Nan looked around at the circle of faces, some of them blurred by the eddying tobacco and powder smoke. She looked at Hashknife, and his gray eyes were watching her closely.
“I took a dead girl’s name,” she said slowly. “She was my room-mate. We were both poor and out of jobs. She was killed in a wreck, and Jack Pollock was hurt at the same time.
“There was a letter to her from Amos Baggs, telling her to come and claim her inheritance. There was a hundred-dollar cheque in the letter. Well, I took it and came here. I’m an impostor. My name is Nan Whitlock—not Singer. Mr. Baggs said he’d send me to prison. Pollock had told him that I wasn’t the right girl. Baggs tried to get me to sign papers out at the ranch. He said I would be sent to jail if I didn’t sign them, but I—I said I’d rather g
