Dot Reed was a young girl of about nineteen, with dark, curling hair and vivid blue eyes. Bidding Allen to follow her, she reëntered the house and led the way to the kitchen. She cut some cold meat and placed a platter of it on the oilcloth-covered table with some bread and butter. Quickly she stirred up the embers in the kitchen stove, built a fire, and placed a coffeepot on to boil. Allen followed her with his eyes as she prepared the meal.
“Gosh, I don’t blame Slivers none at all, yuh sure are a real girl,” he told himself.
“I’m bettin’ yuh’re Dot Reed,” Allen told her, with his mouth full of meat.
“How did yuh know? What is your name?” she asked with a smile.
“A gent tol’ me about yuh. He said yuh was the best-lookin’ gal in seven States,” he said, grinning. “My handle is Jim Ashton.”
She decided she liked this boy and she smiled again with the condescension of a girl of nineteen looking down at a mere boy of eighteen.
“An’ your dad, John Reed, owns this outfit?” he asked.
Her face clouded and her lip trembled. She was silent and looked away.
“He was killed a month ago,” she said at last.
This was news to Allen and came to him as a shock. Slivers had hoped that John Reed would help clear his name. It meant they had lost a powerful ally. Allen now understood the lines of worry he had noticed in the girl’s face. He waited for her to go on.