Lassiter. "Before you was born your
father made a mortal enemy of a Mormon named Dyer. They was both
ministers an' come to be rivals. Dyer stole your mother away from her
home. She gave birth to you in Texas eighteen years ago. Then she was
taken to Utah, from place to place, an' finally to the last border
settlement--Cottonwoods. You was about three years old when you was
taken away from Milly. She never knew what had become of you. But she
lived a good while hopin' and prayin' to have you again. Then she gave
up an' died. An' I may as well put in here your father died ten years
ago. Well, I spent my time tracin' Milly, an' some months back I landed
in Cottonwoods. An' jest lately I learned all about you. I had a talk
with Oldrin' an' told him you was dead, an' he told me what I had so
long been wantin' to know. It was Dyer, of course, who stole you from
Milly. Part reason he was sore because Milly refused to give you Mormon
teachin', but mostly he still hated Frank Erne so infernally that he
made a deal with Oldrin' to take you an' bring you up as an infamous
rustler an' rustler's girl. The idea was to break Frank Erne's heart
if he ever came to Utah--to show him his daughter with a band of low
rustlers. Well--Oldrin' took you, brought you up from childhood, an'
then made you his Masked Rider. He made you infamous. He kept that part
of the contract, but he learned to love you as a daughter an' never let
any but his own men know you was a girl. I heard him say that with my
own ears, an' I saw his big eyes grow dim. He told me how he had guarded
you always, kept you locked up in his absence, was always at your side
or near you on those rides that made you famous on the sage. He said he
an' an old rustler whom he trusted had taught you how to read an' write.
They selected the books for you. Dyer had wanted you brought up the
vilest of the vile! An' Oldrin' brought you up the innocentest of the
innocent. He said you didn't know what vileness was. I can hear his big
voice tremble now as he said it. He told me how the men--rustlers an'
outlaws--who from time to time tried to approach you familiarly--he told
me how he shot them dead. I'm tellin' you this 'specially because you've
showed such shame--sayin' you was nameless an' all that. Nothin' on
earth can be wronger than that idea of yours. An' the truth of it is
here. Oldrin' swore to me that if Dyer died, releasin' the contract,
he intended to hunt up your father an' give y