It was only since the discovery of Lablache's perfidy that "Lord" Bill had understood what living meant. His discovery in Smith's saloon had roused in him a very human manhood. Since that time he had been seized with a mental activity, a craving for action he had never, in all his lazy life, before experienced. This sudden change had been aggravated by Lablache's subsequent conduct, and the flame had been fanned by the right that Jacky had given him to protect her. The sensation was one of absorbing excitement, and the loss of property sat lightly upon him in consequence. Money he had not—property he had not. But he had now what he had never possessed before—he had an object.
A lasting, implacable vengeance was his, from the contemplation of which he drew a satisfaction which no possession of property could have given him. Nature had, with incorrigible perversity, cut him out for a life of ease, whilst endowing him with a character capable of very great things. Now, in her waywardness she had aroused that character and overthrown the hindering superficialty in which she had clothed it. And further to mark her freakish mood, these same capabilities which might easily, under other circumstances, have led him into the fore-front of life's battle, she directed, with inexorable cruelty, into an adverse course. He had been cheated, robbed, and his soul thirsted for revenge. Lablache had robbed the uncle of the girl he loved, and, worse than all, the wretch had tried to oust him from the affections of the girl herself. Yes, he thirsted for revenge as might any traveler in a desert crave for water. His eyes, no longer sleepy, gleamed as he thought. His long, square jaws seemed welded into one as he thought of his wrongs. His was the vengeance which, if necessary, would last his lifetime. At least, whilst Lablache lived no quarter would he give or accept.
Something of this he was thinking as he took his farewell of the ranch on the hill, and struck out in the direction of the half-breed camp situated in a hollow some distance outside the settlement of Foss River.
CHAPTER XIII - THE FIRST CHECK
The afterglow of sunset slowly faded out of the western sky. And the hush of the night was over all. The feeling of an awful solitude, which comes to those whose business is to pass the night on the open prairie, is enhanced rather than reduced by the buzz of insect life upon the night air. The steady hum of the mosquito—the night song of the grasshoppers and frogs—the ticking, spasmodic call of the invisible beetles—all these things help to intensify the loneliness and magnitude of the wild surroundings. Nor does the smoldering camp-fire lessen the loneliness. Its very light deepens the surrounding dark, and its only use, after the evening meal is cooked, is merely to dispel the savage attack of the voracious mosquito and put the fear of man into the hearts of the prairie scavenger, the coyote, whose dismal howl awakens the echoes of the night at painfully certain intervals, and often drives sleep from the eyes of the weary traveler.
It is rare that the "cow-hand" pitches his camp amongst hills, or in the neighborhood of any bushy growth. The former he shuns from a natural dislike for a limited view. The latter, especially if the bush takes the form of pine woods, is bad for many reasons, chief amongst which is the fact of its being the harborage of the savage, gigantic timber wolf—a creature as naturally truculent as the far-famed grizzly, the denizen of the towering Rockies.
Upon a high level of the prairie, out towards the upper reaches of the Rainy River, a tributary of the broad, swift-flowing Foss River, and some fifteen miles from the settlement, two men were lounging, curled leisurely round the smoldering remains of a camp fire. Some distance away the occasional lowing of a cow betrayed the presence of a band of cattle.
The men were wide awake and smoking. Whether they refrained from sleep through necessity or inclination matters little. Probably the hungry attacks of the newly-hatched mosquito were responsible for their wakefulness. Each man was wrapped in a single brown blanket, and folded saddle-cloth answered as a pillow, and it was noticeable that they were stretched out well to leeward of the fire, so that the smoke passed across them, driving away a few of the less audacious "skitters."
"We'll get 'em in by dinner to-morrow," said one of the sleepless men thoughtfully. His remark was more in the tone of soliloquy than addressed to the other. Then louder, and in a manner which implied resentment, "Them all-fired skitters is givin' me a twistin'."