These rumours, too,
she had supposed inflated as rumours will be when they are bad and have
travelled far. Now it was a little anxiously that she asked for further
information, and not altogether because she sought some new topic.
"She's Henry Pollard's niece, Mary," Smith said rather hurriedly. The
girl glanced at him sharply. There was something in his tone which told
her that he was warning his wife, cautioning her to speak guardedly of
Pollard or not at all.
When, an hour later, she went to bed, she lay long sleepless, wondering,
nervously dreading the morrow. For these people who should know gave
Hill's Corners the same name that Mr. Templeton had given it, the same
name it bore as far as Crystal City and beyond. It was one of those far
removed towns which are the last stand of the lawless, the ultimate
breastwork before the final ditch into which in his hour the gunfighter
has finally gone down. Desperate characters, men wanted in two states
and perhaps in many more, flocked here where they found the one chance
to live out their riotous lives riotously. Here they could "straddle"
the line, and when wanted upon one side slip to the other. And
hereabouts, for very many miles in all directions, the big cattle men,
the small ranchers, the "little fellows," all slept "with their eyes
open and their gunlocks oiled.
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