Ma Briskow always had been known as a woman without guile, but of late she had developed rare powers of dissimulation.

She was, in fact, leading a double life, and neither her husband nor her daughter suspected the extent of her deception.

To the patrons of the Burlington Notch Hotel she was merely a drab, indistinct, washed-out old woman, unmarked except by a choice of clashing colors in dress; to her family she remained what she always had been; nobody dreamed that she was in reality a bandit queen, the leader of a wild, unfettered band of mountaineers.

But that is what she was.

And worse at times.
Yes, Ma had slipped the leash.