada. It
was like a slum hidden away in the heart of a fashionable city. The
country round the mysterious Lake of the Woods is something utterly
apart from the rest of the Canadian world, and partakes much of the
nature of the Badlands of Dakota. It is tucked away in the extreme
south-eastern corner of Manitoba, and the international boundary runs
right through the heart of it.

Lonely Ranch was situated in an abrupt hollow, and was entirely lost
to view in a mammoth growth of pinewoods. Years ago a settlement had
existed in this region, but what the nature of that settlement it
was now impossible to tell. Local tradition held that, at some
far-distant period, the place had been occupied by a camp of
half-breed "bad-men" who worked their evil trade upon the south
side of the American border, and sought security in the shelter of
this perfect hiding-place. Be that as it may, it was now the abode
of George Iredale, rancher. He had built for himself a splendid house
of hewn logs, and his outbuildings--many of them the restored
houses of the early settlers--and corrals formed a ranch of very
large dimensions.

And it was all hidden away in black woods which defied the keenest
observation of the passer-by. And the hollow was approached by a
circuitous road which entered the cutting at its northern end. Any
other mode of ingr