“Jane Ann who?” she gasped.
“Jane Ann Hicks. My little gal what you’ve got her and what you wrote about––”
“You are misinformed, sir,” declared Miss Kate. “I have never written to you–or to anybody else–about any person named Jane Ann Hicks.”
“Oh, mebbe you don’t know her by that name. She had some hifalutin’ idee before she vamoosed about not likin’ her name–an’ I give her that thar name myself!” added Bill Hicks, in an aggrieved tone.
“Nor have I written about any other little girl, or by any other name,” rejoined Miss Kate. “I have written no letter at all.”
“You didn’t write to Silver Ranch to tell us that my little Jane Ann was found?” gasped the man.
“No, sir.”
“Somebody else wrote, then?”
“I do not know it, if they did,” Miss Kate declared.
“Then somebody’s been a-stringin’ of me?” he roared, punching his big hat with a clenched, freckled fist in a way that made Miss Kate jump.