“Well, by the help of either her red gods or devils, she can swim, anyway!”
This explosive statement was made one June morning on the banks of the Kootenai, and the speaker, after a steady gaze, relinquished his field-glass to the man beside him.
“Can she make it?” he asked.
A grunt was the only reply given him. The silent watcher was too much interested in the scene across the water.
Shouts came to them—the yells of frightened Indian children; and from the cone-shaped dwellings, up from the water, the Indian women were hurrying. One, reaching the shore first, sent up a shrill cry, as she perceived that, from the canoe where the children played, one had fallen over, and was being swept away by that swift-rushing, chill water, far out from the reaching hands of the others.
Then a figure lolling on the shore farther down stream than the canoe sprang erect at the frightened scream.
One quick glance showed the helplessness of those above, and another the struggling little form there in the water—the little one who turned such wild eyes toward the shore, and was the only one of them all who was not making some outcry.
The white men, who were watching from the opposite side, could see shoes flung aside quickly; a jacket dropped on the shore; and then down into the water a slight figure darted with the swiftness of a kingfisher, and swam out to the little fellow who had struggled to keep his head above water, but was fast growing helpless in the chill of the mountain river.
Then it was that Mr. Maxwell Lyster commented on the physical help lent by the gods of the red people, as the ability of any female to swim thus lustily in spite of that icy current seemed to his civilized understanding a thing superhuman. Of course, bears and other animals of the woods swam it at all seasons, when it was open; but to see a woman dash into it like that! Well, it sent a shiver over him to think of it.
“They’ll both get chilled and drop to the bottom!” he remarked, with irritated concern. “Of course there are enough of the red vagabonds in this new El Dorado of yours, without that particular squaw. But it would be a pity that so plucky a one should be translated.”
Then a yell of triumph came from the other shore. A canoe had been loosened, and was fairly flying over the water to where the child had been dragged to the surface, and the rescuer was holding herself up by the slow efforts of one arm, but could make no progress with her burden.
“That’s no squaw!” commented the other man, who had been looking through the glass.
“Why, Dan!”
“It’s no squaw, I tell you,” insisted the other, with the superior knowledge of a native. “Thought so the minute I saw her drop the shoes and jacket that way. She didn’t make a single Indian move. It’s a white woman!”
“Queer place for a white woman, isn’t it?”
The man called Dan did not answer. The canoe had reached that figure in the water and the squaw in it lifted the now senseless child and laid him in the bottom of the light craft.
A slight altercation seemed going on between the woman in the water and the one in the boat. The former was protesting against being helped on board—the men could see that by their gestures. She finally gained her point, for the squaw seized the paddle and sent the boat shoreward with all the strength of her brown arms, while the one in the water held on to the canoe and was thus towed back, where half the Indian village had now swarmed to receive them.
“She’s got sand and sense,” and Dan nodded his appreciation of the towing process; “for, chilled as she must be, the canoe would more than likely have turned over if she had tried to climb into it. Look at the pow-wow they are kicking up! That little red devil must count for big stakes with them.”
“But the woman who swam after him. See! they try to stand her on her feet, but she can’t walk. There! she’s on the ground again. I’d give half my supper to know if she has killed herself with that ice-bath.”
“Maybe you can eat all your supper and find out, too,” observed the other, with a shrug of his shoulders, and a quizzical glance at his companion, “unless even the glimpse of a petticoat has chased away your appetite. You had better take some advice from an old man, Max, and swear off approaching females in this country, for the specimens you’ll find here aren’t things to make you proud they’re human.”
“An old man!” repeated Mr. Lyster with a smile of derision. “You must be pretty near twenty-eight years old—aren’t you, Dan? and just about five years older than myself. And what airs you do assume in consequence! With all the weight of those years,” he added, slowly, “I doubt, Mr. Dan Overton, if you have really lived as much as I have.”
One glance of the dark eyes was turned on the speaker for an instant, and then the old felt hat again shaded them as he continued watching the group on the far shore. The swimmer had been picked up by a stalwart Indian woman, and was carried bodily up to one of the lodges, while another squaw—evidently the mother—carried the little redskin who had caused all the commotion.
“I suppose, by living, you mean the life of settlements—or, to condense the question still more, the life of cities,” continued Overton, stretching himself lazily on the bank. “You mean the life of a certain set in one certain city—New York, for instance,” and he grinned at the expression of impatience on the face of the other. “Yes, I reckon New York is about the one, and a certain part of the town to live in. A certain gang of partners, who have a certain man to make their clothes and boots and hats, and stamp his name on the inside of them, so that other folks can see, when you take off your coat, or your hat, or your gloves, that they were made at just the right place. This makes you a man worth knowing—isn’t that about the idea? And in the afternoon, at just about the right hour, you rig yourself out in a certain cut of coat, and stroll for an hour or so on a certain street! In the evening—if a man wants to understand just what it is to live—he must get into other clothes and drop into the theater, making a point of being introduced to any heavy swell within reach, so you can speak of it afterward, you know. Just as your chums like to say they had a supper with a pretty actress, after the curtain went down; but they don’t go into details, and own up that the ’actress’ maybe never did anything on a stage but walk on in armor and carry a banner. Oh, scowl if you want to! Of course it sounds shoddy when a trapper outlines it; but it doesn’t seem shoddy to the people who live like that. Then, about the time that all good girls are asleep, it is just the hour for a supper to be ordered, at just the right place for the wine to be good, and the dishes served in A1 shape, with a convenient waiter who knows how dim to make the lights, and how to efface himself, and let you wait on your ’lady’ with your own hands. And she’ll go home wearing a ring of yours—two, if you have them; and you’ll wake up at noon next day, and think what a jolly time you had, but with your head so muddled that you can’t remember where it was you were to meet her the next night, or whether it was the next night that her husband was to be home, and she couldn’t see you at all.” Overton rolled over on his face and grunted disdainfully, saying: “That’s about the style of thing you call living, don’t you, sonny?”
“Great Scott, Dan!” and the “sonny” addressed stared at him in perplexity, “one never knows what to expect of you. Of course there is some truth in the sketch you make; but—but I thought you had never ranged to the East?”
“Did you? Well, I don’t look as if I’d ever ranged beyond the timber, do I?” and he stretched out his long legs with their shabby coverings, and stuck his fingers through a hole in his hat. “This outfit doesn’t look as if the hands of a Broadway tailor had ever touched it. But, my boy, the sketch you speak of would be just as true to life among a certain set in any large city of the States; only in the West, or even in the South, those ambitious sports would know enough to buy a horse on their own judgment, if they wanted to ride. Or would bet on the races without hustling around to find some played-out jockey who would give them tips.”
“Well, to say the least, your opinion is not very flattering to us,” remarked the young man, moodily. “You’ve got some grudge against the East, I guess.”
“Grudge? Not any. And you’re all right, Max. You will find thousands willing to keep to your idea of life, so we won’t split on that wedge. My old stepdad would chime in with you if he were here. He prates about civilization and Eastern culture till I get weary sometimes. Culture! Wait till you see him. He’s all right in his way, of course; but as I cut loose from home when only fifteen, and never ran across the old man again until two years ago—well, you see, I can make my estimates in that direction without being biased by family feeling. And I reckon he does the same thing. I don’t know what to expect when I go back this time; but, from signs around camp when I left, I wouldn’t be surprised if he presented me with a stepmother on my return.”
“A stepmother? Whew!” whistled the other. “Well, that shows there are some white women in your region, anyway.”
“Oh, yes, we have several. This particular one is a Pennsylvania product; talks through her nose, and eats with her knife, and will maybe try to make eyes at you and keep you in practice. But she is a good, square woman; simply one of the many specimens that drift out here. Came up from Helena with the ’boom,’ and started a milliner store—a milliner store in the bush, mind you! But after the Indians had bought all the bright feathers and artificial flowers, she changed her sign, and keeps an eating-house now. It is the high-toned corner of the camp. She can cook some; and I reckon that’s what catches the old man.”
“Any more interesting specimens like that?”
“Not like that,” returned Overton; “but there are some more.”
Then he arose, and stood listening to sounds back in the wild forests.
“I hear the ’cayuse’ bell,” he remarked; “so the others are coming. We’ll go back up to the camp, and, after ’chuck,’ we’ll go over and give you a nearer view of the tribe on the other shore, if you want to add them to the list of your sight-seeing.”
“Certainly I do. They’ll be a relief after the squads of railroad section hands we’ve been having for company lately. They knocked all the romance out of the wildly beautiful country we’ve been coming through since we left the Columbia River.”
“Come back next year; then a boat will be puffing up here to the landing, and you can cross to the Columbia in a few hours, for the road will be completed then.”
“And you—will you be here then?”
“Well—yes; I reckon so. I never anchor anywhere very long; but this country suits me, and the company seems to need me.”
The young fellow looked at him and laughed, and dropped his hand on the broad shoulder with a certain degree of affection.
“Seems to need you?” he repeated. “Well, Mr. Dan Overton, if the day ever comes when I’m necessary to the welfare of a section as large as a good-sized State, I hope I’ll know enough to appreciate my own importance.”
“Hope you will,” said Overton, with a kindly smile. “No reason why you should not be of use. Every man with a fair share of health and strength ought to be of use somewhere.”
“Yes, that sounds all right and is easy to grasp, if you have been brought up with the idea. But suppose you had been trained by a couple of maiden aunts who only thought to give you the manners of a gentleman, and leave you their money to get through the world with? I guess, under such circumstances, you, too, might have settled into the feathery nest prepared for you, and thought you were doing your duty to the world if you were only ornamental,” and the dubious smile on his really handsome face robbed the speech of any vanity.
“You’re all right, I tell you,” returned the other. “Don’t growl at yourself so much. You’ll find your work and buckle down to it, some of these days. Maybe you’ll find it out here—who knows? Of course Mr. Seldon would see to it that you got any post you would want in this district.”
“Yes, he’s a jolly old fellow, and has shown me a lot of favors. Seems to me relatives mean more to folks out here than they do East, because so few have their families or relatives along, I guess. If it had not been for Seldon, I rather think I would not have had the chance of this wild trip with you.”
“Likely not. I don’t generally want a tenderfoot along when I’ve work to do. No offense, Max; but they are too often a hindrance. Now that you have come, though, I’ll confess I’m glad of it. The lonely trips over this wild region tend to make a man silent—a bear among people when he does reach a camp. But we’ve talked most of the time, and I reckon I feel the better of it. I know I’ll miss you when I go over this route again. You’ll be on your way East by that time.”
The “cayuse” bell sounded nearer and nearer, and directly from the dense forest a packhorse came stepping with care over the fallen logs, where the sign of a trail was yet dim to any eyes but those of a woodsman. A bell at its neck tinkled as it walked, and after it four others followed, all with heavy loads bound to their backs. It looked strange to see the patient animals thus walk without guide or driver through the dense timber of the mountains; but a little later voices were heard, and two horsemen came out of the shadows of the wood, and followed the horses upward along the bank of the river to where a little stream of fresh water tumbled down to the Kootenai. There a little camp was located, an insignificant gathering of tents, but one that meant a promising event to the country, for it was to be the connecting point of the boats that would one day float from the States on the river, and the railroad that would erelong lead westward over the trail from which the packhorses were bringing supplies.
The sun was setting and all the ripples of the river shone red in its reflected light. Forests of pine loomed up black and shadowy above the shores; and there, higher up—up where the snow was, all tips of the river range were tinged a warm pink, and where the shadows lay, the lavender and faint purples drifted into each other, and bit by bit crowded the pink line higher and higher until it dared touch only the topmost peaks with its lingering kiss.
Lyster halted to look over the wild beauty of the wilderness, and from the harmony of river and hills and sky his eyes turned to Overton.
“You are right, Dan,” he said, with an appreciative smile, a smile that opened his lips and showed how perfect the mouth was under the brown mustache—“you are right enough to keep close to all these beauties. You seem in some way to belong to them—not that you are so much ’a thing of beauty’ yourself,” and the smile widened a little; “but you have in you all the strength of the hills and the patience of the wilderness. You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I guess so,” answered Overton. “You want some one to spout verses to or make love to, and there is no subject handy. I can make allowances for you, though. Those tendencies are apt to stick to a man for about a year after a trip to Southern California. I don’t know whether it’s the girls down there, or the wine that is accountable for it; but whatever it is, you have been back from there only three months. You’ve three-quarters of a year to run yet—maybe more; for I’ve a notion that you have a leaning in that direction even in your most sensible moments.”
“H’m! You must have made a trip to that wine country yourself sometime,” observed Lyster. “Your theory suggests practice. Were there girls and wine there then?”
“Plenty,” returned Overton, briefly. “Come on. There’s the cook shouting supper.”
“And after supper we’re to go over to the Kootenai camp. Say! what is the meaning of that name, anyway? You know all their jargons up here; do you know that, too?”
“Nobody does, I reckon; there are lots of theories flying around. The generally accepted one is that they were called the ‘Court Nez’ by the French trappers long ago, and that Kootenai is the result, after generations of Indian pronunciation. They named the ‘Nez Perces,’ too—the ’pierced noses,’ you know; but that name has kept its meaning better. You’ll find the trail of the French all through the Indian tribes up here.”
“Think that was a Frenchwoman in the river back there? You said she was white.”
“Yes, I did. But it’s generally the Frenchmen you find among the reds, and not the women; though I do know some square white women across the line who have married educated Indians.”
“But they are generally a lazy, shiftless set?”
The tone was half inquiring, and Overton grimaced and smiled.
“They are not behind the rest, when it comes to a fight,” he answered. “And as to lazy—well, there are several colors of people who are that, under some circumstances. I have an Indian friend across in the States, who made eight thousand dollars in a cattle deal last year, and didn’t sell out, either. Now, when you and I can do as well on capital we’ve earned ourselves, then maybe we’ll have a right to criticise some of the rest for indolence. But you can’t do much to improve Indians, or any one else, by penning them up in so many square miles and bribing them to be good. The Indian cattleman I speak of kept clear of the reservation, and after drifting around for a while, settled down to the most natural civilized calling possible to an Indian—stock-raising. Dig in the ground? No; they won’t do much of that, just at first. But I’ve eaten some pretty good garden truck they’ve raised.”
Lyster whistled and arched his handsome brows significantly.
“So your sympathies run in that direction, do they? Is there a Kootenai Pocahontas somewhere in the wilderness accountable for your ideas? That is about the only ground I could excuse you on, for I think they are beastly, except in pictures.”
They had reached a gathering of men who were seated at a table in the open air—some long boards laid on trestles.
Overton and his friend were called to seats at the head of the table, where the “boss” of the construction gang sat. The rough pleasantries of the men, and the way they made room for him, showed that the big bronzed ranger was a favorite visitor along the “works.”
They looked with some curiosity at his more finely garbed companion, but he returned their regard with a good deal of careless audacity, and won their liking by his independence. But in the midst of the social studies he was making of them, he heard Overton say:
“And you have not heard of a white girl in this vicinity?”
“Never a girl. Are you looking for one? Old Akkomi, the Indian, has gone into camp across the river, and he might have a red one to spare.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Overton. “He’s an old acquaintance of mine—a year old. But I’m not looking for red girls just now, and I’m going to tell the old man to keep the families clear of your gang, too.” Then to Lyster he remarked:
“Whether these people know it or not, there is a white girl in the Indian camp—a young girl, too; and before we sleep, we’ll see who she is.”
Mr. Max Lyster was not given to the study of deep problems; his habits of thought did not run in that groove. But he did watch the young stranger with unusual interest. Her face puzzled him as much as her presence there.
“I feel as though I had seen you before,” he said at last, and her face grew a shade paler. She did not look up, and when she spoke, it was very curtly:
“Where?”
“Oh, I don’t know—in fact, I believe it is a resemblance to some one I know that makes me feel that way.”
“I look like some one you know?”
“Well, yes, you do—a little—a lady who is a little older than you—a little more of a brunette than you; yet there is a likeness.”
“Where does she live—and what is her name?” she asked, with scant ceremony.
“I don’t suppose her name would tell you much,” he answered. “But it is Miss Margaret Haydon, of Philadelphia.”
“Miss Margaret Haydon,” she said slowly, almost contemptuously. “So you know her?”
“You speak as though you did,” he answered; “and as if you did not like the name, either.”
“But you think it’s pretty,” she said, looking at him sharply. “No, I don’t know such swells—don’t want to.”
“How do you know she is a swell?”
“Oh, there’s a man owns big works across the country, and that’s his name. I suppose they are all of a lot,” she said, indifferently. “Say! are there any girls at Sinna Ferry, any family folks? Dan didn’t tell me—only said there was a white woman there, and I could live with her. He hasn’t a wife, has he?”
“Dan?” and he laughed at the idea, “well, no. He is very kind to women, but I can’t imagine the sort of woman he would marry. He is a queer fish, you know.”
“I guess you’ll think we’re all that up in this wild country,” she observed. “Does he know much about books and such things?”
“Such things?”
“Oh, you know! things of the life in the cities, where there’s music and theaters. I love the theaters and pictures! and—and—well, everything like that.”
Lyster watched her brightening face, and appreciated all the longing in it for the things he liked well himself. And she loved the theaters! All his own boyish enthusiasm of years ago crowded into his memory, as he looked at her.
“You have seen plays, then?” he asked, and wondered where she had seen them along that British Columbia line.
“Seen plays! Yes, in ’Frisco, and Portland, and Victoria—big, real theaters, you know; and then others in the big mining camps. Oh, I just dream over plays, when I do see them, specially when the actresses are pretty. But I mostly like the villains better than the heroes. Don’t know why, but I do.”
“What! you like to see their wickedness prosper?”
“No—I think not,” she said, doubtfully. “But I tell you, the heroes are generally just too good to be live men, that’s all. And the villain mostly talks more natural, gets mad, you know, and breaks things, and rides over the lay-out as though he had some nerve in him. Of course, they always make him throw up his hands in the end, and every man in the audience applauds—even the ones who would act just as he does if such a pretty hero was in their way.”
“Well, you certainly have peculiar ideas of theatrical personages—for a young lady,” decided Lyster, laughing. “And why you have a grievance against the orthodox handsome hero, I can’t see.”
“He’s too good,” she insisted, with the little frown appearing between her brows, “and no one is ever started in the play with a fair chance against him. He is always called Willie, where the villain would be called Bill—now, isn’t he? Then the girl in the story always falls in love with him at first sight, and that’s enough to rile any villain, especially when he wants her himself.”
“Oh!” and the face of the young man was a study, as he inspected this wonderful ward of Dan. Whatever he had expected from the young swimmer of the Kootenai, from the welcomed guest of Akkomi, he had not expected this sort of thing.
She was twisting her pretty mouth, with a schoolgirl’s earnestness, over a problem, and accenting thus her patient forming of the clay face. She built no barriers up between herself and this handsome stranger, as she had in the beginning with Overton. What she had to say was uttered with all freedom—her likes, her thoughts, her ambitions. At first the fineness and perfection of his apparel had been as grandeur and insolence when contrasted with her own weather-stained, coarse skirt of wool, and her boy’s blouse belted with a strap of leather. Even the blue beads—her one feminine bit of adornment—had been stripped from her throat, that she might give some pleasure to the little bronze-tinted runners on the shore. But the gently modulated, sympathetic tones of Lyster and the kindly fellowship in his eyes, when he looked at her, almost made her forget her own shabbiness (all but those hideous coarse shoes!) for he talked to her with the grace of the people in the plays she loved so, and had not once spoken as though to a stray found in the shelter of an Indian camp.
But he did look curious when she expressed those independent ideas on questions over which most girls would blush or appear at least a little conscious.
“So, you would put a veto on love at first sight, would you?” he asked, laughingly. “And the beauty of the hero would not move you at all? What a very odd young lady you would have me think you! I believe love at first sight is generally considered, by your age and sex, the pinnacle of all things hoped for.”
A little color did creep into her face at the unnecessary personal construction put on her words. She frowned to hide her embarrassment and thrust out her lips in a manner that showed she had little vanity as to her features and their attractiveness.
“But I don’t happen to be a young lady,” she retorted; “and we think as we please up here in the bush. Maybe your proper young ladies would be very odd, too, if they were brought up out here like boys.”
She arose to her feet, and he saw more clearly then how slight she was; her form and face were much more childish in character than her speech, and the face was looking at him with resentful eyes.
“I’m going back to camp.”
“Now, I’ve offended you, haven’t I?” he asked, in surprise. “Really, I did not mean to. Won’t you forgive me?”
She dug her heel in the sand and did not answer; but the fact that she remained at all assured him she would relent. He was amused at her quick show of temper. What a prospect for Dan!
“I scarcely know what I said to vex you,” he began; but she flashed a sullen look at him.
“You think I’m odd—and—and a nobody; just because I ain’t like fine young ladies you know somewheres—like Miss Margaret Haydon,” and she dug the sand away with vicious little kicks. “Nice ladies with kid slippers on,” she added, derisively, “the sort that always falls in love with the pretty man, the hero. Huh! I’ve seen some men who were heroes—real ones—and I never saw a pretty one yet.”
As she said it, she looked very straight into the very handsome face of Mr. Lyster.
“A young Tartar!” he decided, mentally, while he actually colored at the directness of her gaze and her sweepingly contemptuous opinion of “pretty men.”
“I see I’d better vacate your premises since you appear unwilling to forgive me even my unintentional faults,” he decided, meekly. “I’m very sorry, I’m sure, and hope you will bear no malice. Of course I—nobody would want you to be different from what you are; so you must not think I meant that. I had hoped you would let me buy that clay bust as a memento of this morning, but I’m afraid to ask favors now. I can only hope that you will speak to me again to-morrow. Until then, good-by.”
She raised her eyes sullenly at first, but they dropped, ashamed, before the kindness of his own. She felt coarse and clumsy, and wished she had not been so quick to quarrel. And he was turning away! Maybe he would never speak nicely to her again, and she loved to hear him speak.
Then her hand was thrust out to him, and in it was the little clay model.
“You can have it. I’ll give it to you,” she said, quite humbly. “It ain’t very pretty, but if you like it—”
Thus ended the first of many differences between Dan’s ward and Dan’s friend.
When Daniel Overton himself came stalking down among the Indian children, looking right and left from under his great slouch hat, he halted suddenly, and with his lips closed somewhat grimly, stood there watching the rather pretty picture before him.
But the prettiness of it did not seem to appeal to him strongly. He looked on the girl’s half smiling, drooped face, on Lyster, who held the model and his hat in one hand and, with his handsome blonde head bared, held out his other hand to her, saying something in those low, deferential tones Dan knew so well.
Her hand was given after a little hesitation. When they beheld Dan so near them, the hands were unclasped and each looked confused.
Mr. Lyster was the first to recover, and adjusting his head covering once more, he held up the clay model to view.
“Thought you’d be around before long,” he remarked, with a provoking gleam in his eyes. “I really had no hope of meeting Miss Rivers before you this morning; but fortune favors the brave, you know, and fortune sent me right along these sands for my morning walk—a most indulgent fortune, for, look at this! Did you know your ward is an embryo sculptress?”
The older man looked indifferently enough at the exalted bit of clay.
“I leave discoveries of that sort to you. They seem to run in your line more than mine,” he answered, briefly. Then he turned to the girl. “Akkomi told me you were here with the children, ’Tana. If you had other company, Akkomi would have made him welcome.”
He did not speak unkindly, yet she felt that in some way he was not pleased; and perhaps—perhaps he would change his mind and leave her where he found her! And if so, she might never see—either of their faces again! As the thought came to her, she looked up at Dan in a startled way, and half put out her hand.
“I—I did not know. I don’t like the lodges. It is better here by the river. It is your friend that came, and I—”
“Certainly. You need not explain. And as you seem to know each other, I need not do any introducing,” he answered, as she seemed to grow confused. “But I have a little time to talk to you this morning and so came early.”
“Which means that I can set sail for the far shore,” added Lyster, amiably. “All right; I’m gone. Good-by till to-morrow, Miss Rivers. I’m grateful for the clay Indian, and more grateful that you have agreed to be friends with me again. Will you believe, Dan, that in our short acquaintance of half an hour, we have had time for one quarrel and ’make up’? It is true. And now that she is disposed to accept me as a traveling companion, don’t you spoil it by giving me a bad name when my back is turned. I’ll wait at the canoes.”
With a wave of his hat, he passed out of sight around the clump of bushes, and down along the shore, singing cheerily, and the words floated back to them:
“Come, love! come, love!
My boat lies low;
She lies high and dry
On the Ohio.”
Overton stood looking at the girl for a little time after Lyster disappeared. His eyes were very steady and searching, as though he began to realize the care a ward might be, especially when the antecedents and past life of the ward were so much of stubborn mystery to him.
“I wonder,” he said, at last, “if there is any chance of your being my friend, too, in so short a time as a half-hour? Oh, well, never mind,” he added, as he saw the red mouth tremble, and tears show in her eyes as she looked at him. “Only don’t commence by disliking, that’s all; for unfriendliness is a bad thing in a household, let alone in a canoe, and I can be of more downright use to you, if you give me all the confidence you can.”
“I know what you mean—that I must tell you about—about how I came here, and all; but I won’t!” she burst out. “I’ll die here before I do! I hated the people they said were my people. I was glad when they were dead—glad—glad! Oh, you’ll say it’s wicked to think that way about relatives. Maybe it is, but it’s natural if they’ve always been wicked to you. I’ll go to the bad place, I reckon, for feeling this way, and I’ll just have to go, for I can’t feel any other way.”
“’Tana—’Tana!” and his hand fell on her shoulder, as though to shake her away from so wild a mood. “You are only a girl yet. When you are older, you will be ashamed to say you ever hated your parents—whoever they were—your mother!”
“I ain’t saying anything about her,” she answered bitterly. “She died before I can mind. I’ve been told she was a lady. But I won’t ever use the name again she used. I—I want to start square with the world, if I leave these Indians, and I can’t do it unless I change my name and try to forget the old one. It has a curse on it—it has.”
She was trembling with nervousness, and her eyes, though tearless, were stormy and rebellious.
“You’ll think I’m bad, because I talk this way,” she continued, “but I ain’t—I ain’t. I’ve fought when I had to, and—and I’d swear—sometimes; but that’s all the bad I ever did do. I won’t any more if you take me with you. I—I can cook and keep house for you, if you hain’t got folks of your own, and—I do want to go with you.”
“Come, love! come!
Won’t you go along with me?
And I’ll take you back
To old Tennessee!”
The words of the handsome singer came clearly back to them. Overton, about to speak, heard the words of the song, and a little smile, half-bitter, half-sad, touched his lips as he looked at her.
“I see,” he said, quietly, “you care more about going to-day, than you did when I talked to you last night. Well, that’s all right. And I reckon you can make coffee for me as long as you like. That mayn’t be long, though, for some of the young fellows will be wanting you to keep house for them before many years, and you’ll naturally do it. How old are you?”
“I’m—past sixteen,” she said, in a deprecating way, as though ashamed of her years and her helplessness. “I’m old enough to work, and I will work if I get where it’s any use trying. But I won’t keep house for any one but you.”
“Won’t you?” he asked, doubtfully. “Well, I’ve an idea you may. But we’ll talk about that when the time comes. This morning I wanted to talk of something else before we start—you and Max and I—down into Idaho. I’m not asking the name of the man you hate so; but if I am to acknowledge him as an old acquaintance of mine, you had better tell me what business he was in. You see, it might save complications if any one should run across us some day and know.”
“No one will know me,” she said, decidedly. “If I didn’t know that, I’d stay right here, I think. And as to him, my fond parent,” and she made a grimace—“I guess you can call him a prospector and speculator—either of those would be correct. I think they called him Jim, when he was christened.”
“Akkomi said last night you had been on the trail hunting for some one. Was it a friend, or—or any one I could help you look for?”
“No, it wasn’t a friend, and I’m done with the search and glad of it. Did you,” she added, looking at him darkly, “ever put in time hunting for any one you didn’t want to find?”
Without knowing it, Miss Rivers must have touched on a subject rather sensitive to her guardian, for his face flushed, and he gazed at her with a curious expression in his eyes.
“Maybe I have, little girl,” he said at last. “I reckon I know how to let your troubles alone, anyway, if I can’t help them. But I must tell you, Max—Max Lyster, you know—will be the only one very curious about your presence here—as to the route you came, etc. You had better be prepared for that.”
“It won’t be very hard,” she answered, “for I came over from Sproats’ Landing, up to Karlo, and back down here.”
“Over from Sproats—you?” he asked, looking at her nervously. “I heard nothing of a white girl making that trip. When, and how did you do it?”
“Two weeks ago, and on foot,” was the laconic reply. “As I had only a paper of salt and some matches, I couldn’t afford to travel in high style, so I footed it. I had a ring and a blanket, and I traded them up at Karlo for an old tub of a dugout, and got here in that.”
“You had some one with you?”
“I was alone.”
Overton looked at her with more of amazement than she had yet inspired in him. He thought of that indescribably wild portage trail from the Columbia to the Kootenai. When men crossed it, they preferred to go in company, and this slip of a girl had dared its loneliness, its dangers alone. He thought of the stories of death, by which the trail was haunted; of prospectors who had verged from that dim path and had been lost in the wilderness, where their bones were found by Indians or white hunters long after; of strange stories of wild beasts; of all the weird sounds of the jungles; of places where a misstep would send one lifeless to the jagged feet of huge precipices. And through that trail of terror she had walked—alone!
“I have nothing more to ask,” he said briefly. “But it is not necessary to tell any of the white people you meet that you made the trip alone.”
“I know,” she said, humbly, “they’d think it either wasn’t true—or—or else that it oughtn’t to be true. I know how they’d look at me and whisper things. But if—if you believe me—”
She paused uncertainly, and looked up at him. All the rebellion and passion had faded out of her eyes now: they were only appealing. What a wild, changeable creature she was with those quick contrasts of temper! wild as the name she bore—Montana—the mountains. Something like that thought came into his mind as he looked at her.
He had gathered other wild things from his trips into the wilderness; young bears with which to enliven camp life; young fawns that he had loved and cared for, because of the beauty of eyes and form; even a pair of kittens had been carried by him across into the States, and developed into healthy, marauding panthers. One of these had set its teeth through the flesh of his hand one day ere he could conquer and kill it, and his fawns, cubs and smaller pets had drifted from him back to their forests, or else into the charge of some other prospector who had won their affections.
He remembered them, and the remembrance lent a curious character to the smile in his eyes, as he held out his hand to her.
“I do believe you, for it is only cowards who tell lies; and I don’t believe you’d make a good coward—would you?”
She did not answer, but her face flushed with pleasure, and she looked up at him gratefully. He seemed to like that better than words.
“Akkomi called you ‘Girl-not-Afraid,’” he continued. “And if I were a redskin, too, I would look up an eagle feather for you to wear in your hair. I reckon you’ve heard that only the braves dare wear eagle feathers.”
“I know, but I—”
“But you have earned them by your own confession,” he said, kindly, “and some day I may run across them for you. In the meantime, I have only this.”
He held out a beaded belt of Indian manufacture, a pretty thing, and she opened her eyes in glad surprise, as he offered it to her.
“For me? Oh, Dan!—Mr. Overton—I—”
She paused, confused at having called him as the Indians called him; but he smiled understandingly.
“We’ll settle that name business right here,” he suggested. “You call me Dan, if it comes easier to you. Just as I call you ’Tana. I don’t know ’Mr. Overton’ very well myself in this country, and you needn’t trouble yourself to remember him. Dan is shorter. If I had a sister, she’d call me Dan, I suppose; so I give you license to do so. As to the belt, I got it, with some other plunder, from some Columbia River reds, and you use it. There is some other stuff in Akkomi’s tepee you’d better put on, too; it’s new stuff—a whole dress—and I think the moccasins will about fit you. I brought over two pairs, to make sure. Now, don’t get any independent notions in your head,” he advised, as she looked at him as though about to protest. “If you go to the States as my ward, you must let me take the management of the outfit. I got the dress for an army friend of mine, who wanted it for his daughter; but I guess it will about fit you, and she will have to wait until next trip. Now, as I’ve settled our business, I’ll be getting back across the river, so until to-morrow, klahowya.”
She stood, awkward and embarrassed, before him. No words would come to her lips to thank him. She had felt desolate and friendless for so long, and now when his kindness was so great, she felt as if she should cry if she spoke at all. Just as she had cried the night before at his compassionate tones and touch.
Suddenly she bent forward for the belt, and with some muttered words he could not distinguish, she grasped his big hand in her little brown fingers, and touching it with her lips, twice—thrice—turned and ran away as swiftly as the little Indians who had run on the shore.
The warm color flushed all over Dan’s face, as he looked after her. Of course, she was only a little girl, but he was devoutly glad Max was not in sight. Max would not have understood aright. Then his eyes traveled back to his hand, where her mouth had touched it. Her kiss had fallen where the scar of the panther’s teeth was.
And this, also, was a wild thing he was taking from the forests!
Overton sat silent and thoughtful for a little while after Mrs. Huzzard’s words. Then he glanced up and smiled at her.
“I’ve just been getting an idea of the direction your fancies are taking,” he said mockingly, “and they’re very pretty, but I reckon you’ll change them to oblige me; what I’m doing for her is what I’d do for any other child left alone. But as this child doesn’t happen to be a boy, I can’t take it on the trail, and a ranger like me is not fit to look after her, anyway. I think I told you before, I’m not a marrying man, and she, of course, would not look at me if I was; so what does it matter about her thinking of me? Of course, she won’t—it ain’t my intention. Even if she leaves these diggings some day and forgets all about me, just as the young wolves or wildcats do—well, what difference? I’ve helped old bums all over the country, and never heard or wanted to hear of them again, and I’m sure it’s more worth one’s while to help a young girl. Now, you’re a nice little woman, Mrs. Huzzard, and I like you. But if you and I are to keep on being good friends, don’t you speak like that about the child and me. It’s very foolish. If she should hear it, she’d leave us some fine night, and we’d never learn her address.”
Then he put on his hat, nodded to her, and walked out of the door as though averse to any further discussion of the subject.
“Bums all over the country!” repeated Mrs. Huzzard, looking after him darkly. “Well, Mr. Dan Overton, it’s well for you that ward of yours, as you call her, wasn’t near enough to hear that speech. And you’re not a marrying man, are you? Well, well, I guess there’s many a man and woman, too, goes through life and don’t know what they might be, just because they never meet with the right person who could help them to learn, and you’re just of that sort. Not a marrying man! Humph! When there’s not a better favored one along this valley—that there ain’t.”
She fidgeted about the dinner preparations, filled with a puzzled impatience as to why Dan Overton should thus decidedly state that he was not one of the men to marry, though all the rest of the world might fall into the popular habit if they chose.
“It’s the natural ambition of creation,” she declared in confidence to the dried peach-pie she was slipping from the oven. “Of course, being as I’m a widow myself, I can’t just make that statement to men folks promiscuous like. But it’s true, and every man ought to know it’s true, and why Dan Overton—”
She paused in the midst of her soliloquy, and dropped into the nearest chair, while a light of comprehension illuminated her broad face.
“To think it never came in my mind before,” she ejaculated. “That’s it! Poor boy! he’s had a girl somewhere and she’s died, I suppose, or married some other fellow; and that’s why he’s a bachelor at nearly thirty, I guess,” she added, thoughtfully. “She must have died, and that’s why he never looks as gay or goes on larks with the other boys. He just goes on a lone trail mostly, Dan does. Even his own stepfather don’t seem to have much knowledge about him. Well, well! I always did feel that he had some sort of trouble lookin’ out of them dark eyes of his, and his words to-day makes it plain to me all at once. Well, well!”
The pensive expression of her face, as it rested on her fat hand, was evidence that Lorena Jane Huzzard had, after all, found a romance in real life suited to her fancy, and the unconscious hero was Dan Overton. Poor Dan!
The grieving hero to whom her thoughts went out was at that moment walking in a most prosaic, lazy fashion down the main thoroughfare of the settlement. The road led down to the Ferry from seemingly nowhere in particular, for from the Ferry on both sides of the river the road dwindled into mere trails that slipped away into the wildernesses—trails traveled by few of the white race until a few short years ago, and then only by the most daring of hunters, or the most persevering of the gold-seekers.
In the paths where gold is found the dwellings of man soon follow, and the quickly erected shanties and more pretentious buildings of Sinna Ferry had grown there as evidence that the precious metals in that region were no longer visionary things of the enthusiasts, but veritable facts. The men who came to it along the water, or over the inland trails, were all in some way connected with the opening up of the new mining fields.
Overton himself had drifted up there as an independent prospector, two years before. Then, when works were got under way all along that river and lake region, when a reliable man was needed by the transfer company to get specie to their men for pay-days, it was Overton to whom was given the responsibility.
Various responsible duties he had little by little shouldered, until, as Lyster said, he seemed a necessity to a large area, yet he had not quite abandoned the dreams with which he had entered those cool Northern lands. Some day, when the country was more settled and transportation easier, it was his intention to slip again up into the mountains, along some little streams he knew, and work out there in quietness his theories as to where the gold was to be found.
Meantime, he was contented enough with his lot. No vaulting ambition touched him. He was merely a ranger of the Kootenai country, and was as welcome in the scattered lodges of the Indians as he was in the camps of the miners. He even wore clothes of Indian make, perhaps for the novelty of them, or perhaps because the buckskin was better suited than cloth to the wild trails over which he rode. And if, at times, he drifted into talk of existence beyond the frontier, and gave one an idea that he had drunk of worldly life deep enough to be tired of it, those times were rare; even Lyster had but once known him to make reference to it—that one evening after their ride along the falls of the Kootenai.
But however tired he might at some time have grown of the life of cities, he was not at all too blasé to accommodate himself to Sinna Ferry. If poor Mrs. Huzzard had seen the very hearty drink of whisky with which he refreshed himself after his talk with her, she would not have been so apt to think of him with such pensive sympathy.
The largest and most popular saloon was next door to the postoffice, the care of which Dan had secured for his stepfather, as the duties of it were just about as arduous as any that gentleman would deign to accept. The mail came every two weeks, and its magnitude was of the fourth-class order. No one else wanted it, for a man would have to possess some other means of livelihood before he could undertake it, but the captain accepted it with the attitude of a veteran who was a martyr to his country. As to the other means of livelihood, that did not cause him much troubled thought, since he had chanced to fall in Dan’s way just as Dan was starting up to the Kootenai country, and Dan had been the “other means” ever since.
The captain watched Overton gulp down the “fire-water,” while he himself sipped his with the appreciation of a gentleman of leisure.