“That she is a young lady scarcely twenty, of great loveliness of form and face, accomplished and refined, yet one who has killed her man, as they have it out here, runs a hotel and gambling-den and is beloved by every man in the mines.”
“Can she be this man’s wife?” asked Nina in a low tone, and she would not look the colonel in the face as she asked the question.
“It may be so, though I cannot believe that she knows him as he really is, for she is not one, from all I have heard, to be the ally of such a man, his confederate in crime.”
“Well, colonel, he wishes this letter sent through to her, and I promised to do so for him, so I appeal to you for your consent.”
“I cannot refuse the appeal, Miss Nina, for I can really see no harm in the letter, and it would be hard to refuse a favor asked by a man in his position, wicked as he is.”
“Oh, I thank you, Colonel Dunwoody, for you are always kind and just.”
“I will send my aide with the letter to a courier to take it at once to this strange woman.”
And so it was that the letter that overtook Bonnie Belle on the eastward trail was sent.
CHAPTER VIII.
A FAIR PLOTTER.
Nina de Sutro went from the quarters of Colonel Dunwoody to her own pleasant rooms in the house of Lieutenant-Colonel Ravel de Sutro.