"Look at me!" commanded Willa. "Could you swear, Mr. Ryder, that I was the child you call 'Billie'? Could you take your oath on it?"
He looked long and searchingly while she waited in breathless suspense. At last he drew back, shaking his head.
"No'm, I couldn't. Meaning no disrespect, there's a look about you of Miss Vi, but fifteen or sixteen years is a long time to trust your memory and I couldn't swear to nothing."
"My name is Abercrombie," she said. "You are right, Mr. Ryder. Fifteen years are a very long time."
The shack next the coal-yard was more forlorn even than the others, though the sagging porch was swept clean, and ineffectual attempts had been made to mend the breaks in roof and walls with fresher slabs of unpainted wood which stood out against the gray weathered boards like patches on an old coat.
There was no bell, but Willa knocked patiently on the panel until there came a slow tread within and the door opened. A thin, angular woman stood there, her dark hair streaked with gray, and Willa glanced at her, then swiftly averted her gaze in pity. The face before her was drawn and scarred as if the hot hand of wrath had clawed it, searing and distorting it to the hideous, grinning semblance of a mask.
"I beg your pardon." Willa's voice was very gentle. "I am looking for someone known as Klondike Kate. If you are she, I have a great favor to ask of you."
She had sounded the right note; the woman, who for so long had been the recipient of grudging, half-contemptuous favor herself, gasped and flung wide the door.
"Come in, Miss. I'm Kate, right enough. Sit down close to the stove; I ain't got much of a fire." The voice was singularly clear and sweet.
Willa glanced about her and then back at the woman who had dropped into a low rocker beside a table heaped with red flannels, which she had evidently been mending. The room was tiny and pitifully bare, but scrubbed clean, and pathetic bows of faded ribbon strove to conceal the worn spots on the coarse snowy curtains. A small pot bubbled on the stove and two cold potatoes and half a stale loaf on the shelf betrayed the meagerness of the larder.
The woman had given an impression of age at first, but Willa saw now that she could be scarcely more than forty and her eyes were rather fine despite their hint of tragedy.