"Don't you understand yet?"
"Only that you are secretly meeting a man of the worst reputation, one
known the length and breadth of this border as a gambler and fighter."
"Yes; but--but don't you know who I am?"
He smiled grimly, wondering what possible difference that could make.
"Certainly; you are Miss Naida Herndon."
"I? You have not known? Lieutenant Brant, I am Naida Gillis."
He stopped still, again facing her. "Naida Gillis? Do you mean old
Gillis's girl? Is it possible you are the same we rescued on the
prairie two years ago?"
She bowed her head. "Yes; do you understand now why I trust this Bob
Hampton?"
"I perhaps might comprehend why you should feel grateful to him, but
not why you should thus consent to meet with him clandestinely."
He could not see the deep flush upon her cheeks, but he was not deaf to
the pitiful falter in her voice.
"Because he has been good and true to me," she explained, frankly,
"better than anybody else in all the world. I don't care what you say,
you and those others who do not know him, but I believe in him; I think
he is a man. They won't let me see him, the Herndons, nor permit him
to come to the house.
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