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The others had already seated themselves. "We didn't chance it. Bill drove us straight here," said "Poker" John. "Guess Bill knew something he generally does," as an afterthought. "I know a blizzard when I see it," said Bunning-Ford, indifferently. Lablache sipped his whisky. A silence fell on that gathering of refugees. Mrs. Norton had cleared the supper things.
He stood now gazing malevolently at the tall figure of the Hon. Bunning-Ford, who was leisurely making his way towards the village. For the time being the channel of Lablache's thoughts had changed its direction. He had hoped, in foreclosing his mortgages on the Englishman's property, to have rid Foss River of the latter's, to him, hateful presence.
Her hardihood, her mannish self-reliance, were but outer coverings, the result of the surroundings of her daily life. She feared lest he should turn from her in utter loathing. The Hon. Bunning-Ford had no such thoughts, however. Twenty-four hours ago her story might have startled him. But now it was different. His was as wild and reckless a nature as her own.
Bunning-Ford, who still moved about the settlement in his cheery, débonnaire fashion, ever gentlemanly and always indolent. He had taken up his residence in one of the many disused shacks which dotted round the market-place, and there, apparently, sought to beguile the hours and eke out the few remaining dollars which were his.
Whenever you are ready, Bill, I am." Bunning-Ford drank his tea and rose from the table. The girl followed his example. There was something very strong and resolute in the brisk, ready-for-emergency ways of this girl. There was nothing of the ultra-feminine dependence and weakness of her sex about her.
Only the scribblings of the pencils upon the memo pads and the gradual accumulation of the precious slips of paper before Lablache at one table and the wild-eyed, dark-skinned Mexican at the other, told the story of the ruin which was surely being accomplished. At length, with a loser's privilege, Bunning-Ford, after glancing at his watch, rose from the table.
He was aware that the I.O.U.'s he held would take some time to realize on, in the proper quarter, but, at the same time, he was quite aware of the fact that Bunning-Ford would ultimately meet them. Lablache shrugged his shoulders with apparent indifference he meant to have them. "What do you want for the debts? I am prepared to buy at a reasonable figure."
The lust of gambling was upon him, and, as a dipsomaniac craves for drink, so he was longing to feel the smooth surface of pasteboard between his fingers. While Bunning-Ford stopped to exchange a word with some of those he met, the other two men went straight up to the bar.
He had returned in the hopes of this meeting; he had anticipated this game. "What about cards?" said Lablache, as the four men sat down to the table. "Doc will oblige, no doubt," Bunning-Ford replied quietly. "He generally carries the 'pernicious pasteboards' about with him." "The man who travels in the West without them," said Dr.
Passing through the bar one finds a large dining-room on one side of a passage, and, on the other, a number of smaller rooms devoted to the use of those who wished to play poker. It was towards this place that the Hon. Bunning-Ford was riding in the leisurely manner of one to whom time is no object.
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