
Felicity slumped down into the sagging canvas chair, the only furnishing in the camp, and closed her eyes against the fatigue of too many sleepless nights. Mr. Logan. The name had haunted her since the first time the boy had spoken it. What would she do when this Mr. Logan came? And what if Mr. Logan was the one? What if he was the man who had been chasing them? How would she get away and…
Felicity shook herself, forcing her weary eyes open. She must be going crazy to be thinking such thoughts! No one was chasing them. Her father had told her that over and over again. She had only imagined they were fleeing from some invisible danger. He had explained that they had to keep moving to get work, so they could never stay in one place very long. And if sometimes they left a town very suddenly, without even finishing all their business, it was only because her father hated towns and sometimes he just had to get away onto the open prairie.
Felicity supposed that losing her father had spooked her, making her imagination run wild. Without his constant reassurance, she had been almost overwhelmed by the sensation of being followed. She had kept moving restlessly, hoping to escape whoever or whatever was behind her almost as much as she hoped to find a destination.
No, she told herself, this Mr. Logan could not be the man who was following her, because there was nobody following her. And she was a grown woman, eighteen years old, no longer a little girl to be frightened by shadows. She did not fear Mr. Logan for that reason. Mr. Logan presented an entirely new and different threat, a threat with which she must deal right now, she suddenly realized. Three riders had just appeared on the horizon. Felicity raced for the rifle.
