“Are you—­taking me away?” she asked.

“Only down the street.  I’ve a new place,” he replied.  “Come.  Stitt will bring your things.”

Allie could not see very well through the heavy veil and she stumbled over the rude threshold.  Durade took hold of her arm and presently led her out into the light.  The air was hot, windy, dusty.  The street was full of hurrying and lounging men.  Allie heard different snatches of speech as she and Durade went on.  Some stared and leered at her, at which times Durade’s hold tightened on her arm and his step quickened.  She was certain no one looked at Durade.  Some man jostled her, another pinched her arm.  Her ears tingled with unfamiliar coarse speech.

They walked through heavy sand and dust, then along a board walk, to turn aside before what was apparently a new brick structure, but a closer view proved it to be only painted wood.  The place rang hollow with a sound of hammers.  It looked well, but did not feel stable underfoot.  Durade led her through two large hall-like rooms into a small one, light and newly furnished.

“The best Benton afforded,” said Durade, waving his hand.  “You’ll be comfortable.  There are books—­newspapers.  Here’s a door opening into a little room.  It’s dark, but there’s water, towel, soap.  And you’ve a mirror....  Allie, this is luxury to what you’ve had to put up with.”

“It is, indeed,” she replied, removing her veil, and then the cloak and bonnet.  “But—­am I to be shut up here?”

“Yes.  Sometimes at night early I’ll take you out to walk.  But Benton is—­”

“What?” she asked, as he paused.

“Benton will not last long,” he finished, with a shrug of his shoulders.  “There’ll be another one of these towns out along the line.  We’ll go there.  And then to Omaha.”

More than once he had hinted at going on eastward.

“I’ll find your mother—­some day,” he added, darkly.  “If I didn’t believe that I’d do differently by you.”

“Why?”

“I want her to see you as good as she left you.  Then! ...  Are you ever going to tell me how she gave me the slip?”

“She’s dead, I told you.”

“Allie, that’s a lie.  She’s hiding in some trapper’s cabin or among the Indians.  I should have hunted all over that country where you met my caravan.  But the scouts feared the Sioux.  The Sioux!  We had to run.  And so I never got the truth of your strange appearance on that trail.”

Allie had learned that reiteration of the fact of her mother’s death only convinced Durade the more that she must be living.  While he had this hope she was safe so long as she obeyed him.  A dark and sinister meaning lay covert in his words.  She doubted not that he had the nature and the power to use her in order to be revenged upon her mother.  That passion and gambling appeared to be all for which he lived.

Suddenly he seized her fiercely in his arms.  “You’re the picture of her!”