gh died when the baby was
two years old, his wife lost her life in a fire two years later and the
child was actually adopted by Gentleman Geoff and taken with him on his
wanderings.

"Now it has transpired that the first heavy snow of the following
winter caught him midway between two mining camps far up in the
Rockies, near Flathead Lake, Montana. Does that name recall any
memories to you?"

Willa shook her head, mutely, and the attorney after a moment's pause
went on:

"It is scarcely likely that it would, for you yourself could have been
no more than five years old at the time. However, Gentleman Geoff and
the little Willa were lost in the blizzard, and, after suffering untold
horrors, he finally made his way to the cabin of a trapper, named----"
he hesitated and glanced down at the papers beneath his hand--"named
Frank Hillery. This trapper Hillery's wife had run away with another
man some years before, leaving him with a little daughter on his hands,
a child of about five years, called Louise."

Again he paused, coughing. The Halsteads, mother and daughter, sat
spell-bound, but Willa was outwardly the coolest person in the room.
The story in its every detail was stamping itself indelibly upon her
mind and for the moment even the presence of Starr Wiley was forgotten.

"When he reached the trapper's cabin, Gentleman Geoff was blinded by
the snow, delirious and half frozen. Hillery took him in, unwrapped
the fur pack he carried on his back and discovered the body of little
Willa. She had died from exposure."

Vernon uttered a sharp exclamation, and the girl seated before him
clasped her hands tightly, but no other sign greeted Mason North's
announcement. He passed his hand across his brow and drew a deep
breath.

"Hillery buried the child and nursed Gentleman Geoff through a long
illness. It was well into the following spring when he was able to
proceed on his journey, and when he did, he took the trapper's little
daughter, Louise, with him, and called her 'Billie' as he had nicknamed
the other. His future wanderings never took him back over the same
route or to any of the places where the real Willa had been known,
consequently the substitution was never discovered until these papers
came to light. No one had visited the trapper's lonely cabin during
the period of Gentleman Geoff's presence there. Hillery deserted it
the following summer and went southward to Arizona where he eventually
died six