denly. "That's a mighty fancy name—'Nita.' And so she is here with you, after all?"
"No."
"Not here?" he exclaimed, his big, bony face reddening again.
"No, sir. I believe she has been here—your niece."
"And where'd she go? What you done with her?" he demanded, his overhanging reddish eyebrows coming together in a threatening scowl.
"Hadn't you better sit down, Mr. Hicks, and let me tell you all about it?" suggested Miss Kate.
"Say, Miss!" he ejaculated. "I'm anxious, I be. When Jane Ann first run away from Silver Ranch, I thought she was just a-playin' off some of her tricks on me. I never supposed she was in earnest 'bout it—no, ma'am!
"I rid into Bullhide arter two days. And instead of findin' her knockin' around there, I finds her pony at the greaser's corral, and learns that she's took the train East. That did beat me. I didn't know she had any money, but she'd bought a ticket to Denver, and it took a right smart of money to do it.
"I went to Colonel Penhampton, I did," went on Hicks, "and told him about it. He heated up the wires some 'twixt Bullhide and Denver; but
