“It is not too much to ask, I feel. It would have to be much, indeed, for us to refuse you, Bonnie Belle, for both of us owe you our lives, and you may be sure, if not profuse in thanks, we appreciate that we are under obligations to you,” and Surgeon Powell’s manner was sincere.
“Do not speak of what I did, for one does not deserve either thanks or gratitude for doing one’s duty. No, I only wished to ask you both not to betray me.”
“Not to betray you?”
“Yes, for no one knows here, except you two gentlemen, that I am the sister of the condemned outlaw, Silk Lasso Sam. Not a soul do I wish to know it.”
“And no one shall through me,” said Powell.
“Nor through word of mine,” added Buffalo Bill.
“I believe that Captain Caruth suspected me, and yet when I met him face to face at the fort he did not by any act show that he did. He simply looked as though he recalled Bonnie Belle in Miss Ruth Arden, and, if so, I wish that you would ask him also to keep my secret.”
“I will.”
“And he will do it.”
“I do not care to have any one here know that I am the sister of the outlaw, for it would bring me under a suspicion here with many which I would not care for. Now I can do good, and I have a certain power over the wildest spirits here, which you had an opportunity to see yourselves to-night.”