“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. She had an extended view of miles and miles of the superb scenery visible from the fort. There was a large herd of cattle, guarded by picturesque-looking cowboys in the distance. A drove of horses were feeding a few miles away, and a couple of troops were drilling down in the valley, and all preparing to cease work as the day was closing. In the plaza of the fort the band was playing, and upon the bluff overhanging the river, officers, ladies and children were gathered awaiting the time for parade, a spectacle which no one at the fort ever cared to miss. But upon this evening all these scenes and actions held no charm for Nina de Sutro. She threw herself into a chair in front of the open window in her sitting-room, and with her hand clasped over one knee, a favorite attitude of hers in reverie, began to think. “How can I save that man from the gallows?” at last burst from her lips, and revealed what her thoughts were. “He must be saved, or he will ruin me, for he will carry out his threat. I know that he will show me no mercy; that he will not soften in his last moments, but grow more revengeful, so he must never go to the gallows. “Surely the devil is tempting me when I feel stealing into my brain and heart the thought that if he were _poisoned_ it would be believed that he committed suicide. The act would silence him forever, thus keeping my secret and making me a widow by the same murderous deed. No! no! I am not wicked, and what I did do wrong was not so intended, for I became his wife, believing that he loved me. “If I hate him now, and God knows that I have had cause, and love another, has he not given me cause, and has not that other won me by contrast in being so noble a specimen of true manhood? No, I will do no wrong, for I am not wicked, and what I am he made me. “But dare I lose the man I now love with all my heart and soul by letting him know my secret? Dare I let that man come out upon the gallows and name me as his wife? No, that cannot, shall not be, for I will save him, though, until I know that he is dead I can never wed the one I love. Yet how am I to do it?” This question she could not answer. In thinking it all over her brow grew clouded, her lips set sternly and she seemed as though plotting some daring, desperate deed.