"There is danger," I argued. "You should not expose yourself to the chances of a brush with the enemy. It is a wet, cold ride, and there may be bullets flying at the end of it."
Mrs. Knapp gave a shudder, but she spoke firmly.
"I could not rest--I could not stay away. It may be important that I should be there--it will be important if we find the boy. You do not know him. Mr. Nahl does not know him."
"None of my men seems to know him," I interrupted; "that is, if one may judge by the way they were all taken in on the boy you sent to Livermore."
"I think none of them ever saw his face, though some of them were with Henry Wilton when he first took the boy, and afterward."
"The enemy seem to know him," said I, remembering the scene at Livermore.
"Terrill knows him. I think none of the other agents could be certain of his face, unless it is Mr. Meeker. But truly, I must go."
"You are very brave," I said, admiring her spirit, though I was loath to have the responsibility of her safety on my hands.
"Without you I should not dare to go, I fear," she made answer, "I need a strong arm to lean on, you see."
"You may wish later that you had chosen a cavalier with two strong arms to his equipment. I fear I shouldn't do so well in a hand-to-hand encounter as I should have done before I met Mr. Terrill last night."
"Oh, I hope it will not come to that," said Mrs. Knapp cheerfully, though there was a little tremor in her voice.
Mrs. Knapp was silent for a little, as if this contingency had not entered her plans.
"We must follow him and save him, even if we have to raise the whole county to do it." Her voice was firm and resolute.
"What would happen to the boy if he were taken?" I found courage to ask.
"He would not live a month," she replied.
"I don't know how the end would come. But I know he would die."
I was in the shadow of the mystery. A hundred questions rose to my lips; but behind them all frowned the grim wolf-visage of Doddridge Knapp, and I could not find the courage that could make me speak to them.
"Mrs. Knapp," I said, "you have called me by my name. I had almost forgotten that I had ever borne it. I have lived more in the last month than in the twenty-five years that I remember before it, and I have almost come to think that the old name belongs to some one else. May I ask how you got hold of it?"