I see
truth in your face--in Miss Withersteen's. But let me hear it
all--all on my knees. Tell me how it's true!"
"Well, Elizabeth, listen," said Lassiter. "Before you was born
your father made a mortal enemy of a Mormon named Dyer. They was
both ministers an' come to be rivals. Dyer stole your mother away
from her home. She gave birth to you in Texas eighteen years ago.
Then she was taken to Utah, from place to place, an' finally to
the last border settlement--Cottonwoods. You was about three
years old when you was taken away from Milly. She never knew what
had become of you. But she lived a good while hopin' and prayin'
to have you again. Then she gave up an' died. An' I may as well
put in here your father died ten years ago. Well, I spent my time
tracin' Milly, an' some months back I landed in Cottonwoods. An'
jest lately I learned all about you. I had a talk with Oldrin'
an' told him you was dead, an' he told me what I had so long been
wantin' to know. It was Dyer, of course, who stole you from
Milly. Part reason he was sore because Milly refused to give you
Mormon teachin', but mostly he still hated Frank Erne so
infernally that he made a deal with Oldrin' to take you an' bring
you up as an infamous rustler an' rustler's girl. The idea was to
break Frank Erne's heart if he ever came to Utah--to show him his
daughter with a band of low rustlers. Well--Oldrin' took you,
brought you up from childhood, an' then made you his Masked
Rider.
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