Читать книгу The "Wild West" Collection - William MacLeod Raine - Страница 13

"Certainly; and I see I will have to--and maybe bring proof to indorse me before you will quite credit what I tell you," answered Lyster, with an amused expression. "You can scarcely believe a tenderfoot has learned more of your vagabond reds than you yourself knew, can you? Well, I distinctly heard him say to Mr. Haydon: 'See! She looks at you.' But his other mutterings did not reach my ears; they did Haydon's, however, and drove him out yonder. I tell you, Dan, you ought to chain up your medicine men when capitalists brave the wilds of the Kootenai to lay wealth at your doorstep, for this pet of yours is not very engaging."

Overton paid little heed to the chaffing of his friend. His gaze wandered to the old Indian, who, as Lyster said, was at that moment a picture of bland indifference. He was sunning himself again at the door of Harris' cabin, and his eyes followed sleepily the form of Mr. Haydon, who had stopped at the creek, and with hands clasped back of him, was staring into the swift-flowing mountain stream.

"Oh, I don't doubt you, Max," said Overton, at last. "Don't speak as if I did. But the idea that old Akkomi really expressed himself in English would suggest to me a vital necessity, or else that he was becoming weak in his old age; for his prejudice against his people using any of the white men's words has been the most stubborn thing in his whole make-up. And what strong necessity could there be for him to address Mr. Haydon, an utter stranger?"

"Don't know, I am sure--unless it is that his interest in 'Tana is very strong. You know she saved the life of his little grandchild--the future chief, you said. And I think you are fond of asserting that an Indian never forgets a favor; so it may be that his satanic majesty over there only wanted to interest a seemingly influential stranger in a poor little sick girl, and was not aware that he took an uncanny way of doing it. Had we better go down and apologize to Haydon?"

"You can--directly. Who is he?"

"Well, he is the great moneyed mogul at the back of the company for whom you have been doing some responsible work out here. I guess he is what you call a silent partner; while Mr. Seldon--my relation, you know--has been the active member in the mining deals. They have been friends this long time. I have heard that Seldon was to have married Haydon's sister years ago. Wedding day set and all, when the charms of a handsome employee of theirs proved stronger than her promise, and she was found missing one morning; also the handsome clerk, as well as a rather heavy sum of money, to which the clerk had access. Of course, they never supposed that the girl knew she was eloping with a thief. But her brother--this one here--never forgave her. An appeal for help came to him once from her--there was a child then--but it was ignored, and they never heard from her again. Haydon was very fond of her, I believe--fond and proud, and never got over the disgrace of it. Seldon never married, and he did what he could to make her family forgive her, and look after her. But it was no use, though their regard for him never lessened. So you see they are partners from away back; and while Haydon is considerable of an expert in mineralogy, this is the first visit he has ever made to their works up in the Northwest. In fact, he had not intended coming so far north just now; he was waiting for Seldon, who was down in Idaho. But when I got your letter, and impressed on his mind the good business policy of having the firm investigate at once, he fell in with the idea, and--here we are! Now, that is about all I can tell you of Haydon, and how he came here."

"Less would have been plenty," said Overton, with a pretended sigh of relief. "I didn't ask to be told his sister's love affairs or his brother-in-law's failings. I was asking about the man himself."

"Well, I don't know what to tell you about him; there doesn't seem to be anything to say. He is T. J. Haydon, a man who inherited both money and a genius for speculation. Not a plunger, you know; but one of those pursy, far-seeing fellows who always put their money on the right number and wait patiently until it wins. I might tell you that he was sentimental once in his life, and got married; and I might tell you of a pretty daughter he has (and whom he used to be very much afraid I would make love to), but I suppose you would not be interested in those exciting details, so I will refrain. But as to the man himself and his trip here, I can only say, if you have made a strike up here, he is the very best man I know to get interested. Better even than Seldon, for Seldon always defers to Haydon, while Haydon always acts on his own judgment. And say, old fellow, long as we have talked, you have not yet told me one word of the new gold mine. I suspected none of the Ferry folks knew of it, from the general opinion that your trip here was an idiotic affair. Even the doctor said there was no sane reason why you should have dragged Harris and 'Tana into the woods as you did. I kept quiet, remembering the news in your letter, for I was sure you did not decide on this expedition without a good reason. Then the contents of that letter I read the night Harris collapsed--well, it stuck in my mind, and I got to wondering if your bonanza was the one he had found before. Oh, I've been doing some surmising about it. Am I right?"

"Pretty nearly," assented Overton. "Of course I knew some of the folks would raise a howl because I let 'Tana come along; but it was necessary, and I thought it would be best for her in the end, else you may be sure--be very sure--I would not have had her come. She--was to have gone back--at once--the very next day; but when the next day came, she was not able. I have done what I could, but nothing seems to count. She does not get well, and the gold doesn't play much of a figure in this camp just now. One-third of the find is hers, and the same for Harris and me; but I'd give my share cheerfully this minute if it would buy back health for her and let me see her laughing and bright again."

Lyster reached out his hand and gave Overton's arm an affectionate pressure.

"Don't I know it, Dan?" he asked kindly. "Can't I see that you have just worked and worried yourself sick over her illness--blaming yourself, perhaps--"

"Yes, that is it--blaming myself for--many things," he agreed, brokenly, and then he checked himself as Lyster's curious glance was turned on him. "So you see I am in no fit condition to talk values with this Mr. Haydon. All my thoughts are somewhere else. Doctor says if she is not better to-night she will not get well. That means she will not live. Tell your friend that something worse than a gold crisis is here just now, and I can't talk to him till it is over. Don't mind if I'm even a bit careless with you, Max. Look after yourselves as well as you can. You are welcome--you know that; but--what's the use of words? Perhaps 'Tana is dying!"

And turning his back abruptly on his friend, he walked away, while Lyster looked after him with some surprise.

"I seem to be dropped by everybody," he remarked, "first Haydon and now Dan. But I don't believe there is danger of her dying. I _won't_ believe it! Dan has worried himself sick and fearful during these terrible days, but I'll do my share now and let him get some rest and sleep. 'Tana die! I can't think it. But I care ten times more for Dan, just because of his devotion to her. I wonder what he would think if he knew why I wanted her to go to school, or how much she was in my mind every hour I was gone. I felt like telling him just now, but better not--not yet. He thinks she is only a little child yet. Dear old Dan!"

He entered the cabin and spoke to Harris, whom he had not seen before, and who looked with pleasure at him, though, as ever, speechless and moveless, but for that nod of his head and the bright, quick glance of his eyes.

From him he went again to 'Tana; but she lay still and pale, with closed eyes and no longer muttering.

"There ain't a blessed thing you can do, Mr. Max," said Mrs. Huzzard, in a wheezing whisper; "but if there is, you may be sure I'll let you know and glad to do it. Lavina says she's going to help me to a rest; and you must help Dan Overton, for slept he has not, and I know it, these eight nights since I've been here. And if that ain't enough to kill a man!"

"Sure enough. But now that I am here, we will not have any night watches on his part," decided Lyster. "Between Miss Slocum and myself I think we can manage to do some very creditable nursing."

"I am willing to do my best," said Miss Lavina, with a shrinking glance toward Flap-Jacks, who just slouched past with a bucket of water; "but I must confess I do feel a timidity in the presence of these sly-looking Indians. And if at night I can only be sure none of them are very close, I may be able to watch this poor girl instead of watching for them with their tomahawks."

"Never fear while I am detailed as guard," answered Lyster, reassuringly. "They will reach you only over my dead body."

"Oh, but--" and the timid one arose as if for instant flight, but was held by Mrs. Huzzard.

"Now, now!" she said reprovingly to the young fellow, "it's noways good-natured of you to make us more scared of the dirty things than we are naturally. But, Lavina, I'll go bail that he never yet has seen a dead body of their killing since he came in the country. Lord knows, they don't look as if they would kill a sheep, though they might steal them fast enough. It ain't from Dan Overton that you ever learned to scare women, Mr. Max; you wouldn't catch him at such tricks."

"Now I beg that whatever you do, Mrs. Huzzard, you will not compare me to that personage," objected Lyster; "for I am convinced that anything human would in your eyes suffer by such a comparison. Great is Dan in the camp of the Kootenais!"

Mrs. Huzzard only laughed at his words, but Miss Lavina did not. She even let her eyes wander again to Akkomi, in order to show her disapproval of frivolous comment on Mr. Overton; a fact Lyster perceived and was immensely amused by.

"She has set her covetous maidenly eyes on him, and if she doesn't marry him before the year is over, he will have to be clever," he decided, as he left them and went to look up Haydon. "Serves Dan right if she did, for he never gives any other fellow half a chance with the old ladies. The rest of us have to be content with the young ones."

CHAPTER XVI.

THROUGH THE NIGHT.

The soft dusk of the night had fallen over the northern lands, and the pale stars had gleamed for hours on the reflecting waves of mountain streams. It was late--near midnight, for the waning sickle of the moon was slipping from its dark cover in the east and hanging like a jewel of gold just above the black crown of the pines. Breaths from the heights sifted down through the vast woods, carrying sometimes the dreary twitter of a bird disturbed, or the mellow call of insects singing to each other of the summer night. All sounds of the wilderness were as echoes of rest and utter content.

And in the camp of the Twin Springs, shadows moved sometimes with a silence that was scarce a discord in the wood songs of repose. A camp fire glimmered faintly a little way up from the stream, and around it slept the Indian boatman, the squaw, and old Akkomi, who, to the surprise of Overton, had announced his intention of remaining until morning, that he might know how the sickness went with the little "Girl-not-Afraid."

A dim light showed through the chinks of 'Tana's cabin, where Miss Lavina, the doctor, and Lyster were on guard for the night. The doctor had grown sleepy and moved into Harris' room, where he could be comfortable on blankets. Lyster, watching the girl, was trying to make himself think that their watching was all of no use; her sleep seemed so profound, so healthfully natural, that he could not bring himself to think, as Dan did, that the doctor's worst prophecy could come true--that out of that sleep she might awake to consciousness, or that, on the other hand, she might drift from sleep to lethargy and thus out of life.

Outside a man stood peering in through a chink from which he had stealthily pulled the moss. He could not see the girl's face, but he could see that of Lyster as he bent over, listening to her breathing, and he watched it as if to glean some reflected knowledge from the young fellow's earnest glances.

He had been there a long time. Once he slipped away for a short distance and stood in the deeper shadows, but he had returned, and was listening to the low, disjointed converse of the watchers within, when suddenly a tall form loomed up beside him and a heavy hand was dropped on his shoulder.

"Not a word!" said a voice close to his ear. "If you make a noise, I'll strangle you! Come along!"

To do otherwise was not easy, for the hand on his shoulder had a helpful grip. He was almost lifted over the ground until they were several yards from the cabin, and out in the clearer light of the stars.

"Well, I protest, Mr. Overton, that your manner is not very pleasant," remarked the captive, as he was released and allowed to speak. "Is--is this sort of threats a habit of yours with strangers in your camp?"

Overton, seeing him now away from the thick shadows of the cabin, gave a low exclamation of astonishment and irritation.

"_You_--Mr. Haydon! Well, you must confess that if my threats are not pleasant, neither is it pleasant to find some one moving like a spy around that little girl's cabin. If you don't want to be treated like a spy, don't act like one."

"Well, it does look queer, maybe," said the other, lamely. "I--I could not get asleep, and as I was walking around, it seemed natural to look in the cabin, though I did not want to disturb them by going in. I think I heard them say she was improving."

"Did they say that--lately?" asked Overton, earnestly, everything else forgotten for the moment in his strong desire for her recovery. "Who said it--Miss Slocum? Well, she seems like a sensible woman, and I hope to God she is right about this! Don't mind my roughness just now. I was too quick, maybe; but spies around a new gold mine or field are given pretty harsh treatment up here sometimes; and you were liable to suspicion from any one."

"No doubt--no doubt," agreed the other, with visible relief. "But to be a suspected character is a new rle for me--a bit amusing, too. However, now that you have broached the subject of this new find of yours, I presume Lyster made clear to you that I came up here for the express purpose of investigating what you have to offer, with a view to making a deal with you. And as my time here will be limited--"

"Perhaps to-morrow we can talk of it. I can't to-night," answered Overton. "To that little girl in there one-third of the stock belongs; another third belongs to that paralyzed man in the other cabin. I have to look after the interests of them both, and need to have my head clear to do it. But with her there sick--dying maybe--I can't think of dollars and cents."

"You mean to tell me that the young girl is joint owner of a gold find promising a fortune? Why, I understood Max to say she was poor--in fact, indebted to you for all care."

"Max is too careless with his words," answered Overton, coldly. "She is in my care--yes; but I do not think she will be poor."

"She has a very conscientious guardian, anyway," remarked Mr. Haydon, "when it is impossible for a man even to look in her cabin without finding you on his track. I confess I am interested in her. Can you tell me how she came in this wild country? I did not expect to find pretty young white girls in the heart of this wilderness."

"I suppose not," agreed the other.

They had reached the little camp fire by this time, and he threw some dry sticks on the red coals. As the blaze leaped up and made bright the circle around them, he looked at the stranger and said, bluntly:

"What did Akkomi tell you of her?"

"Akkomi?"

"Yes; the old Indian who went in with you to see her."

"Oh, that fellow? Some gibberish."

"I guess he must have said that she looks like you," decided Overton. "I rather think that was it."

"Like _me_! Why--how--" and Mr. Haydon tried to smile away the absurdity of such a fancy.

"For there is a resemblance," continued the younger man, with utter indifference to the stranger's confusion. "Of course it may not mean anything--a chance likeness. But it is very noticeable when your hat is off, and it must have impressed the old Indian, who seems to think himself a sort of godfather to her. Yes, I guess that was why he spoke to you."

"But her--her people? Are there only you and these Indians to claim her? She must have some family--"

"Possibly," agreed Overton, curtly. "If she ever gets able to answer, you can ask her. If you want to know sooner, there is old Akkomi; he can tell you, perhaps."

But Mr. Haydon made a gesture of antipathy to any converse with that individual.

"One meets so many astonishing things in this country," he remarked, as though in extenuation of something. "The mere presence of such a savage in the sick girl's room is enough to upset any one unused to this border life--it upset me completely. You see, I have a daughter of my own back East."

"So Max tells me," replied Overton, carelessly, all unconscious of the intended honor extended to him when Mr. Haydon made mention of his own family to a ranger of a few hours' acquaintance.

"Yes," Haydon continued, "and that naturally makes one feel an interest in any young girl without home or--relatives, as this invalid is; and I would be glad of any information concerning her--or any hint of help I might be to her, partly for--humanity's sake, and partly for Max."

"At present I don't know of any service you could render her," said Overton, coldly, conscious of a jarring, unpleasant feeling as the man talked to him. He thought idly to himself how queer it was that he should have an instinctive feeling of dislike for a person who in the slightest degree resembled 'Tana; and this stranger must have resembled her much before he grew stout and broad of face; the hair, the nose, and other points about the features, were very much alike. He did not wonder that Akkomi might have been startled at it, and made comments. But as he himself surveyed Mr. Haydon's features by the flickering light of the burning sticks, he realized how little the likeness of outlines amounted to after all, since not a shadow of expression on the face before him was like that of the girl whose sleep was so carefully guarded in the cabin.

And then, with a feeling of thankfulness that it was so, there flashed across his mind the import of the stranger's closing words--"for the sake of Max."

"For Max, you said. Well, maybe I am a little more stupid than usual to-night, but I must own up I can't see how a favor to 'Tana could affect Max very much."

"You do not?"

"I tell you so," said Overton curtly, not liking the knowing smile in the eyes of the speaker. He did not want to be there talking to him, anyway. To walk alone under the stars was better than the discord of a voice unpleasant. Under the stars she had come to him that once--once, when she had been clasped close--close! when she had whispered words near to his heart, and their hands had touched in the magnetism of troubled joy. Ah! it was best to remember that, though death itself follow after! A short, impatient sigh touched his lips as he tried to listen to the words of the stranger while his thoughts were elsewhere.

"And Seldon would do something very handsome for Max if he married to suit him," Haydon was saying, thoughtfully. "Seldon has no children, you know, and if this girl was sent to school for a while, I think it would come out all right--all right. I would take a personal interest to the extent of talking to Seldon of it. He will think it a queer place for Max to come for a wife; but when--when I talk to him, he will agree. Yes, I can promise it will be all right."

"What are you talking of?" demanded Overton, blankly. He had not heard one-half of a very carefully worded idea of Mr. Haydon's. "Max married! To whom?"

"You are not a very flattering listener," remarked the other, dryly, "and don't show much interest in the love affairs of your _protge_; but it was of her I was speaking."

"You--you would try to marry her to Max Lyster--marry her!" and his voice sounded in his own ears as strange and far away.

"Well, it is not an unusual prophecy to make of a young girl, is it?" asked Mr. Haydon, with an attempt to be jocular. "And I don't know where she could find a better young fellow. From his discourses concerning her on our journey here and his evident devotion since our arrival, I fancy the idea is not so new to him as it seems to be to you, Mr. Overton."

"Nonsense! when she is well, they quarrel as often as they agree--oftener."

"That is no proof that he is not in love with her--and why not? She is a pretty girl, a bright girl, he says, and of good people--"

"He knows nothing about her people," interrupted Overton.

"But you do?"

"I know all it has been necessary for me to know," and, in spite of himself, he could not speak of 'Tana to this man without a feeling of anger at his persistence. "But I can't help being rather surprised, Mr. Haydon, that you should so quickly agree that a wise thing for your partner's nephew to do is to turn from all the cultured, intelligent girls he must know, and look for a wife among the mining camps of the Kootenai hills. And, considering the fact that you approve of it, without ever having heard her speak, without knowing in the least who or what her family have been--I must say it is an extraordinarily impulsive thing for a man of your reputation to do--a cool-headed, conservative business man."

Mr. Haydon found himself scrutinized very closely, very coldly by the ranger, who had all the evening kept away from him, and whom he had mentally jotted down as a big, careless, improvident prospector, untaught and a bit uncouth.

But his words were not uncouth as he launched them at the older man, and he was no longer careless as he watched the perturbation with which they were received. But Haydon shrugged his shoulders and attempted to look indifferent.

"I remarked just now that this was a land of astonishing things," he said, with a tolerant air, "and it surely is so when the most depraved-looking redskin is allowed admittance to a white girl's chamber, while the most harmless of Caucasians is looked on with suspicion if he merely shows a little human interest in her welfare."

"Akkomi is a friend of her own choosing," answered Overton, "and a friend who would be found trusty if he was needed. As to you--you have no right, that I know of, to assume any direction of her affairs. She will choose her own friends--and her own husband--when she wants them. But while she is sick and helpless, she is under my care, and even though you were her father himself, your ideas should not influence her future unless she approved you."

With a feeling of relief he turned away, glad to have in some way given vent to the irritation awakened in him by the prosperous gentleman from civilization.

The prosperous gentleman saw his form grow dim in the starlight, and though his face flushed angrily at first, the annoyance gave place to a certain satisfaction as he seated himself on a log by the fire, and repeated Overton's final words:

"_'Even though you were her father himself_!' Well, well, Mr. Overton! Your uncivil words have told me more than you intended--namely, that your own knowledge as to who her father was, or is, seems very slight. So much the better, for one of your unconventional order is not the sort of person I should care to have know. 'Even though you were her father himself.' Humph! So he does me the doubtful honor to suppose I may be? It is a nasty muddle all through. I never dreamed of walking into such a net as this. But something must be done, and that is clear; no use trying to shirk it, for Seldon is sure to run across them sooner or later up here--sure. And if he took a hand in it--as he would the minute he saw her--well, I could not count on his being quiet about it, either. I've thought it all out this evening. I've got to get her away myself--get her to school, get her to marry Max, and all so quietly that there sha'n't be any social sensation about her advent into the family. I hardly know whether this wealth they talk of will be a help or a hindrance; a help, I suppose. And there need not be any hitch in the whole affair if the girl is only reasonable and this autocratic ranger can be ignored or bought over to silence. It would be very annoying to have such family affairs talked of--annoying to the girl, also, when she lives among people who object to scandals. Gad! how her face did strike me! I felt as if I had seen a ghost. And that cursed Indian!"

Altogether, Mr. Haydon had considerable food for reflection, and much of it was decidedly annoying; or so it seemed to Akkomi, who lay in the shadow and looked like a body asleep, as were the others. But from a fold of his blanket he could see plainly the face of the stranger and note the perplexity in it.

The first tender flush of early day was making the stars dim when the doctor met Overton between the tents and the cabins, and surveyed him critically from his slouch hat to his boots, on which were splashes of water and fresh loam.

"What, in the name of all that's infernal, has taken possession of you, Overton?" he demanded, with assumed anger and real concern. "You have not been in bed all night. I know, for I've been to your tent. You prowl somewhere in the woods when you ought to be in bed, and you are looking like a ghost of yourself."

"Oh, I guess I'll last a day or two yet, so quit your growling; you think you'll scare me into asking for some of your medicines; but that is where you will find yourself beautifully left. I prefer a natural death."

"And you will find it, too, if you don't mend your ways," retorted the man of the medicines. "I thought at first it was the care of 'Tana that kept you awake every hour of every night; but I see it is just the same now when there are plenty to take your place; worse--for now you go tramping, God only knows where, and come back looking tired, as though you had been racing with the devil."

"You haven't told me how she is," was all the answer he made to this tirade. "You said--that by daylight--"

"There would be a change--yes, and there is; only a shadow of a change as yet, but the shadow leans the right way."

"The _right_ way," he half whispered, and walked on toward her cabin. He felt dizzy and the tears crept up in his eyes, and he forgot the doctor, who looked after him and muttered statements damaging to Dan's sanity.

All the long night he had fought with himself to keep away, to let the others care for her--the others, who fancied they were giving him a wished-for rest. And all the while the desire of his heart was to bar them out--to wait, alone with her, for the life or death that was to come. He had walked miles in his restlessness, but could not have found again the paths he walked over. He had talked with some of the people who were wakeful in the night, but could scarce have told of any words he had said.

He had felt dazed by the dread of what the new day would bring, and now he looked up at the morning star with a great thankfulness in his heart. The new day had come, and with it a breath of hope.

Miss Lavina met him at the door, and whispered that the doctor thought the fever had taken the hoped-for turn for the better. 'Tana had opened her eyes but a moment before, and looked at Miss Slocum wonderingly, but fell asleep again; she had looked rational, but very weak.

"Well, old fellow, I am proud of myself," said Lyster, as Overton entered. "It took Miss Slocum and me only one night to bring 'Tana around several degrees nearer health. We are the nurses! And if she only wakes conscious--"

His words, or else the intense, wistful gaze of the man at the foot of the bed, must have aroused her, for she moved and opened her eyes and looked around aimlessly, passing over the faces of Miss Slocum, of the squaw, and of Overton, until Lyster, close beside her, whispered her name. Then her lips curved ever so little in a smile as her eyes met his.

"Max!" she said, and put out her hand to him. As his fingers clasped it, she turned her face toward him, and fell contentedly asleep again, with her cheek against his hand.

And Mr. Haydon, who came in with the doctor a moment later, glanced at the picture they made, and smiled meaningly at Overton.

"You see, I was right," he observed. "And do you not think it would be a very exacting guardian who could object?"

Overton only looked at Max, whose face had flushed a little, knowing how significant his attitude must appear to others. But his hand remained in hers, and his eyes turned to Dan with a half embarrassed confession in them--a confession Dan read and understood.

"Yes, you may well be proud, Max," he said, answering Lyster's words. "You deserve all gratitude; and I hope--I hope nothing but good luck will come your way."

Mr. Haydon, who watched him with critical eyes, could read nothing in his words but kindliest concern for a friend.

The doctor, who had suddenly got a ridiculous idea in his head that Dan Overton was wearing himself out on 'Tana's account, changed his mind and silently called himself a fool. He might have known Dan had more sense than that. Yet, what was it that had changed him so?

Twenty-four hours later he thought he knew.

CHAPTER XVII.

MISS SLOCUM'S IDEAS REGARDING DEPORTMENT.

"So it was a gold mine that dragged you people up into this wilderness? Well, I've puzzled my mind a good deal to understand your movements lately; but the finding of a vein as rich as your free gold promises is enough to turn any man's head for a while. Well, well; you are a lucky fellow, Overton."

"Yes, I've no doubt that between good luck and bad luck, I've as much luck as anybody," answered Overton, with a grimace, "but a week or so ago you did not think me lucky--you thought me 'looney.'"

"You are more than half right," agreed the doctor; "appearances justified me. My wife and I stormed at you--behind your back--for carrying 'Tana with you on your fishing trip; it was such an unheard-of thing to my folks, you know. Humph! I wonder what they will say when it is known that she was on a prospecting trip, and that the venture will result in a gain to her of dollars that will be counted by the tens of thousands. By George! it seems incredible! Just like a chapter from the old fairy tales."

"Yes. I find myself thinking about it like that sometimes," said Overton; "a little afraid to lay plans, for fear that after all it may be a dream. I never hoped much for it; I came under protest, and the luck seems more than I deserved."

"Maybe that is the reason you accept it in such a sulky fashion," observed the doctor, "for, upon my soul, I think I am more elated over your good fortune than you are. You don't appear to get up a particle of enthusiasm because of it."

"Well, I have not had an enthusiastic lot of partners, either. Harris, here, not able to move; 'Tana not expected to live; and I suddenly face to face with all this responsibility for them. It gave me considerable to think about."

"You are right. I only wonder you are not gray-haired. A new gold-field waiting for you to make it known, and you guarding it at the same time, perhaps, from red tramps who come spying around. But you are lucky, Dan; everything comes your way, even a capitalist ready at your word to put up money on the strength of the ore you have to show. Why, man, many a poor devil of a prospector has stood a long siege with starvation, even with gold ore in sight, just because no one with capital would buy or back him."

"I know. I realize that; and, for the sake of the other two, I am very glad there need be no waiting for profits."

"Do you know, Dan, I fancy little 'Tana is in the way of being well cared for, even without this good fortune," observed the doctor, looking at the other in a questioning way. "It just occurred to me yesterday that that fine young fellow, Lyster, is uncommonly fond of her. It may be simply because she is ill, and he is sorry for her; but his devotion appeared to me to have a sentimental tinge, and I thought what a fine thing it would be."

"Very," agreed Overton; "and you are sentimental enough yourself to plan it all out for them. I guess Haydon helped to put that notion into your head, didn't he?"

The doctor laughed.

"Well, yes, he did speak of Lyster's devotion to your _protge_" he acknowledged; "and you think we are a couple of premature match-makers, don't you?"

"I think maybe you had better leave it for 'Tana to decide," answered Overton, "and I also think schools will be the first thing considered by her. She is very young, you know."

"Seventeen, perhaps," hazarded the doctor; but Overton did not reply.

He was watching the canoe just launched by their Indian boatmen. They were to take Mr. Haydon back again to the Ferry. He was to send up workmen, and Overton was to manage the work for the present--or, at least, until Mr. Seldon could arrive and organize the work of developing the vein that Mr. Haydon had found was of such exceeding richness that his offer to the owners had been of corresponding magnitude. Overton had promptly accepted the terms offered; Harris agreed to them; and even if 'Tana should not, Dan decided that out of his own share he could make up any added sum desired by her for her share, though he had little idea that she would find fault with his arrangements. She! who had thought, that day of the gold find, that it was better to have their little camp unshared by the many whom gold would bring to them--that it was almost better to be poor than to have their happy life changed.

And it was all over now. Other people had come and were close about her, while he had not seen her since the morning before, when she had awakened and turned to Max. Well, he should be satisfied, so he told himself. She was going to get well again. She was going to be happy. More wealth than they had hoped for had come to her, and with it she would, of course, leave the hills, would go into the life of the cities, and by and by would be glad to forget the simple, primitive life they had shared for the few days of one Kootenai summer. Well, she would be happy.

And here on the spot where their pretty camp had been, he would remain. No thought of leaving came to him. It would all be changed, of course; men and machinery would spoil all the beauty of their wilderness. But as yet no plan for his own future had occurred to him. That he himself had wealth sufficient to secure him from all toil and that a world of pleasure was within his reach, did not seem to touch him with any alluring sense. He was going to remain until the vein of the Twin Springs had a big hole made in it; and the rich soil of the old river he had staked out as a reserve for himself and his partners, to either work or sell. Through his one-sided conversations with Harris he learned that he, too, wanted to remain in the camp where their gold had been found. Doctors, medicines, luxuries, could be brought to him, but he would remain.

Mrs. Huzzard had at once been offered a sum that in her eyes was munificent, for the express purpose of managing the establishment of the partners--when it was built. Until then she was to draw her salary, and act as either nurse or cook in the rude dwellings that for the present had to satisfy all their dreams of luxury.

An exodus from Sinna Ferry was expected; many changes were to be made; and Overton and the doctor went down to the canoe to give final directions to their Indian messenger.

Lyster was there, too, with a most exhausting list of articles which Mr. Haydon was to send up from Helena.

"Dan, some of these things I put down for 'Tana, as I happened to think of them," he said, and unfolded a little roll made from the leaves of a notebook stuck together at the ends with molasses. "You look it over and see if it's all right. I left one sheet empty for anything you might want to add."

Dan took it, eying dubiously the length of it and the great array of articles mentioned.

"I don't think I had better add anything to it until heavier boats are carrying freight on the Kootenai," he remarked, and then commenced reading aloud some of the items:

Eiderdown pillows. Rugs and hammocks. A guitar. Hot water bottle. Some good whisky. Toilet soap. Bret Harte's Poems.

A traveling dress for a girl. (Here followed measurements and directions to the dressmaker.) Then the whole was scratched out, and the following was substituted: Brown flannel or serge--nine yards.

"I had to get Mrs. Huzzard to tell me some of the things," said Lyster, who looked rather annoyed at the quizzical smiles of Dan and the doctor.

"I should imagine you would," observed Overton. "I would have needed the help of the whole camp to get together that amount of plunder. A good shaving set and a pair of cork insoles, No. 8, are they for 'Tana, too?"

But Lyster disdained reply, and Overton, after reading, "All the late magazines," and "A double kettle for cooking oatmeal," folded up the paper and gave it back.

"As I have read only a very small section of the list, I do not imagine you have omitted anything that could possibly be towed up the river," he said. "But it is all right, my boy. I would never have thought of half that stuff, but I've no doubt they will all be of use, and 'Tana will thank you."

"How soon do you expect she will be able to walk, or be moved?" asked Mr. Haydon of the doctor.

"Oh, in two or three weeks, if nothing interferes with her promised recovery. She is a pretty sick girl; but I think her good constitution will help her on her feet by that time."

"And by that time I will be back here," said Haydon, addressing Lyster.

He took a sealed envelope from an inner pocket and gave it to the young fellow.

"When she gets well enough to read that, give it to her, Max," he said, in a low tone. "It's something that may surprise her a little, so I trust your discretion as to when she is to see it. From what I hear of her, she must be a rather level-headed, independent little girl. And as I have something to tell her worth her knowing, I have decided to leave the letter. Now, don't look so puzzled. When I come back she will likely tell you what it means, but you may be sure it is no bad news I send her. Will you attend to it?"

"Certainly. But I don't understand--"

"And there is no need for you to understand--just yet. Take good care of her, and help Overton in all possible ways to look after our interests here. There will be a great deal to see to until Seldon or I can get back."

"Oh, Dan is a host in himself," said Lyster. "He won't want me in his way when it comes to managing his men. But I can help Flap-Jacks carry water, or help old Akkomi smoke, for he comes here each day for just that purpose--that and his dinner--so never fear but that I will make myself useful."

Miss Slocum from the cabin doorway--the door was a blanket--watched the canoe skim down the little stream, and sighed dolefully when it disappeared entirely.

"Now, Lavina," remonstrated Mrs. Huzzard, "I do hope that you ain't counting on making part of the next load that leaves here; for now that you have got here, I'd hate the worst kind to lose you. Gold mines are fine things to live alongside of, I dare say; but I crave some human beings within hail--yes, indeed."

"Exactly my own feelings, Cousin Lorena," admitted Miss Slocum, "and I regret the departure of any member of our circle--all except the Indians. I really do not think that any amount of living among them would teach me to feel lonely at their absence. And that dreadful Akkomi!"

"Yes, isn't he a trial? Not that he ever does any harm; but he just keeps a body in mortal dread, for fear he might take a notion to."

"Yet Mr. Overton seems to think him entirely friendly."

"Humph! yes. But if 'Tana should pet a rattlesnake, Mr. Overton would trust it. That's just how constant he is to his friends."

"Well, now," said Miss Lavina, with mild surprise in her tone, "I really have seen nothing in his manner that would indicate any extreme liking for the girl, though she is his ward. Now, that bright young gentleman, Mr. Lyster--"

"Tut, tut, Lavina! Max Lyster is all eyes and hands for her just now. He will fan her and laugh with her; but it will be Dan who digs for her and takes the weight of her care on his shoulders, even if he never says a word about it. That is just Dan Overton's way."

"And a very fine way it is, Lorena," said Miss Slocum, while her eyes wandered out to where he stood talking to Lyster. "I've met many men of fine manners in my time, but I never was more impressed at first sight by any person than by him when he conducted me personally to you on my arrival. The man had never heard my name before, yet he received me as if this camp had been arranged on purpose for my visit, and that he himself had been expecting me. If that did not contain the very essence of fine manners, I never saw any, Lorena Jane."

"I--I s'pose it does, Lavina," agreed Mrs. Huzzard; "though I never heard any one go on much about his manners before. And as for me--well," and she looked a bit embarrassed, "I ain't the best judge myself. I've had such a terrible hard tussle to make a living since my man died, that I hain't had time to study fine manners. I'll have time enough before long, I suppose, for Dan Overton surely has offered me liberal living wages. But, Lavina, even if I did want to learn now, I wouldn't know where to commence."

"Well, Lorena, since you mention it, there is lots of room for improvement in your general manner. You've been with careless people, I suppose, and bad habits are gathered that way. Now I never was much of a genius--couldn't trim a bonnet like you to save my life; but I did have a most particular mother; and she held that good manners was a recommendation in any land. So, even if her children had no fortune left them, they were taught to show they had careful bringing up. One of my ideas in coming out here was that I might teach deportment in some Indian school, but not much of that notion is left me. Could I ever teach Flap-Jacks to quit scratching her head in the presence of ladies and gentlemen? No."

"I don't think," said Mrs. Huzzard, in a meditative way, "that I mind the scratching so much as I do the dratted habit she has of carrying the dish-cloth under her arm when she don't happen to be using it. That just wears on my nerves, it does. But I tell you what it is, Lavina--if you are kind of disappointed on account of not getting Indian scholars that suit just yet, I'm more than half willing you should teach me the deportment, if you'd be satisfied with one big white scholar instead of a lot of little red ones."

"Yes, indeed, and glad to do it," said Miss Slocum, frankly. "Your heart is all right, Lorena Jane; but a warm heart will not make people forget that you lean your elbow on the table and put your food into your mouth with your knife. Such things jar on other people just as Flap-Jacks and the dish-cloth jar on you. Don't you understand? But your desire to improve shows that you are a very remarkable woman, Lorena, for very few people are willing to learn new habits after having followed careless ones for forty years."

"Thirty-nine," corrected Lorena Jane, showing that, however peculiar and remarkable her wisdom might be in some directions, it did not prevent a natural womanly feeling regarding the number of years she had lived.

"You see," she continued, after a little, as Miss Lavina kept a discreet silence, "this here gold fever is catching; and if any one gets started on the right track, there is no telling what day he may stumble over a fortune. One might come my way--or yours, Lavina. And, just as you say, fine manners is a heap of help in sassiety. And thinking of it that way makes me feel I'd like to be prepared to enjoy, in first-class style, any amount of money I might get a chance at up here. For I tell you what it is, Lavina, this Western land is a woman's country. Her chances in most things are always as good, and mostly better than a man's."

"Yes, if she does not die from fright at the creepy looks of the friendly Indians," said Miss Slocum, with a shivering breath. "I have not slept sound for a single minute since I saw that old smoking wretch who never seems a rod from this cabin. Now down there at Sinna Ferry I thought it might be kind of nice, though we stopped only a little while, and I was not up in the street. Any real genteel people there?"

"Well--yes, there is," answered Lorena Jane, after a slight hesitation as to just how much it would be wise to say of the genteel gentleman who resided in Sinna Ferry, and was in her eyes a model of culture and disdainful superiority. Indeed, that disdain of his had been a first cause in her desire to reach the state of polish he himself enjoyed--to rise above the vulgar level of manners that had of old seemed good enough to her. "Yes, there is some high-toned folks there; the doctor's wife and family, for one; and then there is a very genteel man there--Captain Leek. He is an ex-officer in the late war, you know; a real military gentleman, with a wound in his leg. Limps some, but not enough to make him awkward. He keeps the postoffice. But if this Government looked after its heroes as it ought to, he'd be getting a good pension--that's just what he would. I'm too sound a Union woman not to feel riled at times when I see the defenders of the Constitution go unrewarded."

"Don't say 'riled,' Lorena," corrected Miss Slocum. "You must drop that and 'dratted' and 'I'll swan'; for I don't think you could tell what any of them mean. I couldn't, I'm sure. But I used to know a family of Leeks back in Ohio. They were Democrats, though, and their boys joined the Confederate Army, though I heard they wasn't much good to the cause. But of course it is not likely to be one of them."

"I should think not," agreed Mrs. Huzzard, stoutly. "I never heard him talk politics much; but I do know that he wears nothing but the Union blue to this day, and always that military sort of hat with a cord around it--so--so dignified like."

"No, I did not suppose it could be the one I knew," said her cousin; "the military uniform decides that."

CHAPTER XVIII.

AWAKENING.

"Flap-Jacks," said 'Tana, softly, so as to reach no ear but that of the squaw, who came in from Harris' cabin to find the parasol of Miss Slocum, who was about to walk in the sunshine. To the red creature of the forest this parasol seemed the most wonderfully beautiful thing of all the strange things which the white squaws made use of. "Flap-Jacks, are they gone?"

Three weeks had gone by, three weeks of miraculous changes in the beauty of their wild nook along the trail of the old river.

"Twin Springs," the place was called now--Twin Spring Mines. Already men were at work on the new lode, and doing placer digging for the free gold in the soil. Wooden rails were laid to the edge of the stream, and over it the small, rude car was pushed with the new ore down to a raft on which a test load had been drifted to the immense crusher at the works on Lake Kootenai. And the test had resulted so favorably that the new strike at Twin Springs was considered by far the richest one of the year.

Through all the turbulence that swept up the little stream to their camp, two of the discovering party were housed, sick and silent, in the little double cabin. The doctor could see no reason why 'Tana was so slow in her recovery; he had expected so much more of her--that she would be carried into health again by the very force of her ambition, and her eager delight in the prospects which her newly acquired wealth was opening up to her.

But puzzling to relate, she showed no eagerness at all about it. Her ambitions, if she had any, were asleep, and she scarcely asked a question concerning all the changes of life and people around her. Listless she lay from one day to another, accepting the attention of people indifferently. Max would read to her a good deal, and several times she asked to be carried into the cabin of Harris, where she would sit for hours talking to him, sometimes in a low voice and then again sitting close beside him in long silences, which, strangely enough, seemed more of companionship to her than the presence of people who laughed and talked. They wearied her at times. When she was able to walk out, she liked to go alone; even Max she had sent back when he followed her.

But she never went far. Sometimes she would sit for an hour by the stream, watching the water slip past the pebbles and the grasses, and on to its turbulent journey toward a far-off rest in the Pacific. And again, she would watch some strange miner dig and wash the soil in his search for the precious "yellow." But her walks were ever within the limits of the busy diggings; all her old fondness for the wild places seemed sleeping--like her ambitions.

"She needs change now. Get her away from here," advised the doctor, who no longer felt that she needed medicines, but who could not, with all his skill, build her up again into the daring, saucy 'Tana, who had won the game of cards from the captain that night at the select party at Sinna Ferry.

But when Overton, after much hesitation, broached the subject of her going away, she did look at him with a touch of the old defiance in her face, and after a bit said:

"I guess the camp will have to be big enough for you and me, too, a few days longer. I haven't made up my mind as to when I want to go."

"But the summer will not last long, now. You must commence to think of where you want to go; for when the cold weather comes, 'Tana, you can't remain here."

"I can if I want to," she answered.

After one troubled, helpless look at her pale face, he walked out of the cabin; and Lyster, who had wanted to ask the result of the interview, could not find him all that evening. He had gone somewhere alone, up on the mountain.

She had answered him with a great deal of cool indifference; but when the two cousins entered her room, she was on the bed with her face buried in the pillows, weeping in an uncontrollable manner that filled them with dismay. The doctor decided that while Dan was a good fellow in most ways, he evidently had not a soothing influence on 'Tana, possibly not realizing the changed mental condition laid on her by her sickness. The doctor further made up his mind that, without hurting Dan's feelings, he must find some other mouthpiece for his ideas concerning her or reason with her himself.

But, so far, she would only say she was not ready to go yet. Dan, wishing to make her stay comfortable as possible, went quietly to all the settlements within reach for luxuries in the way of house-furnishing, and had Mrs. Huzzard use them in 'Tana's cabin. But when he had done all this, she never asked a question as to where the comforts came from--she, who, a short month before, had valued each kind glance received from him.

Mrs. Huzzard was sorely afraid that it was pride, the pride of newly acquired wealth, that changed her from the gay, saucy girl into a moody, dreamy being, who would lie all alone for hours and not notice any of them coming and going. The good soul had many a heartache over it all, never guessing that it was an ache and a shame in the heart of the girl that made the new life that was given her seem a thing of little value.

'Tana had watched the squaw wistfully at times, as if expecting her to say something to her when the others were not around, but she never did. When 'Tana heard the ladies ask Lyster to go with them to a certain place where beautiful mosses were to be found, she waited with impatience until their voices left the door.

The squaw shook her head when asked in that whispering way of their departure; but when she had carried out the parasol and watched the party disappear beyond the numerous tents now dotting the spaces where the grass grew rank only a month before, then she slipped back and stood watchful and silent inside the door.

"Come close," said the girl, motioning with a certain nervousness to her. She was not the brave, indifferent little girl she had been of old. "Come close--some one might listen, somewhere. I've been so sick--I've dreamed so many things that I can't tell some days what is dream and what is true. I lie here and think and think, but it will not come clear. Listen! I think sometimes you and I hunted for tracks--a white man's tracks--across there where the high ferns are. You showed them to me, and then we came back when the moon shone, and it was light like day, and I picked white flowers. Some days I think of it--of the tracks, long, slim tracks, with the boot heel. Then my head hurts, and I think maybe we never found the tracks, maybe it is only a dream, like--like other things!"

She did not ask if it were so, but she leaned forward with all of eager question in her eyes. It was the first time she had shown strong interest in anything. But, having aroused from her listlessness to speak of the ghosts of fancy haunting her, she seemed quickened to anxiety by the picture her own words conjured up.

"Ah! those tracks in the black mud and that face above the ledge!"

"It is true," said the squaw, "and not a dream. The track of the white man was there, and the moon was in the sky, as you say."

"Ah!" and the evidently unwelcome truth made her clench her fingers together despairingly; she had hoped so that it was a dream. The truth of it banished her lethargy, made her think as nothing else had. "Ah! it was so, then; and the face--the face was real, was--"

"I saw no face," said the squaw.

"But I did--yes, I did," she muttered. "I saw it like the face of a white devil!"

Then she checked herself and glanced at the Indian woman, whose dark, heavy face appeared so stupid. Still, one never could tell by the looks of an Indian how much or how little he knows of the thing you want to know; and after a moment's scrutiny, the girl asked:

"Did you learn more of the tracks?--learn who the white man was that made them?"

The woman shook her head.

"You sick--much sick," she explained. "All time Dan he say: 'Stay here by white girl's bed. Never leave.' So I not get out again, and the rain come wash all track away."

"Does Dan know?--did you tell him?"

"No, Dan never ask--never talk to me, only say, 'Take care 'Tana,' that all."

The girl asked no more, but lay there on her couch, filled with dry moss and covered with skins of the mountain wolf. Her eyes closed as though she were asleep; but the squaw knew better, and after a little, she said doubtfully:

"Maybe Akkomi know."

"Akkomi!" and the eyes opened wide and slant. "That is so. I should have remembered. But oh, all the thoughts in my brain have been so muddled. You have heard something, then? Tell me."

"Not much--only little," answered the squaw. "That night--late that night, a white stranger reached Akkomi's tent, to sleep. No one else of the tribe got to see him, so the word is. Kawaka heard on the river, and it was that night."

"And then? Where did the stranger go?"

The squaw shook her head.

"Me not know. Kawaka not hear. But I thought of the track. Now many white men make tracks, and one no matter."

"Akkomi," and the thoughts of the girl went back to the very first she could remember of her recovery; and always, each day, the face of Akkomi had been near her. He had not talked, but would look at her a little while with his sharp, bead-like eyes, and then betake himself to the sunshine outside her door, where he would smoke placidly for hours and watch the restless Anglo-Saxon in his struggle to make the earth yield up its riches.

Each day Akkomi had been there, and she had not once aroused herself to question why; but she would.

Rising, she passed out and looked right and left; but no blanketed brave met her gaze. Only Kawaka, the husband of Flap-Jacks, worked about the canoes by the water. Then she entered Harris' cabin, where the sight of his helpless form, and his welcoming smile, made her halt, and drop down on the rug beside him. She had forgotten him so much of late, and she touched his hand remorsefully.

"I feel as if I had just got awake, Joe," she said, and stretched out her arms, as though to drive away the last vestige of sleep. "Do you know how that feels? To lie for days, stupid as a chilled snake, and then, all at once, to feel the sun creeping around where you are and warming you until you begin to wonder how you could have slept so many days away. Well, just now I feel almost well again. I did not think I would get well; I did not care. All the days I lay in there I wished they would just let me be, and throw their medicines in the creek. I think, Joe, that there are times when people should be allowed to die, when they grow tired--tired away down in their hearts; so tired that they don't want to take up the old tussle of living again. It is so much easier to die then than when a person is happy, and--and has some one to like them, and--"

She left the sentence unfinished, but he nodded a perfect understanding of her thoughts.

"Yes, you have felt like that, too, I suppose," she continued, after a little. "But now, Joe, they tell me we are rich--you and Dan and I--so rich we ought to be happy, all of us. Are we?"

He only smiled at her, and glanced at the cozy furnishing of his rude cabin. Like 'Tana's, it had been given a complete going over by Overton, and rugs and robes did much to soften its crude wood-work. It had all the luxury obtainable in that district, though even yet the doors were but heavy skins.

She noticed the look but shook her head.

"Thick rugs and soft pillows don't make troubles lighter," she said, with conviction; and then: "Maybe Dan is happy. He--he must be. All he thinks of now is the gold ore."

She spoke so wistfully, and her own eyes looked so far, far from happy, that the face of the man was filled with longing to comfort her--the little girl who had tramped so long on a lone trail--how lonely none knew so well as he. His fingers closed and unclosed, as if with the desire to clasp her hand,--to make some visible show of friendship.

She saw the slight movement, and looked up at him with a new interest.

"Oh, I forgot, Joe! I never once have asked how you have got along while I have been so sick. Can you use your hands any at all? You could once, a little bit that day--the day we found the gold."

But he shook his head, and just then a step was heard outside, and Lyster looked in.

A shade of surprise touched his face, as he saw 'Tana there, with so bright an expression in her eyes.

"What has Harris been telling you that has aroused you to interest, Tana?" he asked, jestingly. "He has more influence than I, for I have scarcely been able to get you to talk at all."

"You don't need me; you have Miss Slocum," she answered. "Have you dropped her in the creek and run back to camp? And have you seen Akkomi lately? I want him."

"Of course you do. The moment I make my appearance, you want to get rid of me by sending me for some other man. No, I am happy to say I have not seen that royal loafer for the past hour. And I am more happy still to find that you really want some one--any one--once more. Do you realize, my dear girl, how very many days it is since you have condescended to want anything on this earth of ours? Won't you accept me as a substitute for Akkomi?"

"I don't want you."

But her eyes smiled on him kindly, and he did not believe her.

"Perhaps not; but won't you pretend you do for a little while, long enough to come with me for a little walk--or else to talk to me in your cabin?"

"To talk to you? I don't think I can talk much to any one yet. I just told Joe I feel as if I was only waking up."

"So I see; that is the reason I am asking an audience. I will do the talking, and it need not be a very long talk, if you are too tired."

"I believe I will go," she said, at last. "I was thinking it would be nice to float in a canoe again--just to float lazy on the current. Can't we do that?"

"Nothing easier," he answered, entirely delighted that she was again more like the 'Tana of two months before. She seemed to him a little paler and a little taller, but as they walked together to the canoe, he felt that they would again come to the old chummy days of Sinna Ferry, when they quarreled and made up as regularly as the sun rose and set.

"Well, why don't you talk?" she asked, as their little craft drifted away from the tents and the man who washed the soil by the spring run. "What did you do with the women folks?"

"Gave them to Overton. They concluded not to risk their precious selves with me, when they discovered that he, for a wonder, was disengaged. Really and truly, that angular schoolmistress will make herself Mrs. Overton if he is not careful. She flatters him enough to spoil an average man; looks at him with so much respectful awe, you know, though she never does say much to him."

"Saves her breath to drill Mrs. Huzzard with," observed the girl, dryly. "That poor, dear woman has a bee in her muddled old head, and the bee is Captain Leek and his fine manners. I can see it, plain as day. Bless her heart! I hear her go over and over words that she always used to say wrong, and she does eat nicer than she used to. Humph! I wonder if Dan Overton will take as kindly to being taught, when the school-teacher begins with him."

There was a mirthless, unlovely smile about her lips, and Lyster reached over and clasped her hand coaxingly.

"'Tana, what has changed you so?" he asked. "Is it your sickness--is it the gold--or what, that makes you turn from your old friends? Dan never says a word, but I notice it. You never talk to him, and he has almost quit going to your cabin at all, though he would do anything for you, I know. My dear, you will find few friends like him in the world."

"Oh, don't--don't bother me about him," she answered, irritably. "He is all right, of course. But I--"

Then she stopped, and with a determined air turned the subject.

"You said you had something to talk to me about. What was it?"

"You don't know how glad I am to hear you speak as you used to," he said, looking at her kindly. "I would be rejoiced even to get a scolding from you these days. But that was not exactly what I brought you out to tell you, either," and he drew from his pocket the letter he had carried for three weeks, waiting until she appeared strong enough to accept surprises. "I suppose, of course, you have heard us talk a good deal about the Eastern capitalist who was here when you were so sick, and who, unhesitatingly, made purchase of the Twin Spring Mines, as it is called now."

"You mean the very fine Mr. Haydon, who had curly hair and looked like me?" she asked, ironically. "Yes, I've heard the women folks talking about him a good deal, when they thought me asleep. Old Akkomi scared him a little, too, didn't he?"

"So, you _have_ heard?" he asked, in surprise. "Well, yes, he does look a little like you; it's the hair, I think. But I don't see why you utter his name with so much contempt, 'Tana."

"Maybe not; but I've heard the name of Haydon before to-day, and I have a grudge against it."

"But not this Haydon."

"I don't know which Haydon. I never saw any of them--don't know as I want to. I guess this one is almost too fine for Kootenai country people, anyway."

"But that is where you are wrong, entirely wrong, 'Tana," he hastened to explain. "He was very much interested in you--very much, indeed; asked lots of questions about you, and--and here is what I wanted to speak of. When he went away, he gave me this letter for you. I imagine he wants to help make arrangements for you when you go East, have you know nice people and all that. You see, 'Tana, his daughter is about your age, and looks just a little as you do sometimes; and I think he wants to do something for you. It's an odd thing for him to take so strong an interest in any stranger; but they are the very best people you could possibly know if you go to Philadelphia."

"Maybe if you would let me see the letter myself, I could tell better whether I wanted to know them or not," she said, and Lyster handed it to her without another word.

It was a rather long letter, two closely-written sheets, and he could not understand the little contemptuous smile with which she opened it. Haydon, the great financier, had seemed to him a very wonderful personage when he was 'Tana's age.

The girl was not so indifferent as she tried to appear. Her fingers trembled a little, though her mouth grew set and angry as she read the carefully kind words of Mr. Haydon.

"It is rather late in the day for them to come with offers to help me," she said, bitterly. "I can help myself now; but if they had looked for me a year ago--two or three years ago--"

"Looked for you!" he exclaimed, with a sort of impatient wonder. "Why, my dear girl, who would even think of hunting for little white girls in these forests? Don't be foolishly resentful now that people want to be nice to you. You could not expect attention from people before they were aware of your existence."

"But they did know of my existence!" she answered, curtly. "Oh! you needn't stare at me like that, Mr. Max Lyster! I know what I'm talking about. I have the very shaky honor of being a relation of your fine gentleman from the East. I thought it when I heard the name, but did not suppose he would know it. And I'm not too proud of it, either, as you seem to think I ought to be."

"But they are one of our best families--"

"Then your worst must be pretty bad," she interrupted. "I know just about what they are."

"But 'Tana--how does it come--"

"I won't answer any questions about it, Max, so don't ask," and she folded up the letter and tore it into very little pieces, which she let fall into the water. "I am not going to claim the relationship or their hospitality, and I would just as soon you forgot that I acknowledged it. I didn't mean to tell, but that letter vexed me."

"Look here, 'Tana," and Lyster caught her hand again. "I can't let you act like this. They can be of much more help to you socially than all your money. If the family are related to you, and offer you attention, you can't afford to ignore it. You do not realize now how much their attention will mean; but when you are older, you will regret losing it. Let me advise you--let me--"

"Oh, hush!" she said, closing her eyes, wearily. "I am tired--tired! What difference does it make to you--why need you care?"

"May I tell you?" and he looked at her so strangely, so gravely, that her eyes opened in expectation of--she knew not what.

"I did not mean to let you know so soon, 'Tana," and his clasp of her hand grew closer; "but, it is true--I love you. Everything that concerns you makes a difference to me. Now do you understand?"

"You!--Max--"

"Don't draw your hand away. Surely you guessed--a little? I did not know myself how much I cared till you came so near dying. Then I knew I could not bear to let you go. And--and you care a little too, don't you! Speak to me!"

"Let us go home," she answered in a low voice, and tried to draw her fingers away. She liked him--yes; but--

"Tana, won't you speak? Oh, my dear, dear one, when you were so ill, so very ill, you knew no one else, but you turned to me. You went asleep with your cheek against my hand, and more than once, 'Tana, with your hand clasping mine. Surely that was enough to make me hope--for you did like me a little, then."

"Yes, I--liked you," but she turned her head away, that he could not see her flushed face. "You were good to me, but I did not know--I could not guess--" and she broke down as though about to cry, and his own eyes were full of tenderness. She appealed to him now as she had never done in her days of brightness and laughter.

"Listen to me," he said, pleadingly. "I won't worry you. I know you are too weak and ill to decide yet about your future. I don't ask you to answer me now. Wait. Go to school, as I know you intend to do; but don't forget me. After the school is over you can decide. I will wait with all patience. I would not have told you now, but I wanted you to know I was interested in the answer you would give Haydon. I wanted you to know that I would not for the world advise you, but for your best interests. Won't you believe--"

"I believe you; but I don't know what to say to you. You are different from me--your people are different. And of my people you know nothing, nothing at all, and--"

"And it makes no difference," he interrupted. "I know you have had a lot of trouble for a little girl, or your family have had trouble you are sensitive about. I don't know what it is, but it makes no difference--not a bit. I will never question about it, unless you prefer to tell of your own accord. Oh, my dear! if some day you could be my wife, I would help you forget all your childish troubles and your unpleasant life."

"Let us go home," she said, "you are good to me, but I am so tired."

He obediently turned the canoe, and at that moment voices came to them from toward the river--ringing voices of men.

"It is possibly Mr. Haydon and others," he exclaimed, after listening a moment. "We have been expecting them for days. That was why I could no longer put off giving you the letter."

"I know," she said, and her face flushed and paled a little, as the voices came closer. He could see she nervously dreaded the meeting.

"Shall I get the canoe back to camp before they come?" he asked kindly; but she shook her head.

"You can't, for they move fast," she answered, as she listened. "They would see us; and, if he is with them, he--would think I was afraid."

He let the canoe drift again, and watched her moody face, which seemed to grow more cold with each moment that the strangers came closer. He was filled with surprise at all she had said of Haydon and of the letter. Who would have dreamed that she--the little Indian-dressed guest of Akkomi's camp--would be connected with the most exclusive family he knew in the East? The Haydon family was one he had been especially interested in only a year ago, because of Mr. Haydon's very charming daughter. Miss Haydon, however, had a clever and ambitious mamma, who persisted in keeping him at a safe distance.

Max Lyster, with his handsome face and unsettled prospects, was not the brilliant match her hopes aspired to. Pretty Margaret Haydon had, in all obedience, refused him dances and affected not to see his efforts to be near her. But he knew she did see; and one little bit of comfort he had taken West with him was the fancy that her refusals were never voluntary affairs, and that she had looked at him as he had never known her to look at another man.

Well, that was a year ago, and he had just asked another girl to marry him--a girl who did not look at him at all, but whose eyes were on the swift-flowing current--troubled eyes, that made him long to take care of her.

"Won't you speak to me at all?" he asked. "I will do anything to help you, 'Tana--anything at all."

She nodded her head slowly.

"Yes--now," she answered. "So would Mr. Haydon, Max."

"'Tana! do you mean--" His face flushed hotly, and he looked at her for the first time with anger in his face.

She put out her hand in a tired, pleading way.

"I only mean that now, when I have been lucky enough to help myself, it seems as if every one thinks I need looking after so much more than they used to. Maybe because I am not strong yet--maybe so; I don't know." Then she smiled and looked at him curiously.

"But I made a mistake when I said 'every one,' didn't I? For Dan never comes near me any more."

Then the strange canoes came in sight and very close to them, as they turned a bend in the creek. There were three large boats--one carrying freight, one filled with new men for the works, and in the other--the foremost one--was Mr. Haydon, and a tall, thin, middle-aged stranger.

"Uncle Seldon!" exclaimed Lyster, with animation, and held the canoe still in the water, that the other might come close, and in a whisper he said:

"The one to the right is Mr. Haydon."

He glanced at her and saw she was making a painful effort at self-control.

"Don't worry," he whispered. "We will just speak, and drift on past them."

But when they called greeting to each other, and the Indian boatman was told to send their craft close to the little camp canoe, she raised her head and looked very levelly across the stranger, who had hair so like her own, and spoke to the Indian who paddled their boat as though he were the only one there to notice.

"Plucky!" decided Mr. Haydon, "and stubborn;" but he kept those thoughts to himself, and said aloud: "My dear young lady, I am indeed pleased to see you so far recovered since my last visit. I presume you know who I am," and he looked at her in a smiling, confidential way.

"Yes, I know who you are. Your name is Haydon, and--there is a piece of your letter."

She picked up a fragment of paper that had fallen at her feet, and flung it out from her on the water. Mr. Haydon affected not to see the pettish act, but turned to his companion.

"Will you allow me, Miss Rivers, to introduce another member of our firm? This is Mr. Seldon. Seldon, this is the young girl I told you of."

"I knew it before you spoke," said the other man, who looked at her with a great deal of interest, and a great deal of kindness. "My child, I was your mother's friend long ago. Won't you let me be yours?"

She reached out her hand to him, and the quick tears came to her eyes. She trusted without question the earnest gray eyes of the speaker, and turned from her own uncle to the uncle of Max.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE MAN IN AKKOMI'S CLOAK.

"My dear fellow, there is, of course, no way of thanking you sufficiently for your care of her; but I can only say I am mighty glad to know a man like you."

It was Mr. Seldon who said so, and Dan Overton looked embarrassed and deprecating under the praise he had to accept.

"It is all right for you to make a fuss over it, Seldon," he returned; "but you know, as well as you know dinner time, that you would have done no less if you had found a young girl anywhere without a home--and especially if you found her in an Indian camp."

"Did she give you any information as to how she came to be there?"

Overton looked at him good-naturedly, but shook his head.

"I can't give you any information about that," he answered. "If you want to know anything of her previous to meeting her here, she will have to tell you."

"But she won't. I can't understand it; for I can see no need of mystery. I knew her mother when she was a girl like 'Tana, and--"

"You did?"

"Yes, I did. So now, perhaps, you will understand why I take such an interest in her--why Mr. Haydon takes an interest in her. Simply because she is his niece."

"Oh, she is--is she? And he came here, found her dying, or next door to it, and never claimed her."

"No; that is a little way of his," acknowledged his partner. "If she had really died, he never would have said a word about it, for it would have caused him a lot of troublesome explanation at home. But I guess he knew I would be likely to come across her. She is the very image of what her mother was. He told me the whole story of how he found her here, and all. And now he wants to do the proper thing and take her home with him."

"The devil he does!" growled Overton. "Well, why do you come to me about it?"

"Your influence with her was one thing," answered Mr. Seldon, with a dubious smile at the dark face before him. "This _protge_ of yours has a will of her own, it seems, and refuses utterly to acknowledge her aristocratic relations, refuses to be a part of her uncle's household; and we want your influence toward changing her mind."

"Well, you'll never get it," and the tone was decided as the words. "If she says she is no relation to anybody, I'll back her up in it, and not ask her her reasons, either. If she doesn't want to go with Mr. Haydon, she is the only one I will allow to decide, unless he brings a legal order from some court, and I might try to hinder him even then. She willingly came under my guardianship, and when she leaves it, it must be willingly."

"Oh, of course there will be no coercion about the matter," explained Mr. Seldon, hastily. "But don't you, yourself, think it would be a decided advantage for her to live for a while with her own relatives?"

"I am in no position to judge. I don't know her relatives. I don't know why it is that she has not been taken care of by them long ago; and I am not asking any questions. She knows, and that is enough; and I am sure her reasons for not going would satisfy me."

"Well, you are a fine specimen to come to for influence," observed the other. "She has a grudge against Haydon, that is the obstacle--a grudge, because he quarreled with her mother long ago. I thought that as you have done so much for her, your word might have weight in showing her the folly of it."

"My word would have no more weight than yours," he answered, curtly. "All I have done for her amounts to nothing; and I've an idea that if she wanted me to know her family affairs, she would tell me."

"Which, interpreted, means that I had better be at other business than gossiping," said Mr. Seldon, with much good humor. "Well, you are a fine pair, and something alike, too--you goldfinders! She snubbed Max for trying to persuade her, and you snub me. As a last resort, I think I shall try to get that old Indian into our lobbying here. He is her next great friend, I hear."

"I haven't seen him in camp to-day, for a wonder; but he is sure to be around before night."

"But, you see, we are to go on up to the new works on the lake to-day, and be back day after to-morrow. I wish you, too, could go up to-morrow, for I would like your judgment about some changes we expect to make. Could you leave here for twenty-four hours?"

"I'll try," promised Overton. "But the new men from the Ferry will be up to-day or to-morrow, so I may not reach there until you are about ready to start back."

"Come anyway, if you can, I don't seem to get much chance to talk to you here in camp--maybe I could on the river. You may be in a more reasonable mood about 'Tana by that time, and try to influence her to partake of civilization."

"'Civilization!' Oh, yes, of course, you imagine it all lies east of the Appalachian range," remarked Overton, slightingly. "I expect that from a man of Haydon's stamp, but not from you."

Seldon only laughed.

"One would think you had been born and bred out here in the West," he remarked, "while you are really only an importation. But what is that racket about?"

For screeches were sounding from the cabin--cries, feminine and frightened.

Overton and Seldon started for it, as did several of the workmen, but their haste slackened as they saw 'Tana leaning against a doorway and laughing, while the squaw stood near her, chuckling a little as a substitute for merriment.

But there were two others within the cabin who were by no means merry--the two cousins, who were standing huddled together on the couch, uttering spasmodic screeches at every movement made by a little gray snake on the floor.

It had crept in at a crevice, and did not know how to make its escape from the noisy shelter it had found. Its fright was equal to that of the women, for it appeared decidedly restless, and each uneasy movement of it was a signal for fresh screams.

"Oh, Mr. Overton! I beg of you, kill the horrible reptile!" moaned Miss Slocum, who at that moment was as indifferent to the proprieties as Mrs. Huzzard, and was displaying considerable white hosiery and black gaiter tops.

"Oh, lawsy! It is coming this way again. Ooh--ooh--h!" and Mrs. Huzzard did a little dance from one foot to the other, in a very ecstasy of fear. "Oh, Lavina, I'll never forgive myself for advising you to come out to this Idaho country! Oh, Lord! won't somebody kill it?"

"Why, there is no need to fear that little thing," said Overton. "Really, it is not a snake to bite--no more harm in it than in a mouse."

"A _mouse_!" they both shrieked. "Oh, please take it away."

Just then Akkomi came in through the other cabin, and, hearing the shrieks, simply stooped and picked up the little stranger in his hand, holding it that they might see how harmless it was.

But, instead of pacifying them, as he had kindly intended, they only cowered against the wall, too horrified even to scream, while they gazed at the old Indian, as at something just from the infernal regions.

"Lord, have mercy on our souls," muttered Lavina, in a sepulchral tone, and with pallid, almost moveless, lips.

"Forever and ever, amen," added Lorena Jane, clutching her drapery a little closer, and a little higher.

And not until Overton persuaded Akkomi to throw the frightened little thing away did they consent to move from their pedestal. Even then it was with fear and trembling, and many an awful glance toward the placid old Indian, who smoked his pipe and never glanced toward them.

"Never again will I sleep in that room--not if I die for it!" announced Mrs. Huzzard, and Miss Slocum was of the same mind.

"But the cabin is as safe as a tent," said 'Tana, persuasively, "and, really, it was not a dangerous snake."

"Ooh--h! I beg that you will not mention it," shivered Miss Slocum. "For my part, I don't expect to sleep anywhere after this terrible experience. But I'll go wherever Lorena Jane goes, and do what I can to comfort and protect her, while she rests."

Akkomi sat on Harris' doorstep, and smoked, while they argued on the dangers around them, and were satisfied only when Overton put a tent at their disposal. They proceeded to have hammocks swung in it on poles set for the purpose, as they could feel safe on no bed resting on the ground.

"But, really, my conscience troubles me about leaving you here alone, 'Tana," said Mrs. Huzzard, and Overton also looked at her as if interested in her comfort.

"Well, your conscience had better give itself a rest, if that is all it has to disturb it," she answered. "I don't care the least bit about staying alone--I rather like it; though, if I need any one, I'll have Flap-Jacks stay."

So Overton left them to their arrangements, and said nothing to 'Tana; but as Seldon and Haydon were about to embark, he spoke to the former.

"I may not be able to get up there after all, as I may feel it necessary to be here at night, so don't wait for me."

"All right, Overton; but we'd like to have you."

After the others had left the cabin, Akkomi still remained, and the girl watched him uneasily but did not speak. She talked to Harris, telling him of the funny actions of the two frightened women, but all the time she talked and tried to entertain the helpless man, it was with an evident effort, for the dark old Indian's face at the door was constantly drawing her attention.

When she finally entered her own room, he appeared at the entrance, and, after a careful glance, to see that no one was near, he entered and spoke:

"'Tana, it is now two suns since we talked. Will you go to-day in my boat for a little ways?"

"No," she said, angrily. "Go home to your tepee, Akkomi, and tell the man there I am sorry he is not dead. I never will see him again. I go away from this place now--very soon--maybe this week. What becomes of him I do not care, and it will be long before I come back."

He muttered some words of regret, and she turned to him more kindly.

"Yes, I know, Akkomi, you are my good friend. You think it is right to do what you are doing now. Maybe it is; maybe I am wrong. But I will not be different in this matter--never--never!"

"If he should come here--"

"He would not dare. There are people here he had better fear. Give him the names of Seldon and of Haydon."

"He knows; but it is the new miners he fears most; they come from all parts. He wants money."

"Let him work for it, like an honest man," she said, curtly. "Don't talk of it again. I will not go outside the camp alone, and I will not listen to any more words about it. Now mind that!"

In the other cabin, Harris listened intently to each word uttered. His eyes fairly blazed in his eagerness to hear 'Tana's final decision. But when Akkomi slouched past his door, and peered in, with his sharp, quick eyes, he had relapsed again into the apathetic state habitual to him. To all appearances he had not heard their words, and the old Indian walked thoughtfully past the tents and out into the timber.

Lyster called some light greeting to him, but he barely looked up and made no reply whatever. His thoughts were evidently on other things than camp sociabilities.

It was dark when he returned, and his fit of thoughtfulness was yet upon him, for he spoke to no one. Overton, who had been talking to Harris, noticed him smoking beside the door as he came out.

"You had better bring your camp down here," he remarked, ironically. "Well, for to-night you will have to spread your blanket in this room if Harris doesn't object. That is what I am to do, for I've given up my quarters to the ladies, who are afraid of snakes."

Akkomi nodded, and then Overton moved nearer the door again.

"Jim, I may not be back for an hour or so. I am going either on the water or up on the mountain for a little while. Don't lie awake for me, and I'll send a fellow in to look after you."

Harris nodded, and 'Tana, in her own room, heard Overton's steps die away in the night. He was going on the water or on the mountains--the places she loved to go, and dared not.

She felt like calling after him to wait to take her with him once more, and did rise and go to the door, but no farther.

Lights were gleaming all along the little stream; laughter and men's voices came to her across the level. Her own corner of the camp looked very dark and shadowy in comparison. But she turned back to it with a sigh.

"You may go, Flap-Jacks," she said to the squaw. "I don't mind being alone, but first fix the bed of Harris."

She noticed Akkomi outside the door, but did not speak to him. She heard the miner enter the other cabin and assist Harris to his couch and then depart. She wondered a little that the old Indian still sat there smoking, instead of spreading his blanket, as Overton had invited him to do.

A book of poems, presented to her by Lyster, was so engrossing, however, that she forgot the old fellow, until a movement at the door aroused her, and she turned to find the silent smoker inside her cabin.

But it was not Akkomi, though it was the cloak of Akkomi that fell from his shoulders.

It was a man dressed as an Indian, but his speech was the speech of a white man, as he frowned on her white, startled face.

"So, my fine lady, I've found you at last, even if you have got too high and mighty to come when I sent for you," he said, growlingly. "But I'll change your tune very quick for you."

"Don't forget that I can change yours," she retorted. "A word from me, and you know there is not a man in this camp wouldn't help land you where you belong--in a prison, or at the end of a rope."

"Oh, no," and he grimaced in a sardonic way. "I'm not a bit afraid of that--not a bit in the world. You can't afford it. These high-toned friends you've been making might drop off a little if they heard your old record."

"And who made it for me?" she demanded. "You! You've been a curse to every one connected with you. In that other room is a man who might be strong and well to-day but for you. And there is that girl buried over there by the picture rocks of Arrow Lake. Think of my mother, dragged to death through the slums of 'Frisco! And me--"

"And you with a gold mine, or the price of one," he concluded--"plenty of money and plenty of friends. That is about the facts of your case--friends, from millionaires down to that digger I saw you with the other night."

"Don't you dare say a word against him!" she exclaimed, threateningly.

"Oh, that's the way the land lies, is it?" he asked, with an ugly leer at her. "And that is why you were playing 'meet me by moonlight alone,' that night when I saw you together at the spring. Well, I think your money might help you to some one besides a married man."

"A married man?" she gasped. "Dan!"

"Dan, it is," he answered, insolently. "But you needn't faint away on that account. I have other use for you--I want some money."

"You are telling that lie about him because you think it will trouble me," she said, regarding his painted face closely and giving no heed to his demand. "You know it is not true."

"About the marriage? I'll swear--"

"I would not believe your oath for anything."

"Oh, you wouldn't? Well, now, what if I prove to you, right in this camp, that I know his wife?"

"His wife?" She sat down on the side of the couch, and all the cabin seemed whirling around her.

"Well--a girl he married. You may call her what you please. She had been called a good many things before he picked her up. Humph! Now that he has struck it rich, some one ought to let her know. She'd make the dollars fly."

"It is not true! It is not _true_!" she murmured to herself, as if by the words she could drive away the possibility of it.

He appeared to enjoy the sensation he had created.

"It is true," he answered--"every word of it, and he has been keeping quiet about it, has he? Well, see here. You don't believe me--do you? Now, while I was waiting there at the door, a man came in to put your paralyzed partner to bed. The man was Jake Emmons--used to hang out at Spokane. He knew Lottie Snyder before this Overton did--and after Overton married her, too, I guess. You ask him anything you want to know of it. He can tell you--if he will."

She did not answer. She feared, as he talked, that it was true; and she longed for him to go away, that she could think alone. The hot blood burned in her cheeks, as she remembered that night by the Twin Springs. The humiliation of it, if it proved true!

"But, see here, 'Tana. I didn't come here to talk about your virtuous ranger. I want some money--enough to cut the country. It ain't any more than fair, anyway, that you divide with me, for if it hadn't been for that sneaking hound in the other room, half of this find would have been mine a year ago."

"It will do more good where it is," she answered. "He did right not to trust you. And if he were able to walk, you would not be allowed to live many minutes within reach of him."

"Oh, yes; I know he was trailing me," he answered, indifferently, "but it was no hard trick to keep out of his road. I suppose you let him know you approve of his feelings toward me."

"Yes, I would load a gun for him to use on you if he were able to hold it," she answered, and he seemed to think her words amusing.

"You have mighty little regard for your duty to me," he observed.

"Duty? I can't owe you any duty when I never received any from you. I am nearly seventeen, and in all the years I remember you, I can't recall any good act you have ever done for me."

"Nearly seventeen," and he smiled at her in the way she hated. "Didn't your new uncle, Haydon, tell you better than that? You are nearly eighteen years old."

"Eighteen!" and she rose in astonishment. "I?"

"You--though you don't look it. You always were small for your age, so I just told you a white lie about it in order to manage you better. But that is over; I don't care what you do in the future. All I want of you is money to get to South America; so fix it up for me."

"I ought to refuse, and call them in to arrest you."

"But you won't," he rejoined. "You can't afford it."

He watched her, though, with some uncertainty, as she sat silent, thinking.

"No, I can't afford it," she said, at last. "I will be doing wrong to help you, just as if I let a poison snake loose where people travel--for that is what you are. But I am not strong enough to let these friends go and start over again; so I will help you away this once."

He drew a breath of relief, and gathered up his blanket.

"That is the way to talk. You've got a level head--"

"That will do," she said, curtly. "I don't want praise from a coward, a thief, or a murderer. You are all three. I have no money here. You will have to come again for it to-morrow night."

"A trick--is it?"

"It is no trick. I haven't got it, that is all. Maybe I can't get it in money, but I will get it in free gold by to-morrow at dusk. I will put it here under the pillow, and will manage to keep the rest away at that time. You can come as you came this evening, and get it; but I will neither take it nor send it to you. You will have to risk your freedom and your life to come for it. But while I can't quite decide to give you up or to kill you, myself, I hope some one else will."

"Hope what you please," he returned, indifferently. "So long as you get the dust for me, I can stand your opinion. And you will have it here?"

"I will have it here."

"I trust you only because I know you can't afford to go back on me," he said, as he wrapped the blanket around him, and dropped his taller form to the height of Akkomi. "It is a bargain, then, my dear. Good-night."

"I don't wish you a good-night," she answered. "I hope I shall never see you alive again."

And she never did.

CHAPTER XX.

'TANA'S ENGAGEMENT

"And she wants a thousand dollars in money or free gold--a thousand dollars to-day?"

"No use asking me what for, Dan, for I don't know," confessed Lyster. "I can't see why she don't tell you herself; but you know she has been a little queer since the fever--childish, whimsical, and all that. Maybe as she has not yet handled any specie from your bonanza, she wants some only to play with, and assure herself it is real."

"Less than a thousand in money and dust would do for a plaything," remarked Overton. "Of course she has a right to get what she wants; but that amount will be of no use to her here in camp, where there is not a thing in the world to spend it for."

"Maybe she wants to pension off some of her Indian friends before she leaves," suggested Max--"old Akkomi and Flap-Jacks, perhaps. I am a little like Miss Slocum in my wonder as to how she endures them, though, of course, the squaw is a necessity."

"Oh, well, she was not brought up in the world of Miss Slocum--or your world, either," answered Overton. "You should make allowance for that."

"Make allowance--I?" and Lyster looked at him curiously. "Are you trying to justify her to me? Why, man, you ought to know by this time what keeps me here a regular lounger around camp, and there is no need to make excuses for her to me. I thought you knew."

"You mean you--like her?"

"Worse than that," said Max, with his cheery, confident smile. "I'm trying to get her to say she likes me."

"And she?"

"Well, she won't meet me as near half-way as I would like," he confessed; "talks a lot of stuff about not being brought up right, and not suited to our style of life at home, and all that. But she did seem rather partial to me when she was ill and off guard. Don't you think so? That is all I have to go on; but it encourages me to remember it."

Overton did not speak, and Lyster continued speculating on his chances, when he noticed his companion's silence.

"Why don't you speak, Dan? I did hope you would help me rather than be indifferent."

"Help you!" and Lyster was taken aback at the fierce straightening of the brows and the strange tone in which the words were uttered. The older man could not but see his surprised look, for he recovered himself, and dropped his hand in the old familiar way on Lyster's shoulder.

"Not much chance of my helping you when she employs you as an agent when she wants any service, rather than exchange words with me herself. Now, that is the way it looks, Max."

"I know," agreed Lyster. "And to tell the truth, Dan, the only thing she does that really vexes me is her queer attitude toward you of late. I can't think she means to be ungrateful, but--"

"Don't bother about that. Everything has changed for her lately, and she has her own troubles to think of. Don't you doubt her on my account. Just remember that. And if--she says 'yes' to you, Max, be sure I would rather see her go to you than any other man I know."

"That is all right," observed Lyster, laughingly; "but if you only had a love affair or two of your own, you could perhaps get up more enthusiasm over mine."

Then he sauntered off to report the financial interview to 'Tana, and laughed as he went at the impatient look flung at him by Overton.

He found 'Tana visiting at the tent of the cousins, who were using all arguments to persuade her to share their new abode. Each was horrified to learn that she had dismissed the squaw at sleeping time, and had remained in the cabin alone.

"Not quite alone," she corrected, "for Harris was just on the other side of the door."

"Much protection he would be."

"Well, then, Dan Overton was with him. How is he for protection?"

"Thoroughly competent, no doubt," agreed Miss Lavina, with a rather scandalized look. "But, my dear, the propriety?"

"Do you think Flap-Jacks would help any one out in propriety?" retorted 'Tana. "But we won't stumble over that question long, for I want to leave the camp and go back to the Ferry."

"And then, 'Tana?"

"And then--I don't know, Mrs. Huzzard, to school, maybe--though I feel old for that, older than either of you, I am sure--so old that I care nothing for all the things I wanted less than a year ago. They are within my reach now, yet I only want to rest--"

She did not finish the sentence.

Mrs. Huzzard, noticing the tired look in her eyes and the wistfulness of her voice, reached out and patted her head affectionately.

"You want, first of all, to grow strong and hearty, like you used to be--that is what you need first, then the rest will all come right in good time. You'll want to see the theaters, and the pictures, and hear the fine music you used to talk of. And you'll travel, and see all the fine places you used to dream about. Then, maybe, you'll get ambitious, like you used to be, about making pictures out of clay. For you can have fine teaching now, you know, and you'll find, after a while, that the days will hardly seem long enough for all the things you want to do. That is how it will be when you get strong again."

'Tana tried to smile at the cheerful picture, but the smile was not a merry one. Her attention was given to Lyster and Overton, whom she could see from the tent door.

How tall and strong Dan looked! Was she to believe that story of him heard last night? The very possibility of it made her cheeks burn at the thought of how she had stood with his arm around her. And he had pitied her that night. "Poor little girl!" he had said. Was his pity because he saw how much he was to her, while he himself thought only of some one else? One after another those thoughts had come to her through the sleepless night, and when the day came she could not face him to speak to him of the simplest thing. And of the money she must have, she could not ask him at all. She wished she could have courage to go to him and tell him the thing she had heard; but courage was not strong in her of late. The fear that he might look indifferently on her and say, "Yes, it is true--what then?"--the fear of that was so great that she had walked by the water's edge, as the sun rose, and felt desperate enough to think of sleep under the waves, as a temptation. For if it was true--

The two older women watched her, and decided that she was not yet strong enough to think of long journeys. Her hands would tremble at times, and tears, as of weakness, would come to her eyes, and she scarcely appeared to hear them when they spoke.

She never walked through the woods as of old, though sometimes she would stand and look up at the dark hills with a perfect hunger in her eyes. And when the night breeze would creep down from the heights, and carry the sweet wood scents of the forest to her, she would close her eyes and draw in long breaths of utter content. The strong love for the wild places was as second nature to her; yet when Max would ask her to go with him for flowers or mosses, her answer was always "no."

But she would go to the boat sometimes, though no longer having strength to use the paddle. It was a good place to think, if she could only keep the others from going, too, so she slipped away from Max and the women and went down. A chunky, good-looking fellow was mending one of the canoes, and raised his head at her approach, nodding to her and evidently pleased when she addressed him.

"Yes, it is a shaky old tub," he agreed, "but I told Overton I thought it could be fixed to carry freight for another trip; so he put me at it."

"You are new in camp, aren't you?" she asked, not caring at all whether he was or not. She was always friendly with the workmen, and this one smiled and bowed.

"We are all that, I guess," he said. "But I came up the day Haydon and Seldon came. I lived with Seldon down the country, and was staggered a little, I tell you, when I found Overton was in charge, and had struck it rich. But no man deserves good luck more."

"No," she agreed. "Then you knew him before?"

"Yes, indeed--over in Spokane. He don't seem quite the same fellow, though. We thought he would just go to the dogs after he left there, for he started to drink heavily. But he must have settled in his own mind that it wasn't worth while; so here he is, straight as a string, and counting his dollars by the thousands, and I'm glad to see it."

"Drink! He never drinks to excess, that we know of," she answered. "Doesn't seem to care for that sort of thing."

"No, he didn't then, either," agreed this loquacious stranger, "but a woman can drive as good men as him to drink; and that is about the way it was. No one thought any worse of Overton, though--don't think that. The worst any one could say was that he was too square--that's all."

Too square! She walked away from him a little way, all her mind aflame with his suggestions. He had taken to drink and dissipation because of some woman. Was it the woman whose name she had heard last night? The key to the thing puzzling her had been dropped almost at her feet, yet she feared to pick it up. No teaching she had ever received told her it was unprincipled to steal through another the confidence he himself had not chosen to give her. But some instinct of justice kept her from further question.

She knew the type of fellow who was rigging up the canoe, a light-headed, assuming specimen, who had not yet learned to keep a still tongue in his head, but he did not impress her as being a deliberate liar. Then, all at once, she realized who he must be, and turned back. There was no harm in asking that, at any rate.

"You are the man whom Overton sent to put Harris to bed last night, are you not?" she asked.

He nodded, cheerfully.

"And your name is Jake Emmons, of the Spokane country?"

"Thet's who," he assented; "that's where I came across Lottie Snyder, Overton's wife, you know. I was running a little stage there for a manager, and she--"

"I am not asking you about--about Mr. Overton's affairs," she said, and she sat down, white and dizzy, on the overturned canoe. "And he might not like it if he knew you were talking so free. Don't do it again."

"All right," he agreed. "I won't. No one here seems to know about the bad break he made over there; but, Lord! there was excuse enough. She is one of those women that look just like a little helpless baby; and that caught Overton. Young, you know. But I won't whisper her name in camp again, for it is hard on the old man. But, as you are partners, I guessed you must know."

"Yes," she said, faintly; "but don't talk, don't--"

"Say! You are sick, ain't you?" he demanded, as her voice dropped to a whisper. "Say! Look here, Miss Rivers! Great snakes! She's fainted!"

When she opened her eyes again, the rough roof of her cabin was above her, instead of the blue sky. The women folks were using the camp restorative--whisky--on her to such good purpose that her hands and face and hair were redolent of it, and the amount she had been forced to swallow was strangling her.

The face she saw first was that of Max--Max, distressed and anxious, and even a little pale at sight of her death-like face.

She turned to him as to a haven of refuge from the storm of emotion under which she had fallen prostrate.

It was all settled now--settled forever. She had heard the worst, and knew she must go away--away from where she must see that one man, and be filled with humiliation if ever she met his gaze. A man with a wife somewhere--a man into whose arms she had crept!

"Are you in pain?" asked Miss Lavina, as 'Tana groaned and shut her eyes tight, as if to bar out memory.

"No--nothing ails me. I was without a hat, and the sun on my head made me sick, I suppose," she answered, and arose on her elbow. "But I am not going to be a baby, to be watched and carried around any more. I am going to get up."

Just outside her door Overton stood; and when he heard her voice again, with its forced independent words, he walked away content that she was again herself.

"I am going to get up," she continued. "I am going away from here to-morrow or next day--and there are things to do. Help me, Max."

"Best thing you can do is to lie still an hour or two," advised Mrs. Huzzard, but the girl shook her head.

"No, I'm going to get up," she said, with grim decision; and when Lyster offered his hand to help her, she took it, and, standing erect, looked around at the couch.

"That is the last time I'm going to be thrown on you for any such fool cause," she said, whimsically. "Who toted me in here--you?"

"I? Not a bit of it," confessed Lyster. "Dan reached you before any of the others knew you were ill. He carried you up here."

"He? Oh!" and she shivered a little. "I want to talk to Harris. Max, come with me."

He went wonderingly, for he could see she was excited and nervous. Her hand trembled as it touched his, but her mouth was set so firmly over the little white teeth that he knew it was better to humor her than fret her by persuading her to rest.

But once beside Harris, she sat a long time in silence, looking out from the doorway across the level now active with the men of the works. Not until the two cousins had walked across to their other shelter did she speak, and then it was to Harris.

"Joe, I am sick," she confessed; "not sick with the fever, but heartsick and headsick. You know how and maybe why."

He nodded his head, and looked at Lyster questioningly.

"And I've come in here to tell you something. Max, you won't mind. He can't talk, but knows me better than you do, I guess; for I've come to him before when I was troubled, and I want to tell him what you said to me in the boat."

Max stared at her, but silently agreed when he saw she was in earnest. He even reached out his hand to take hers, but she drew away.

"Wait till I tell him," she said, and turned to the helpless man in the chair. "He asked me to marry him--some day. Would it be right for me to say yes?"

"'Tana!" exclaimed Lyster; but she raised her hand pleadingly.

"I haven't any other person in the world I could go to and ask," she said. "He knows me better than you do, Max, and I--Oh! I don't think I should be always contented with your ways of living. I was born different--a heap different. But to-day it seems as if I am not strong enough to do without--some one--who likes me, and I do want to say 'yes' to you, yet I'm afraid it is only because I am sick at heart and lonely."

It was a declaration likely to cool the ardor of most lovers, but Lyster reached out his hand to her and laughed.

"Oh, you dear girl," he said, fondly. "Did your conscience make it necessary for you to confess in this fashion? Now listen. You are weak and nervous; you need some one to look after you. Doesn't she, Harris? Well, take me on trial. I will devote myself to your interests for six months, and if at the end of that time you find that it was only sickness and loneliness that ailed you, and not liking me, then I give you my word I'll never try to hold you to a promise. You will be well and strong by that time, and I'll stand by the decision you make then. Will you say 'yes,' now?"

She looked at Harris, who nodded his head. Then she turned and gave her hand to Max.

"Yes," she said. "But if you should be sorry--"

"Not another word," he commanded; "the 'yes' is all I want to hear just now; when I get sorry I'll let you know."

And that is the way their engagement began.

CHAPTER XXI.

LAVINA AND THE CAPTAIN.

As the day wore on, 'Tana became more nervous and restless. With the dark, that man was to come for the gold she had promised.

Lyster brought it to her, part in money, part in free gold, and as he laid it on the couch, she looked at him strangely.

"How much you trust me when you never even ask what I am to do with all this!" she said. "Yet it is enough to surprise you."

"Yes, it is," he agreed. "But when you are ready you will tell me."

"No, I will not tell you," she answered, "but it is the last thing--I think--that I will keep from you, Max. It is a debt that belongs to days before I knew you. What did Overton say?"

"Not much, maybe he will leave for the upper works this evening or to-morrow morning."

"Did you--did you tell him--"

"That you are going to belong to me? Well, no, I did not. You forgot to give me permission."

Her face flushed shyly at his words.

"You must think me a queer girl, Max," she said. "And you are so good and patient with me, in spite of my queer ways. But, never mind; they will not last always, I hope."

"Which?--my virtues or your queerness?" he asked.

She only smiled and pushed the gold under the pillow.

"Go away now for a little while. I want to rest."

"Well, rest if you like; but don't think. You have been fretting over some little personal troubles until you fancy them heavy enough to overbalance the world. But they won't. And I'm not going to try and persuade you into Haydon's house, either, now that you've been good to me; unless, of course, you fall in love with Margaret, and want to be with her, and it is likely to happen. But Uncle Seldon and my aunts will be delighted to have you, and you could live as quiet as you please there."

"So I am likely to fall in love with Margaret, am I?" she asked. "Why? Does everybody? Did you--Max? Now, don't blush like that, or I'll be sure of it. I never saw you blush so pretty before. It made you almost good looking. Now go; I want to be alone."

"Sha'n't I send one of the ladies up?"

"Not a soul! Go, Max. I am tired."

So he went, in all obedience, and he and the cousins had a long talk about the girl and the danger of leaving her alone another night. Her sudden illness showed them she was not strong enough yet to be allowed to guide herself.

"I shall try hard to get her to leave to-morrow, or next day," said Lyster. "Where is Dan? I would like to talk to him about it, but he has evidently disappeared."

"I don't know what to think of Dan Overton," confessed Mrs. Huzzard. "He isn't ever around, chatty and sociable, like he used to be. When we do see him, he is nearly always busy; and when he isn't busy, he strikes for the woods."

"Maybe he is still searching for new gold mines," suggested Miss Lavina. "I notice he does seem very much engaged in thought, and is of a rather solitary nature."

"Never was before," protested her cousin. "And if these gold finds just twist a person's nature crosswise, or send them into a fever, then I hope the good Lord'll keep the rest of them well covered up in future."

"Lorena Jane," said Miss Lavina, in a reproachful tone, "it is most essential that you free yourself from those very forcible expressions. They are not a bit genteel."

"No, I reckon they ain't, Lavina; and the more I try the more I'm afraid I never will be. Land sakes, if folks would only teach their young ones good manners when they are young, what a sight of mortified feelings would be saved after a while!"

Lyster left them in the midst of the very earnest plea for better training, for he espied a new boat approaching camp. As it came closer, he found that among the other freight it carried was the autocrat of Sinna Ferry--Captain Leek.

"What a God-forsaken wilderness!" he exclaimed, and looked around with a supercilious air, suggesting that he would have given the Creator of the Kootenai country valuable points if he had been consulted. "Well, my dear young fellow, how you have managed to exist here for three weeks I don't know."

"Well, we had Mrs. Huzzard," explained Max, with a twinkle in his eye; "and she is a panacea for many ills. She has made our wilderness very endurable."

"Yes, yes; excellent woman," agreed the other, with a suspicious look. "And 'Tana? How is she--the dear girl! I really have been much grieved to hear of her illness; and at the earliest day I could leave my business I am here to inquire in person regarding her health."

"Oh!" and Max struggled with a desire to laugh at the change in the captain's attitude since 'Tana was a moneyed individual instead of a little waif. Poor 'Tana! No wonder she looked with suspicion on late-coming friends.

"Yes, she is better--much better," he continued, as they walked up from the boat. "I suppose you knew that a cousin of Mrs. Huzzard, a lady from Ohio, has been with us--in fact, came up with our party."

"So I heard--so I heard. Nice for Mrs. Huzzard. I was not in town, you know, when you rested at the Ferry. I heard, however, that a white woman had come up. Who is she?"

They had reached the tent, and Mrs. Huzzard, after a frantic dive toward their very small looking glass, appeared at the door with a smile enchanting, and a courtesy so nicely managed that it nearly took the captain's breath away. It was the very latest of Lavina's teachings.

"Well, now, I'm mighty--hem!--I'm extremely pleased that you have called. Have a nice trip?"

But the society tone of Mrs. Huzzard was so unlike the one he had been accustomed to hearing her use, that the captain could only stare, and before he recovered enough to reply, she turned and beckoned Miss Slocum, with the idea of completing the impression made, and showing with what grace she could present him to her cousin.

But the lately acquired style was lost on him this time, overtopped by the presence of Miss Lavina, who gazed at him with a prolonged and steady stare.

"And this is your friend, Captain Leek, of the Northern Army, is it?" she asked, in her very sharpest voice--a voice she tried to temper with a smile about her lips, though none shone in her eyes. "I have no doubt you will be very welcome to the camp, Captain Leek."

Mrs. Huzzard had surely expected of Lavina a much more gracious reception. But Mrs. Huzzard was a bit of a philosopher, and if Lavina chose to be somewhat cold and unresponsive to the presence of a cultured gentleman, well, it gave Lorena Jane so much better chance, and she was not going to slight it.

"Come right in; you must be dead tired," she said, cordially. "Mr. Max, you'll let Dan know he's here, won't you--that is, when he does show up again, but no one knows how long that will be."

"Yes, I am tired," agreed the captain, meekly, and not quite at his ease with the speculative eyes of Miss Slocum on him. "I--I brought up a few letters that arrived at the Ferry. I can't make up my mind to trust mail with these Indian boatmen Dan employs."

"They are a trial," agreed Mrs. Huzzard, "though they haven't the bad effect on our nerves that one or two of the camp Indians have--an awful squaw, who helps around, and an ugly old man, who only smokes and looks horrible. Now, Lavina--she ain't used to no such, and she just shivers at them."

"Yes--ah--yes," murmured the captain.

"Lavina says she knew folks of your name back in Ohio," continued Mrs. Huzzard, cheerfully, in order to get the two strangers better acquainted. "I thought at first maybe you'd turn out to know each other; but she says they was Democrats," and she turned a sharp glance toward him, as if to read his political tendencies.

"No, I never knew any Captain Leek," said Miss Slocum, "and the ones I knew hadn't any one in the Union Army. Their principles, if they had any, were against it, and there wasn't a Republican in the family."

"Then, of course, that would settle Captain Leek belonging to them," decided Mrs. Huzzard, promptly. "I don't know much about politics, but as all our men folks wore the blue clothes, and fought in them, I was always glad I come from a Republican State. And I guess all the Republicans that carried guns against the Union could be counted without much arithmetic."

"I--I think I will go and look for Dan myself," observed the captain, rising and looking around a little uncertainly at Miss Slocum. "I brought some letters he may want."

He made his bow and placed the picturesque corded hat on his head as he went out. But Mrs. Huzzard looked after him somewhat anxiously.

"He's sick," she decided as he vanished from her view; "I never did see him walk so draggy like. And don't you judge his manners, either, Lavina, from this first sight of him, for he ain't himself to-day."

"He didn't look to me as though he knew who he was," remarked Lavina; and after a little she looked up from the tidy she was knitting. "So, Lorena Jane, that is the man you've been trying to educate yourself up to more than for anybody else--now, tell the truth!"

"Well, I don't mind saying that it was his good manners made me see how bad mine were," she confessed; "but as for training for him--"

"I see," said Miss Lavina, grimly, "and it is all right; but I just thought I'd ask."

Then she relapsed into deep thought, and made the needles click with impatience all that afternoon.

The captain came near the tent once, but retreated at the vision of the knitter. He talked with Mrs. Huzzard in the cabin of Harris, but did not visit her again in her own tent; and the poor woman began to wonder if the air of the Kootenai woods had an erratic influence on people. Dan was changed, 'Tana was changed, and now the captain seemed unlike himself from the very moment of his arrival. Even Lavina was a bit curt and indifferent, and Lorena Jane wondered where it would end.

In the midst of her perplexity, 'Tana added to it by appearing before her in the Indian dress Overton had presented her with. Since her sickness it had hung unused in her cabin, and the two women had fashioned garments more suitable, they thought, to a young girl who could wear real laces now if she chose. But there she was again, dressed like any little squaw, and although rather pale to suit the outfit, she said she wanted a few more "Indian hours" before departing for the far-off Eastern city that was to her as a new world.

She received Captain Leek with an unconcern that was discouraging to the pretty speeches he had prepared to utter.

Dan returned and looked sharply at her as she sat whittling a stick of which she said she meant to make a cane--a staff for mountain climbing.

"Where do you intend climbing?" he asked.

She waved the stick toward the hill back of them, the first step of the mountain.

"It is only a few hours since I picked you up down there, looking as if you were dead," he said, impatiently; "and you know you are not fit to tramp."

"Well, I'm not dead yet, anyway," she answered, with a shrug of her shoulders; "and as I'm going to break away from this camp about to-morrow, I thought I'd like to see a bit of the woods first."

"You--are going--to-morrow?"

"I reckon so."

"'Tana! And you have not said a word to me of it? That was not very friendly, little girl."

She did not reply, but bent her head low over her work.

After observing her for a while in silence, he arose and put on his hat.

"Here is my knife," he remarked. "You had better use it, if you are determined to haggle at that stick. Your own knife is too dull for any use. You can leave it here in the cabin when you are done with it."

She accepted it without a word, but flushed red when he had gone, and she found the eyes of Harris regarding her sadly.

"'Not very friendly,'" she said, going over Overton's words--"you think that, too--don't you? You think I'm ugly, and saucy, and awful, I know! You look scoldings at me; but if you knew all, maybe you wouldn't--if you knew that my heart is just about breaking. I'm going out where there is no one to talk to, or I'll be crying next."

The two cousins and the captain were in 'Tana's cabin. Mrs. Huzzard was determined that Miss Slocum and the captain should become acquainted, and, getting sight of the girl, who was walking alone across the level, she at once followed her, thinking that the two left behind would perhaps become more social if left entirely to themselves. And they did; that is, they talked, and the captain spoke first.

"So you--you bear a grudge--don't you, Lavina?"

"Well, I guess if I owed you a very heavy one, I've got a good chance to pay it off now," she remarked, grimly.

He twirled his hat in a dejected way, and did not speak.

"You an officer in the Union Army?" she continued, derisively. "You a pattern of what a gentleman should be; you to set up as superior to these rough-handed miners; you to act as if this Government owes you a pension! Why, how would it be with you, Alf Leek, if I'd tell this camp the truth of how you went away, engaged to me, twenty-five years ago, and never let me set eyes on you since--of how I wore black for you, thinking you were killed in the war, till I heard that you had deserted. I took off that mourning quick, I can tell you! I thought you were fighting on the wrong side; yet if you had a good reason for being there, you should have staid and fought so long as there was breath in you. And if I was to tell them here that you haven't a particle of right to wear that blue suit that looks like a uniform, and that you were no more 'captain' of anything than I am--well, I guess Lorena Jane wouldn't have much to say to you, though maybe Mr. Overton would."

He grew actually pale as he listened. His fear of some one overhearing her was as great as his own mortification.

"But you--you won't tell--will you, Lavina?" he said pleadingly. "I haven't done any harm! I--"

"Harm! Alf Leek, you never had enough backbone to do either harm or help to any one in this world. But don't you suppose you did me harm when you spoiled me for ever trusting any other man?"

"I--I would have come back, but I thought you'd be married," he said, in a feeble, hopeless way.

"Likely that is now, ain't it?" she demanded. And, woman-like, now that she had reduced him to meekness and humiliation, she grew a shade less severe, as if pretty well satisfied. "I had other things to think of besides a husband."

"You won't tell--will you, Lavina? I'll tell you how it all happened, some day. Then I'll leave this country."

"You'll not," she contradicted. "You'll stay right here as long as I do, and I won't tell just so long as you keep from trying to make Lorena Jane believe how great you are. But at the first word of your heroic actions, or the cultured society you were always used to--"

"You'll never hear of them," he said eagerly, "never. I knew you wouldn't make trouble, Lavina, for you always were such a good, kind-hearted girl."

He offered his hand to her, sheepishly, and she gave it a vixenish slap.

"Don't try any of your skim-milk praise on me," she said, tartly. "Huh! You, that Lorena thought was a pillar of cultured society! When, the Lord knows, you wouldn't have known how to read the addresses on your own letters if I hadn't taught you!"

He moved to the door in a crestfallen manner, and stood there a moment, moistening his lips, and apparently swallowing words that could not be uttered.

"That's so, Lavina," he said, at last, and went out.

"There!" she muttered aggrievedly--"that's Alf Leek, just as he always was. Give him a chance, and he'd ride over any one; but get the upper hand of him, and he is meeker than Moses. Not that much meekness is needed to come up to Moses, either." Then, after an impatient tattoo, she exclaimed:

"Gracious me! I do wish he hadn't looked so crushed, and had talked back a little."

CHAPTER XXII.

THE MURDER.

That evening, as the dusk fell, a slight figure in an Indian dress slipped to the low brush back of the cabin, and thence to the uplands.

It was 'Tana, ready to endure all the wilds of the woods, rather than stay there and meet again the man she had met the night before. She had sent the squaw away; she had arranged in Mrs. Huzzard's tent a little game of cards that would hold the attention of Lyster and the others; and then she had slipped away, that she might, for just once more, feel free on the mountain, as she had felt when they first located their camp in the sweet grass of the Twin Springs.

The moon would be up after a while. She could not walk far, but she meant to sit somewhere up there in the high ground until the moon should roll up over the far mountains.

The mere wearing of the Indian dress gave her a feeling of being herself once more, for in the pretty conventional dress made for her by Mrs. Huzzard, she felt like another girl--a girl she did not know very well.

In the southwest long streaks of red and yellow lay across the sky, and a clear radiance filled the air, as it does when a new moon is born after the darkness. She felt the beauty of it all, and stretched out her arms as though to draw the peaks of the hills to her.

But, as she stepped forward, a form arose before her--a tall, decided form, and a decided voice said:

"No, 'Tana, you have gone far enough."

"Dan!"

"Yes--it is Dan this time, and not the other fellow. If he is waiting for you to-night, I will see that he waits a long time."

"You--you!" she murmured, and stepped back from him. Then, her first fright over, she straightened herself defiantly.

"Why do you think any one is waiting for me?" she demanded. "What do you know? I am heartsick with all this hiding, and--and deceit. If you know the truth, speak out, and end it all!"

"I can't say any more than you know already," he answered--"not so much; but last night a man was in your cabin, a man you know and quarreled with. I didn't hear you; don't think I was spying on you. A miner who passed the cabin heard your voices and told me something was wrong. You don't give me any right to advise you or dictate to you, 'Tana, but one thing you shall not do, that is, steal to the woods to meet him. And if I find him in your cabin, I promise you he sha'n't die of old age."

"You would kill him?"

"Like a snake!" and his voice was harsher, colder, than she had ever heard it. "I'm not asking you any questions, 'Tana. I know it was the man whom you--saw that night at the spring, and would not let me follow. I know there is something wrong, or he would come to see you, like a man, in daylight. If the others here knew it, they would say things not kind to you. And that is why it sha'n't go on."

"Sha'n't? What right have you--to--to--"

"You will say none," he answered, curtly, "because you do not know."

"Do not know what?" she interrupted, but he only drew a deep breath and shook his head.

"Tana, don't meet this man again," he said, pleadingly. "Trust me to judge for you. I don't want to be harsh with you. I don't want you to go away with hard thoughts against me. But this has got to stop--you must promise me."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then I'd look for the man, and he never would meet you again."

A little shiver ran over her as he spoke. She knew what he meant, and, despite her bitter words last night to her visitor, the thought was horrible to her that Dan--

She covered her face with her hands and turned away.

"Don't do that, little girl," he said, and laid his hand on her arm. "'Tana!"

She flung off his hand as though it stung her, and into her mind flashed remembrance of Jake Emmons from Spokane--of him and his words.

"Don't touch me!" she half sobbed. "Don't you say another word to me! I am going away to-morrow, and I have promised to marry Max Lyster."

His hand dropped to his side, and his face shone white in the wan glimmer of the stars.

"You have promised that?" he said, at last, drawing his breath hard through his shut teeth. "Well--it is right, I suppose--right. Come! I will take you back to him now. He is the best one to guard you. Come!"

She drew away and looked from him across to where the merest rim of the rising moon was to be seen across the hills. The thought of that other night came to her, the night when they had stood close to each other in the moonlight. How happy she had been for that one little space of time! And now--Ah! she scarcely dare allow him to speak kindly to her, lest she grow weak enough to long for that blind content once more.

"Come, Tana."

"Go. I will follow after a little," she answered, without turning her head.

"I may never trouble you to walk with you again," he said, in a low, constrained tone; "but this time I must see you safe in the tent before I leave."

"Leave! Going! Where to?" she asked, and her voice trembled in spite of herself. She clasped her hands tightly, and he could see the flash of the ring he had given her. She had put it on with the Indian dress.

"That does not matter much, does it?" he returned; "but somewhere, far enough up the lake not to trouble you again while you stay. Come."

She walked beside him without another word; words seemed so useless. She had said words over and over again to herself all that day--words of his wrong to her in not telling her of that other woman, words of reproach, bitter and keen; yet none of her reasoning kept her from wanting to touch his hand as he walked beside her.

But she did not. Even when they reached the level by the springs, she only looked her farewell to him, but did not speak.

"Good-by," he said, in a voice that was not like Dan's voice.

She merely bowed her head, and walked away toward the tent where she heard Mrs. Huzzard laughing.

She halted near the cabin, and then hurried on, dreading to enter it yet, lest she should meet the man she was trying to avoid.

Overton watched her until she reached the tent. The moon had just escaped the horizon, and threw its soft misty light over all the place. He pulled his hat low over his eyes, and, turning, took the opposite direction.

Only a few minutes elapsed when Lyster remembered he had promised Dan to look after Harris, and rose to go to the cabin.

"I will go, too," said 'Tana, filled with nervous dread lest he encounter some one on her threshold, though she had all reason to expect that her disguised visitor had come and gone ere that.

"Well, well, 'Tana, you are a restless mortal," said Mrs. Huzzard. "You've only just come, and now you must be off again. What did you do that you wanted to be all alone for this evening? Read verses, I'll go bail."

"No, I didn't read verses," answered 'Tana. "But you needn't go along to the cabin."

"Well, I will then. You are not fit to sleep alone. And, if it wasn't for the beastly snakes!--"

"We will go and see Harris," said the girl, and so they entered his cabin, where he sat alone with a bright light burning.

Some newspapers, brought by the captain, were spread before him on a rough reading stand rigged up by one of the miners.

He looked pale and tired, as though the effort of perusing them had been rather too much for him.

Listen as she might, the girl could hear never a sound from her own cabin. She stood by the blanket door, connecting the two rooms, but not a breath came to her. She sighed with relief at the certainty that he had come and gone. She would never see him again.

"Shall I light your lamp?" asked Lyster; and, scarce waiting for a reply, he drew back the blanket and entered the darkness of the other cabin.

Two of the miners came to the door just then, detailed to look after Harris for the night. One was the good-natured, talkative Emmons.

"Glad to see you are so much better, miss," he said, with an expansive smile. "But you scared the wits nearly out of me this morning."

Then they heard the sputter of a match in the next room, and a sharp, startled cry from Lyster, as the blaze gave a feeble light to the interior.

He staggered back among the rest, with the dying match in his fingers, and his face ashen gray.

"Snakes!" half screamed Mrs. Huzzard. "Oh, my! oh, my!"

'Tana, after one look at Lyster, tried to enter the room, but he caught and held her.

"Don't, dear!--don't go in there! It's awful--awful!"

"What's wrong?" demanded one of the miners, and picked up a lamp from beside Harris.

"Look! It is Akkomi!" answered Lyster.

At the name 'Tana broke from him and ran into the room, even before the light reached it.

But she did not take many steps. Her foot struck against something on the floor, an immovable body and a silent one.

"Akkomi--sure enough," said the miner, as he saw the Indian's blanket. "Drunk, I suppose--Indian fashion."

But as he held the light closer, he took hold of the girl's arm, and tried to lead her from the scene.

"You'd better leave this to us, miss," he added, in a grave tone. "The man ain't drunk. He's been murdered!"

'Tana, white as death itself, shook off his grasp and stood with tightly clasped hands, unheeding the words of horror around her, scarce hearing the shriek of Mrs. Huzzard, as that lady, forgetful even of the snakes, sank to the floor, a very picture of terror.

'Tana saw the roll of money scattered over the couch; the little bag of free gold drawn from under the pillow. He had evidently been stooping to secure it when the assassin crept behind him and left him dead there, with a knife sticking between his shoulders.

"The very knife you had to-day!" said Lyster, horror-stricken at the sight.

The miner with the lamp turned and looked at her strangely, and his eyes dropped from her face to her clasped hands, on which the ring of the snakes glittered.

"Your knife?" he asked, and others, attracted by Mrs. Huzzard's scream, stood around the doors and looked at her too.

She nodded her head, scarce understanding the significance of it, and never taking her eyes from the dead man, whose face was yet hidden.

"He may not be dead," she said, at last. "Look!"

"Oh, he's dead, safe enough," and Emmons lifted his hand. "Was he trying to rob you?"

"I--no--I don't know," she answered, vaguely.

Then another man turned the body over, and utter surprise was on every face; for, though it was Akkomi's blanket, it was a much younger man who lay there.

"A white man, by Heavens!" said the miner who had first entered. "A white man, with brown paint on his face and hands! But, look here!" and he pulled down the collar of the dead man's shirt, and showed a skin fair as a child's.

"Something terribly crooked here," he continued. "Where is Overton?"

Overton! At the name her very heart grew cold within her. Had he not threatened he would kill the man who visited her at night? Had he come straight to the cabin after leaving her? Had he kept his word? Had he--

"I think Overton left camp after supper--started for the lake," answered some one.

"Well, we'll do our best to get it straight without him, then. Some of you see what time it is. This man has been dead about a half hour. Mr. Lyster, you had better write down all about it; and, if any one here has any information to give, let him have it."

His eyes were on the girl's face, but she said nothing, and he bent to wipe off the stain from the dead man's face. Some one brought water, and in a little while was revealed the decidedly handsome face of a man about forty-five years old.

"Do any of you know him?" asked the miner, who, by circumstance, appeared to have been given the office of speaker--"look--all of you."

One after another the men approached, but shook their heads; until an old miner, gray-haired and weather-beaten, gave vent to a half-smothered oath at sight of him.

"Know him?" he exclaimed. "Well, I do, though it's five years since I saw him. Heavens! I'd rather have found him alive than dead, though, for there is a standing reward offered for him by two States. Why, it's the card-sharper, horse-thief and renegade--Lee Holly!"

"But who could have killed him?"

"That is Overton's knife," said one of the men.

"But Overton had not had it since noon," said 'Tana, speaking for the first time in explanation. "I borrowed it then."

"You borrowed it? For what?"

"Oh--I forget. To cut a stick with, I think."

"You think. I'm sorry to speak rough to a lady, miss but this is a time for knowing--not thinking."

"What do you mean by that?" demanded Lyster.

The man looked at him squarely.

"Nothing to offend innocent folks," he answered. "A murder has been done in this lady's room, with a knife she acknowledges she has had possession of. It's natural enough to question her first of all."

The color had crept into her face once more. She knew what the man meant, and knew that the longer they looked on her with suspicion, the more time Overton would have to escape. Then, when they learned they were on a false scent, it would be late--too late to start after him. She wished he had taken the money and the gold. She shuddered as she thought him a murderer--the murderer of that man; but, with what skill she could, she would keep them off his track.

Her thoughts ran fast, and a half smile touched her lips. Even with that dead body at her feet, she was almost happy at the hope of saving him. The others noticed it, and looked at her in wonder. Lyster said:

"You are right. But Miss Rivers could know nothing of this. She has been with us since the moon rose, and that is more than a half-hour."

"No, only fifteen minutes," said one of the men.

"Well, where were you for the half-hour before the moon rose?" asked the man who seemed examiner. "That is really the time most interesting to this case."

"Why, good heavens, man!" cried Lyster, but 'Tana interrupted:

"I was walking up on the hill about that time."

"Alone?"

"Alone."

Mrs. Huzzard groaned dismally, and Lyster caught 'Tana by the hand.

"'Tana! think what you are saying. You don't realize how serious this is."

"One more question," and the man looked at her very steadily. "Were you not expecting this man to-night?"

"I sha'n't answer any more of your questions," she answered, coldly.

Lyster turned on the man with clenched hands and a face white with anger.

"How dare you insult her with such a question?" he asked, hoarsely. "How could it be possible for Miss Rivers to know this renegade horse-thief?"

"Well, I'll tell you," said the man, drawing a long breath and looking at the girl. "It ain't a pleasant thing to do; but as we have no courts up here, we have to straighten out crimes in a camp the best way we can. My name is Saunders. That man over there is right--this is Lee Holly; and I am sure now that I saw him leave this cabin last night. I passed the cabin and heard voices--hers and a man's. I heard her say: 'While I can't quite decide to kill you myself, I hope some one else will.' The rest of their words were not so clear. I told Overton when he came back, but the man was gone then. You ask me how I dare think she could tell something of this if she chose. Well, I can't help it. She is wearing a ring I'll swear I saw Lee Holly wear three years ago, at a card table in Seattle. I'll swear it! And he is lying here dead in her room, with a knife sticking in him that she had possession of to-day. Now, gentlemen, what do you think of it yourselves?"

CHAPTER XXIII.

GOOD-BY.

"Oh, 'Tana, it is awful--awful!" and poor Mrs. Huzzard rocked herself in a spasm of woe. "And to think that you won't say a word--not a single word! It just breaks my heart."

"Now, now! I'll say lots of things if you will talk of something besides murders. And I'll mend your broken heart when this trouble is all over, you will see!"

"Over! I'm mightily afraid it is only commencing. And you that cool and indifferent you are enough to put one crazy! Oh, if Dan Overton was only here."

The girl smiled. All the hours of the night had gone by. He had at least twelve hours' start, and the men of the camp had not yet suspected him for even a moment. They had questioned Harris, and he told them, by signs, that no man had gone through his cabin, no one had been in since dark; but he had heard a movement in the other room. The knife he had seen 'Tana take into the other room long before dark.

"And some one quarreling with this Holly--or following him--may have chanced on it and used it," contested Lyster, who was angered, dismayed, and puzzled at 'Tana, quite as much as at the finding of the body. Her answers to all questions were so persistently detrimental to her own cause.

"Don't be uneasy--they won't hang me," she assured him. "Think of them hanging any one for killing Lee Holly! The man who did it--if he knows whom he was settling for--was a fool not to face the camp and get credit for it. Every man would have shaken hands with him. But just because there is a little mystery about it, they try to make it out a crime. Pooh!"

"Oh, child!" exclaimed Mrs. Huzzard, totally scandalized. "A murder! Of course it is a crime--the greatest."

"I don't think so. It is a greater crime to bring a soul into the world and then neglect it--let it drift into any hell on earth that nets it--than it is to send a soul out of the world, to meet heaven, if it deserves it. There are times when murder is justifiable, but there are certain other crimes that nothing could ever justify."

"Why, 'Tana!" and Mrs. Huzzard looked at her helplessly. But Miss Slocum gave the girl a more understanding regard.

"You speak very bitterly for a young girl; as if you had thought a great deal on this question."

"I have," she acknowledged, promptly; "you think it is not a very nice question for girls to study about, don't you? Well, it isn't nice, but it's true. I happen to be one of the souls dragged into life by people who didn't think they had responsibilities. Miss Slocum, maybe that is why I am extra bitter on the subject."

"But not--not against your parents, 'Tana?" said Mrs. Huzzard, in dismay.

The girl's mouth drew hard and unlovely at the question.

"I don't know much about religion," she said, after a little, "and I don't know that it matters much--now don't faint, Mrs. Huzzard! but I'm pretty certain old married men who had families were the ones who laid down the law about children in the Bible. They say 'spare the rod and spoil the child,' and then say 'honor your father and mother.' They seem to think it a settled thing that all fathers and mothers are honorable--but they ain't; and that all children need beating--and they don't."

"Oh, 'Tana!"

"And I think it is that one-sided commandment that makes folks think that all the duty must go from children to the parents, and not a word is said of the duty people owe to the souls they bring into the world. I don't think it's a square deal."

"A square deal! Why, 'Tana!"

"Isn't it so?" she asked, moodily. "You think a girl is a pretty hard case if she doesn't give proper respect and duty to her parents, don't you? But suppose they are the sort of people no one can respect--what then? Seems to me the first duty is from the parent to the children--the duty of caring for them, loving them, and teaching them right. A child can't owe a debt of duty when it never received the duties it should have first. Oh, I may not say this clearly as I feel it."

"But you know, 'Tana," said Miss Slocum, "that if there is no commandment as to parents giving care to their children, it is only because it is so plainly a natural thing to do that it was unnecessary to command it."

"No more natural than for a child to honor any person who is honorable, or to love the parent who loves him, and teaches him rightly. Huh! If a child is not able to love and respect a parent, it is the child who loses the most."

Miss Slocum looked at her sadly.

"I can't scold you as I would try to scold many a one in your place," she said, "for I feel as if you must have traveled over some long, hard path of troubles, before you could reach this feeling you have. But, 'Tana, think of brighter things; young girls should never drift into those perplexing questions. They will make you melancholy if you brood on such things."

"Melancholy? Well, I think not," and she smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "Seems to me I'm the least gloomy person in camp this morning. All the rest of you look as though Mr. Holly had been your bosom friend."

She talked recklessly--they thought heartlessly--of the murder, and the two women were strongly inclined to think the shock of the affair had touched her brain, for she showed no concern whatever as to her own position, but treated it as a joke. And when she realized that she was to a certain extent under guard, she seemed to find amusement in that, too. Her expressions, when the cousins grew pitiful over the handsome face of Holly, were touched with ridicule.

"I wonder if there was ever a man too low and vile to get woman's pity, if he only had a pretty face," she said, caustically. "If he was an ugly, old, half-decent fellow, you wouldn't be making any soft-hearted surmises as to what he might have been under different circumstances. He has spoiled the lives of several tenderhearted women like you--yet you pity him!"

"'Tana, I never knew you to be so set against any one as you are against that poor dead man," declared Mrs. Huzzard. "Not so much wonder the folks think you know how it happened, for you always had a helping word for the worst old tramp or beggarly Indian that came around; but for this man you have nothing but unkindness."

"No," agreed the girl, "and you would like to think him a romantic victim of somebody, just because he is so good-looking. I'm going to talk to Harris. He won't sympathize with the wrong side, I am sure."

He looked up eagerly as she entered, his eyes full of anxious question. She touched his hand kindly and sat close beside him as she talked.

"You want to know all about it, don't you?" she asked, softly. "Well, it is all over. He was alive, after all, and I would not believe it. But now you need never trail him again, you can rest now, for he is dead. Somebody else has--has owed him a grudge, too. They think I am the somebody, but you don't believe that?"

He shook his head decidedly.

"No," she continued; "though for one moment, Joe, I thought that it might have been you. Yes, I did; for of course I knew it was only weakness would keep you from it, if you were in reach of him. But I remembered at once that it could not be, for the hand that struck him was strong."

He assented in his silent way, and watched her face closely, as if to read the shadows of thought thrown on it by her feelings.

"It's awful, ain't it?" she whispered. "It is what I said I hoped for, and just yet I can't be sorry--I can't! But, after this stir is all over, I know it will trouble me, make me sorry because I am not sorry now. I can't cry, but I do feel like screaming. And see! every once in a while my hands tremble; I tremble all over. Oh, it is awful!"

She buried her face in her hands. Only to him did she show any of the feeling with which the death of the man touched her.

"And you can't tell me anything of how it was done?" she said, at last. "You so near--did you see any one?"

She longed to ask if he had seen Overton, but dared not utter his name, lest he might suspect as she did. Each hour that went by was an added gain to her for him. Of course he had struck, not knowing who the man was. If he had known, it would have been so easy to say, "I found him robbing the cabin. I killed him," and there would have been no further question concerning it.

"But if all the other bars were beaten down between us, this one would keep me from ever shaking hands with him again. Why should it have been he out of all the camp? Oh, it makes my heart ache!"

While she sat thus, with miserable thoughts, others came to the door, and looking up, she saw Akkomi, who looked on her with keen, accusing eyes.

"No--it is not true, Akkomi," she said, in his own jargon. "Keep silent for a little while of the things these people do not know--a little while, and then I can tell you who it is I am shielding, but not yet."

"Him!" and the eyes of the Indian turned to the paralytic.

"No--not him; truly not," she said, earnestly. "It is some one you would want to help if you knew--some one who is going fast on the path from these people. They will learn soon it is not I; but till then, keep silence."

"Dan--where?" he asked, laconically, and her face paled at the question.

Had he any reason to suspect the dread in her own mind? But a moment's thought reassured her. He had asked simply because Overton seemed always to him the controlling spirit of the camp, and Overton was the one he would have speech with, if any.

"Overton left last night for the lake," explained Lyster, who had entered and heard the name of Dan and the interrogative tone. Then the blanket was brought to Akkomi--his blanket, in which the man had died.

"I sold it to the white man--that is all," he answered through 'Tana; and more than that he would not say except to inform them he would wait for Dan. Which was, in fact, the general desire of the committee organized to investigate.

They all appeared to be waiting for Dan. Lyster did not by any means fill his place, simply because Lyster's interest in 'Tana was too apparent, and there was little of the cool quality of reason in his attitude toward the mysterious case. He did not believe the ring she wore had belonged to Holly, though she refused to tell the source from which it had reached her. He did not believe the man who said he heard that war of words at her cabin in the evening--at least, when others were about, he acted as if he did not believe it. But when he and 'Tana chanced to be alone, she felt the doubt there must be in his mind, and a regret for him touched her. For his sake she was sorry, but not sorry enough to clear the mystery at the expense of that other man she thought she was shielding.

Captain Leek had been dispatched with all speed to the lake works, that Seldon, Haydon, and Overton might be informed of the trouble in camp, and hasten back to settle it. To send for them was the only thing Lyster thought of doing, for he himself felt powerless against the lot of men, who were not harsh or rude in any way, but who simply wanted to know "why"--so many "whys" that he could not answer.