r, over in the Black Range. He has not touched a card in two
years."

"Oh, reformed has he? And are you the instrument that has worked such
a miracle?"

Her eyes fell. "I don't know, but I hope so." Then she glanced up
again, wondering at his continued silence. "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. He has not been in Glencaid for two years, until
yesterday. The Indian rising has driven all the miners out from the
Black Range, and he came down here for no other purpose than to get a
glimpse of me, and learn how I was getting on. I--I saw him over at
the hotel just for a moment--Mrs. Guffy handed me a note--and I--I had
only just left him when I encountered you at the door. I wanted to see
him again, to talk with him longer, but I couldn't manage to get away
from you, and I didn't know what to do. There, I've told it all; do
you really think I am so very bad, because--because I like Bob Hampton?"

He stood a moment completely nonplussed, yet compelled to answer.

"I certainly have no right to question your motives," he said, at last,
"and I believe your purposes to be above reproach. I wish I might give
the same credit to this man Hampton. But, Miss Naida, the world does
not often consent to judge us by our own estimation of right and wrong;
it prefers to place its own interpreta