The money-lender set out for the ranch bristling with eagerness to put into execution his hastily conceived plan.
He found the old rancher in his sanctum. He was alone brooding over the calamity which had befallen the police-officer, and stimulating his thought with silent "nippings" at the whisky bottle. He was in a semi-maudlin condition when the money-lender entered, and greeted his visitor with almost childish effusion.
Lablache saw and understood, and a sense of satisfaction came to him. He hoped his task would be easier than he had anticipated. His evil nature rose to the occasion, and, for the moment, his own troubles and fears were forgotten. There was a cat-like licking of the lips as he contemplated the pitiful picture before him.
"Well?" said old John, looking into the other's face with a pair of bloodshot eyes, as he re-seated himself after rising to greet his visitor. "Well, poor Horrocks has gone—gone, a victim to his sense of duty. I guess, Lablache, there are few men would have shown his grit."
"Grit! Yes, that's so." The money-lender had been about to say "folly," but he checked himself. He did not want to offend "Poker" John—now.
"Yes. The poor fellow was too good for his work," he went on, in tones of commiseration. "'Tis indeed a catastrophe, John. And we are the losers by it. I regret now that I did not altogether agree with him when he first came amongst us."
John wagged his head. He looked to be near weeping. His companion's sympathetic tone was almost too much for his whisky-laden heart. But Lablache had not come here to discuss Horrocks, or, for that matter, to sympathize with the gray-headed wreck of manhood before him. He wished to find out first of all if anybody was about whom his plans concerned, and then to force his proposition upon his old companion. He carefully led the rancher to talk of other things.
"The man has gone into Stormy Cloud to report?"
"Yes."
"And who are they likely to send down in place—ah—of the unfortunate Horrocks, think you?"