"Oh, that's all right; I'm not curious to know whether her folks had a palace or a cabin to live in. But she has brightness. I like her well enough to give up some useless pastimes that are expensive, and contribute the results to a school fund for her, if you say yes. But I should like to know if her people belonged to the class we call ladies and gentlemen—that is all."

Overton did not answer at once. His eyes were turned toward his bandaged arm, and a little wrinkle grew between his brows.

"The man is dead, and I don't think there's anything for me to say as to his gentlemanly qualities," he said at last. "He was a prospector and speculator, with an equal amount of vice and virtue in him, I suppose; just about like the rest of us. Her mother I never saw, but have reason to think she was a lady."

"And you say every word of that as if they were drawn from you with forceps," said Lyster, cheerily. "Well, I'll not bother you about it again. But, you see, there is a cousin of mine at the school I spoke of, and I wanted to know because of that. It's all right, though; my own instincts would tell me she came of good stock. But even good stock will grow wild, you know, if it doesn't get the right sort of training. You know, old fellow, I'm downright in earnest about wanting to help you about her."

"Yes, I know. You have, too," said the other. "You've pointed out the school and all, and we see she can't be left here."

"Not when you are ranging around the hills, and never a man to take your place as a guard," agreed Lyster. "I feel about two years old ever since I heard of how you kept annoyances from us last night while we were so serenely unconscious of your trials. 'Tana will scarcely look at me this morning, for no reason but that I did not divine the state of affairs and go to help you. That girl has picked up so much queer knowledge herself that she expects every one to be gifted with second sight."

Then he told, with a good deal of amusement, the episode of the poker game and the discomfiture of the captain.

Overton said little. He was not so much shocked or vexed over it as Lyster had been, because he had lived more among people to whom such pastimes were not unusual.

"And I offered to teach her 'seven-up,' because it was easy," he remarked grimly. "Yes, the school is best. You see, even if I am on the ground, I'm not a fit guardian. Didn't I give her leave to get square with the old man? While, if I'd been the right sort of a guardian, she would have been given a moral lecture on the sinfulness of revenge. I guess we'd better begin to talk school right away."

"I imagine she'll object at first, through force of habit, and protest that she knows enough for one girl."

But she did not. She listened with wonder in her eyes, and something of shamed contrition in her face, and knew so well—so very well that she did not deserve it. She had wanted—really wanted to vex him when she played the cards, when she had danced past, and never let on she saw him looking somberly in at the window the night before. But in the light of morning and with the knowledge of his wounded arm, all her resentment was gone. She could scarcely speak even the words she meant to say.

"I can't do that—go, I mean. It will cost so much, and I have no money. I can't make any here, and—and you are not rich enough to lend it to me, even if I could pay it back some day, so—"

"Never mind about the money; it will be got. I'm to start up north of this soon, and this doesn't seem a good place to school you in, anyway. So, for a year or so, you go to that school down in Helena. Max knows the name of it; I forget. When you get all rigged out with an education, and have a capital of knowledge, you can talk then about the money and paying it, if it makes you feel more comfortable. But just now you be a good little girl; go down there with Max to the school, study hard, so that if I drop into a chasm some night, or am picked off by a bullet, you'll have learned, anyway, how to look after yourself in the right way."

"Oh, it's Mr. Max, then, that's planning this, is it?" she asked suddenly, and her face flushed a little—he must have thought in anger, for he said:

"Why—yes; that is—mostly. You see, 'Tana, I've drifted out from the ways of the world while Max has kept up with them. So he proposed—well, no matter about the plan. I'm to suggest it to you, and as it's no loss and all gain to you, I reckon you'll be sensible enough to say yes."

"I will," she answered, quietly; "it is very kind of you both to be so good to me, for I haven't been good to you—to either of you, I'm sorry—I—maybe I'll be better when I come back—and—maybe I can pay you some day."

"Me? Oh, you won't owe me anything, and I reckon you'd better not make plans about coming back here! The books and things you learn will likely turn you toward other places—finer places. This is all right for men who have money to make; but you—"

"I'm coming back here," she said, nodding her head emphatically. "Maybe not for always—but I'll come back some time—I will."

She was twisting her fingers in a nervous way, and, as he watched her, he noticed that her little brown hands were devoid of all ornament.

"Where is the ring?" he asked. "Have you lost it already?"

"No, it's here—in my pocket," and she drew it out that he might see. "I—I took it off this morning when I saw you were shot. You'll laugh, I suppose; but I thought the snakes brought bad luck."

"So you are superstitious?"

"Oh, I don't know! I'm not afraid very often; but sometimes I think there are signs that are true. I've heard old folks say so, and talk of things unlucky. I took the ring off when I saw your arm."

"But the arm was only scratched—not worth a thought from a little girl like you," he said; "and surely not worth throwing off your jewelry for. But some day—some day of good luck, I may find you a prettier ring—one more like a girl's ring, you know; one you can wear and not be afraid."

"If I'm afraid, it isn't for myself," she said, with that old, unchildlike look he had not seen in her eyes of late. "But I'll tell you what I'm afraid of. Have you ever heard of people who were 'hoodoos'? I guess you have. Well, sometimes I'm afraid I'm just that—like the snakes in that ring. I'm afraid I bring bad luck to people—people I like. It isn't the harm to me that ever frightens me. I guess I can fight that; but no one can fight a 'hoodoo,' I guess; and your arm—"

"Oh, see here! Wake up, 'Tana, you're dreaming! Who put that cussed nonsense into your head? 'Hoodoo!' Pshaw! I will have patience with you in anything but that. Did any one look at you last night as if you were a 'hoodoo'? Here comes Max; we'll ask him."

But she did not smile at their badinage.

"I was in earnest, and you think it only funny," she said. "Well, maybe you won't always laugh at it. Men who know a heap believe in 'hoodoos.'"

"But not 'hoodoos' possessed of the tout ensemble of Miss Rivers," objected Lyster. "You are simply trying to scare us—me, out of the journey I hoped to make with you to Helena. You are trying to evade a year of scholastic training we have planned for you, and you would like to prophesy that the boat will blow up or the cars run off the track if you embark. But it won't. You will say good-by to your ogre of a guardian to-morrow. You will be guarded by no less a personage than my immaculate self to the door of your academy; from which you will emerge, later on, with never a memory of 'hoodoos' in your wise brain; and you will live to a green old age and make clay busts of us both when we are gray haired. There! I think I'm a good healthy sort of a prophet; and as a reward will you go with me to-morrow?"

"With you? Then it is you who—"

"Who has planned the whole brilliant scheme? Exactly—the journey part of it at all events; and I'm not so modest as our friend here. I'll take the blame of my share, and his, too, if he doesn't speak up for himself. Here comes your new friend, Dan. Where did you pick him up?"

It was the man Harris, and beside him was the captain. They were talking with some animation of late Indian raids to the westward.

"I doubt if it was Indians at all who did the thieving," remarked Harris; "there are always a lot of scrub whites ready to take advantage of war signals, and do devilment of that sort, made up as reds."

"Oh, yes—some say so! That man Holly used to get the credit of that sort of renegade work. Handsome Holly he was called once. But now that he's dead, maybe we'll see he was not the only one to work mischief between the whites and reds."

"Holly? Lee Holly?" asked Lyster. "Why, didn't we hear a rumor that he wasn't dead at all, but had been seen somewhere near Butte?"

"I didn't," returned Overton, who was the one addressed, "though it may be so. He's a very slippery specimen and full of schemes, from what I hear. But he doesn't seem to range over this territory, so I've never run across him. It would be like him, though, to play dead when the Government men grew warm on his trail, and he'd no doubt get plenty of help from his Indian allies."

Harris was watching him keenly, and the careless honesty of the speaker's face and tone evidently perplexed him, for he turned with a baffled look to the girl, who stood with down-dropped eyes, and twisted a spray of leaves nervously around her fingers. He noticed one quick, troubled glance she gave Overton, but even to his suspicious eyes it did not seem a regard given a fellow-conspirator.

"I believe it was the doctor I heard speak of the rumor that Holly was yet above ground," said Lyster. "The mail came up yesterday, and perhaps he found it in the papers. Don't think I had heard of the man before. Is he one of the important people up here?"

"Rather," remarked Overton, "an accomplished crook who has dabbled in several trades in the Columbia River region. The latest was a wholesale horse steal from a ranch over in Washington—Indian work, with him as leader. The regulars from the fort got after them, there was an ugly fight, and the reds reported Holly as killed. That is the last I heard of him. You were asking me yesterday if he ever prospected in our valley, didn't you?" he asked, turning to Harris.

"A man made undue importance of by the stupid Indians," declared Captain Leek. "He humored their superstitions and played medicine man with them, I've heard; and he had a boy for a partner—a young slip the gamblers called 'Monte' down in Coeur d'Alene. Some said it was his son."

"A fine instructor for youth," observed Lyster. "Who could expect anything but vice from a man who had such a boyhood?"

"But you would," said 'Tana, suddenly, "if you knew that boy when he grew to be a man. If he was bad, you'd want him to get off the earth where you walked; and you never once would stop to ask if he was brought up right or not—you know you wouldn't—nobody does, I guess. I don't know why it is, but it seems all wrong to me. Maybe, though, when I go to school, and learn things, I will think like the rest, and not care."

Lyster shrugged his shoulders and looked after her as she vanished into the regions where Mrs. Huzzard was concocting dishes for the mid-day meal.

"I doubt if she thinks like the rest," he remarked. "How fiery she is, and how independent in her views of things."

But Overton smiled at her curt speech.

"Poor 'Tana has lived among rough scenes until she learns to judge quickly, and for herself," he said. "Her words are true enough, too; she may have known just such boys as Holly's clever little partner and seen how hard it was for them to be any good. I wonder now what has become of young 'Monte' since Holly disappeared. He would be a good one to follow, if there is doubt as to Holly's death being a fact. I believe there was a reward out for him some time ago, to stimulate lagging justice. Don't know if it's withdrawn or not."

"Square," decided Harris, in silent communion with himself, as he surveyed Overton; "dead square, and don't scent the trail. I'd like to know what their little game is with him. Some devilment, sure."

On one pretext and another he kept close to Overton. He was studying the stalwart, easy-going keeper of the peace, and Dan, who had a sort of compassion for all who were halt, or blind, or homeless, took kindly enough to the semi-paralyzed stranger. Harris seemed to belong nowhere in particular, yet knew each trail of the Kootenai and Columbia country, knew each drift where the yellow sands were found—each mine where the silver hunt paid best returns.

"You've prospected some, I see, even if you don't get over the ground very fast," Dan remarked; "and with it all, I reckon you've staked out some pay claims for yourself?"

The face of Harris contracted in a swift frown; he drew a long breath, and his clasped hands tightened on each other.

"I did," he said, in a choked, nervous sort of way; "I did. If I could tell you of it, I would. You're the sort of man I'd—But never mind. I'm not well yet—not strong enough to get excited over it. I've got to take things easy for a spell, or another stroke of this paralysis will come as my share. That handicaps me considerable. I was—was upset by something unexpected last night, and I've had a queer, shaky feeling ever since; can't articulate clear. Did you notice? The—the only thing under God's heaven I'm afraid of is that paralysis—that it will catch me again before I get my work done; and to-day—"

"Don't talk of it," advised Overton, as he noticed how the man's voice hesitated and trembled, how excitable he was over the subject of his mineral finds and his threatened helplessness. "Don't think of it, and you'll come out all right yet. If I can do anything for you—"

The other man laughed in a spasmodic, contemptuous fashion.

"For me?" he said. "You can't. I thought you could, but I was on a blind trail—you can't. I can give you a lift, though—yes, I can. It's about—about that girl. You—you tried to guard her last night, as if she was a flower the rough wind must not blow on. I know—I watched you. I've been there, and know."

"Know what? You're an infernal fool!" burst out Dan, with all his good nature out of sight. "No hints about the girl, or—or anything else! I won't have it!"

"It's no hint; facts are all I'd mention to you, and I'd do that just because I think you're square. And they—they are playing you. See? For he ain't dead. I don't know what their game is with you, but he ain't dead; and there—there's no telling what scheme he's got her into this—this territory for. So I want you to know. I don't want you to be caught in any trap of theirs. She—she looks all right; but he's a devil—a thing infernal—a—"

Overton caught him by one arm, and swung him around like a child.

"Speak clear. No more of your blasted stuttering or beating away from points; who is the man you talk of? Who is playing with me? Now speak."

"Why, Monte, the girl; Monte and Lee Holly. He's somewhere alive—that's what I'm trying to tell you. I was hunting for him when I found her laying low here, don't you understand? You stare so. It is Lee Holly and— Ah—my—God!"

The last words were gurgled in his throat; his face whitened, and he sank to the ground as though his bones had suddenly been converted into jelly—a strange, shapeless heap of humanity as he lay at Overton's feet. Overton bent over him, and after a moment of blank amaze, lifted the helpless head, and almost dropped it again, when the eyes, appealing and keenly conscious, met his own. There was a queer chuckling sound in the man's throat; he was trying to speak, but could not. The secret he was trying to tell was buried back of those speechless lips, and one more stroke of the doom he feared had overtaken him.



CHAPTER X.

THE STRANGER'S LOVE STORY.

'Tana sat alone in her room a few hours later, and from the window watched the form of Ora Harrison disappear along the street. The latter had been sent by her father with some medicine for the paralyzed stranger, and the girls had chatted of the school 'Tana was to attend, and of the schools Ora had gone to and all the friends she remembered there, who now sent her such kind letters. Ora told 'Tana of the lovely time she expected to have when the steamers would come up from Bonner's Ferry to the Kootenai Lake region, for then her friends were to come in the summers, and the warm months were to be like holidays.

All this girlish frankness, all the cheery friendship of the doctor's family filled 'Tana with a wild unrest against herself—against the world.

"It would be easy to be good if a person lived like that always," she thought, "in a nice home, with a mother to kiss me and a father I was not ashamed of. I felt stupid when they talked to me. I could only think how happy they were, and that they did not seem to know it. And Ora was sweet and sorry for me because my parents were dead. Huh!" she grunted, disdainfully, in the Indian fashion peculiar to her at times. "If she knew how I felt about it she'd hate me, I suppose. They'd all think I was bad clear through. They wouldn't understand the reason—no nice women like them could. Oh, if the school would only make me nice like that! But I suppose it's got to be born in people, and I was born different."

Even this reason did not render her more resigned; and, to add to her disquiet, there came to her the memory of eyes whose gaze made her shiver—the eyes of the stranger whom Overton had carried into the house for dead, but whose brain was yet alive. He had looked at her with a strange, wild stare, and Overton himself had turned his eyes toward her in moody questioning when she came forward to help. He had accepted the help, but each time she raised her eyes she saw that Dan was looking at her with a new watchfulness; all his interest in the stricken stranger did not keep him from that.

"If any one is accountable for this, I guess I'm the man," he confessed, ruefully. "He told me he was afraid of this, yet I was fool enough to lose my temper and turn him around rough. It might have struck him, anyway; but my conscience doesn't let me down easy. He'll be my care till some one comes along with a stronger claim."

"Maybe there is some one somewhere," said 'Tana. "There might be letters, if it would be right to look."

"If there are relatives anywhere in the settlements, I guess they'd be glad enough if I'd look," decided Overton. "There is no way to get permission from him, though," and he looked in the helpless man's eyes. "I don't know what you'd say to this if you could speak, stranger," he said; "but to go through your pockets seems the only way to locate you or your friends; so I'll have to do it."

It was not easy to do, with those eyes staring at him in that horrible way. But he tried to avoid the eyes, and thrust his hand into the inner pocket, drawing out an ordinary notebook, some scraps of newspaper folded up in it, and two letters addressed to Joe Hammond; one to Little Dalles, and the other had evidently been delivered by a messenger, for no destination was marked on it. It was an old letter and the envelope was worn through all around the edges. Another paper was wrapped around it, and the writing was of a light feminine character. Overton touched it with a certain reverence and looked embarrassed.

"I think, Mrs. Huzzard, I will ask you to read this, as it seems a lady's letter, and if there is any information in it, you can give it to us; if not, I'll just put it back in his pocket and hope luck will tell us what the letter doesn't."

But Mrs. Huzzard demurred: "And me that short-sighted that even specs won't cure it! No, indeed. I'm no one to read important papers. But here's 'Tana, with eyes like a hawk for sighting things. She'll read it fast enough."

Overton looked undecided, remembering those strange insinuations of the now helpless man, and feeling that the man himself might not be willing.

"I—well—I guess not," he said, at last. "It ain't just square to send a little girl blindfold like that into a stranger's claim. We'll let some one over twenty-one read the letters. You'll do, Max, and if it ain't all right, you can stop up short."

So Lyster read the treasured message, all in the same feminine writing. His sensitive face grew grave, and he turned compassionate glances toward the helpless man as he read the letters, according to their dates. The oldest one was the only one not sad. Its postmark was a little town many miles to the south.

"DEAR OLD JOE: It's awful to be this near you, and know you are sick, without being able to get to you. I just arrived, and your partner has met me, and told me all about it. But I'll go up with him, just the same; and when you are able to travel we can come down to a town and be married, instead of to-day, as we had set on. So that's all right, and don't you worry. Your partner, John Ingalls, is as nice as he can be to me. Why did you not tell me how good looking he was? Maybe you never discovered it—you slow, prosy old Joe! When you wrote to me of that rich find you stumbled on, I was sorry you had picked up a partner; for you always did trust folks too much, and I was afraid you'd be cheated by the stranger you picked up. But I guess that I was wrong, Joe; for he is a very nice gentleman—the nicest I ever met, I think. And he talks about you just as if he was your brother, and thought a heap of you. He tried to tease me some, too—asked how you ever came to catch such a pretty girl as me! Then I told him, Joe, that you never had to catch me—that I was little, and hadn't any folks, and how you got your folks to give me a home when you was only a boy; and that you was always like a big brother to me till you made some money in the mines. Then you wrote and asked me to come out and marry you. He just laughed, Joe, and said it was not a brother's love that a wife wanted; but I don't think he knows anything about that—do you? And, Joe, I came pretty near telling him all about that richest find you made—the one you said you wanted me to be the first to see. I thought, of course, you had told your partner, just as you told me when you sent me the plan of it—what for, I don't know, Joe, for I never could find it in the wide world, even if there was any chance of my hunting for it alone. Your partner asked me point blank if you had written to me of any late find of yours, or of any special location where you found good signs. I tried to look innocent, and said maybe you had, but I couldn't remember. I didn't like to tell a story. I wanted to tell him all the truth, and how rich you said we would be. I knew you would want to tell him yourself, so I managed to keep quiet in time. But whenever he looks at me I feel guilty. And he looks at me so kindly, and he is so good. He says we can't begin our journey to you right away, because he has provisions and things to get first; but we will set out in three days. So I send this letter that you will know I am on the road; maybe we'll reach you first. He is going to take me riding around this camp this evening—I mean Mr. Ingalls. He says I must get some enjoyment before I go up there to the mountains, where no one lives. He is the nicest stranger I ever met. But, of course, I never was away from home much to meet folks; I guess, though, I might travel a long ways and not meet any one so nice. He just brought me a pretty purse made by the Indians. I hope you wear a big hat like he does, and big, high boots. I never saw folks wear them back home; but they do look nice. Now, good-by, Joe, for a few days.

"Yours affectionately, "FANNIE."

"Well, that letter is plain sailing," remarked Overton, "but there is only one name in it we could follow up—the partner, John Ingalls. But I don't think I've heard of him."

"Wait! there is another letter—two more," said Lyster; and the others were silent as he read:

"JOE: I hope you'll hate me now. I can stand that better than to know you still like me. I can't help it. I am going with him—your partner. He loves me, too, Joe—not in the brotherly way you did, but in a way that makes me think of him and no one else. So I can't marry any one but him. Maybe it's a sin to be false to you, Joe; but I never could go to you now. And I can't help going where he wants me to go. Don't be mad at him; he can't help it either, I suppose. He says he will always be good to me, and I am going. But my heart is heavy as I write to you. I am not happy—maybe because I love him too much. But I am going. Try and forget me.

"FANNIE."

In dead silence Lyster unfolded the third paper. The drama of this stranger's life was a pathetic thing to the listeners, who looked at him with pity in their eyes, but could utter no words of sympathy to the man who sat there helpless and looked at them. Then the last, a penciled sheet, was read.

"JOE: I am dying, I think. The Indian woman with me says so; and I hope it is true. He came to me to-day—the first time in weeks. He never married me, as he promised. He cursed me to-day because my baby face led him away from a fortune he knows you found. I never told him, though it is a wonder. All he knows of it he heard you say in your sleep when you were sick that time. To-day he told me you were paralyzed, Joe—that you are helpless still—that he has taken Indians with him there to your old claim, and searched every foot of ground for the gold vein he thinks you know of. But it is of no use, and he is furious over it, and so taunts me of your helplessness alone in the wilderness.

"Joe, I still have the plan you made of the river and the two little streams and the marked tree. Can't I make amends some way for the wrong I did you? Is there anywhere a friend you could trust to work the find and take care of you? For if you are too helpless to write yourself, and can get only the name of the person to me, I will send the plan some way to him. I know I am not to live long. I am in a perfect fever to hear from you, and tell you that my sin against you weighs me down to despair.

"I can't tell you of my life with him; it is too horrible. I do not even know who he is, for Ingalls is not his name. We are with Indians and they call him 'Medicine,' and seem to know him well. He has left me here, to-day, and I feel I will never see him again. He tells me he has sent for a young white boy who is to be brought to camp, and who will help care for me. Anything would be better than the sly red faces about me; they fill me with terror. My one hope is that the boy may get this letter sent to you, and that some word may come to me from you before my life ends. It has taken me all this day to write to you.

"Good-by. I am dying miserably, and I deserve it. I can't even tell you where to write me; only we are with Indians camped by a big river. Not far away is a wall of rock, like a hill, beside the river, and Indian writing is cut on the wall, and holes and things are cut all along it."

"The Arrow lakes of the Columbia!" interrupted Overton—

"If the boy comes, and is to be trusted at all, he may tell me more; that is my only hope of this reaching you. If you are not able to make another plan (and he says your hands are powerless) remember, I have the one you did make. If you can send me one word—one name of a friend—I will try—try so hard. He would kill me if he knew, and I would be glad of it, if I could only help you first. I feel that I will never see you again.

"FANNIE."

Mrs. Huzzard was crying and whispering, "Poor dear!—poor child!" and even the voice of Lyster was not quite steady as he read. Those straggling, weak pencil marks had a pathos of their own to him. The letter, crossed and recrossed by the lines, was on two pages, evidently torn from the back of a book.

"It seems a sacrilege to dive into a man's feelings and secrets like this," he said, ruefully. "It is! My only consolation is that I did it with good intent."

"And, after all, not a plain trail found that will help us locate this man or his friends," decided Overton—"not a name we can really fasten to but the name on the envelope—Joe Hammond. It is too bad. Why, 'Tana! Good God! 'Tana!"

For the girl, who had uttered no word, but had listened to that last letter with whitened face and staring eyes, leaned against the wall at its close, and a little gasp from her drew their attention.

She fell forward on her face ere Overton could reach her.

"Tana, my girl, what is it? Speak!" he entreated.

But the girl only whispered: "I know now! Joe—Joe Hammond!" and fainted dead away at the feet of the paralyzed man.



CHAPTER XI.

'TANA AND JOE.

"Just like a part in a play, captain—that's just the way it struck me," said Mrs. Huzzard, recounting the affair for the benefit of the postmaster of Sinna Ferry. "The man a-sitting there like a statue, with only his eyes looking alive, and that poor, scared dear a-falling down on the floor beside him, and looking as white as milk! I never had a notion she was so easy touched by people's troubles. It surely was a sorry story read from them three letters. I tell you, sir, men leave women with aching hearts many's the time," and she glanced sentimentally toward her listener; "though if there is one place more heart-rending to be deserted in than another, I think an Indian village would be the very worst. Just to think of that poor dear dying there in a place she didn't even know the name of."

"Humph! I've an idea you are giving your sympathy to the wrong individual," decided the captain. "It must be easier even to die in some unknown corner than for a living soul to be shut up in a dead body, after the manner of this Harris, or Hammond, or whatever his name is. I guess, from the looks of things, he must have collapsed when that second letter reached him; had a bad stroke, and was just recovering somewhat when he strayed into this camp. Yes, madame, I've an idea he's had a harder row to hoe than the girl; and, then, it doesn't look as though he'd deserved it so much."

"Mr. Dan is mightily upset over it, ain't he?"

"Mr. Dan is just as likely to get upset over any other vagabond who strays in his direction," grumbled the captain. "Folks are always falling in his way to be looked after. He has the worst luck! He never did a bit of harm to this stranger—nothing but drop a hand on his shoulder; and all at once the man falls down helpless. And Dan feels in duty bound to take care of him. Then the girl 'Tana has to flop over in the same way, just when I thought we were to get rid of her. And she's another charge to look after. He'll be wanting to hire your house for a hospital next thing, Mrs. Huzzard."

"And welcome he'd be to it for 'Tana," declared Mrs. Huzzard, valiantly. "She's been a bit saucy to you at times, and I know it; but, indeed, it's only because she fancies you don't like her."

"Like her, madame! A girl who plays poker, and—and—"

"And wins," added Mrs. Huzzard, with a twinkle in her eyes. "Ah, now, didn't Mr. Max tell me the whole story! She is a clip, and I know it; but I think she only meant that game as a bit of a joke."

"A twenty-dollar joke, Mrs. Huzzard, is too expensive to be funny," growled the captain, with natural discontent. "But if I could only convince myself that the money was honestly won, I would not feel so annoyed over it; but I can't—no, madame. I am confident there was a trick in that game—some gambler's trick she has picked up among her promiscuous acquaintances. And I am annoyed—more than ever annoyed now that there is a chance of her remaining longer under Dan's care. She's a dangerous protegee for a boy of his age, that's all."

"Dangerous! Oh, now, I've my doubts of that," said Mrs. Huzzard, shaking her head, emphatically. "You take my word for it, if she's dangerous as a girl to any one in this camp, it's not Mr. Dan's peace of mind she's disturbing, but that of his new friend."

"You mean Lyster? Ridiculous! A gentleman of culture, used to the best society, give a thought to such an unclassed individual? No, madame!—don't you believe it. His interest about the school affair was doubtless to get her away from camp, and to keep her from being a responsibility on Dan's hands."

"Hum! maybe. But, from all the dances he danced with her, and the way he waited on her, I'd a notion that he did not think her a great responsibility at all."

This conversation occurred the morning after those letters had been read. The owner of them was installed in the best room Mrs. Huzzard had to offer, and miners from all sections were cordially invited to visit the paralyzed man, in the vain hope that some one would chance to remember his face, or help establish the lost miner's identity; for he seemed utterly lost from all record of his past—all but that he had loved a girl whom an unknown partner had stolen. And Overton remembered that he seemed especially interested in the whereabouts of the renegade, Lee Holly.

The unknown Lee Holly's name had suddenly attained the importance of a gruesome ghost to Overton. He had stared gloomily at the paralytic, as though striving to glean from the living eyes the secrets held close by the silenced lips. 'Tana and Monte and Lee Holly!—his little girl and those renegades! Surely these persons could have nothing to do with each other. Harris was looney—so Overton decided as he stalked back and forth beside the house, glancing up once in a while to a window above him—a window where he hoped to see 'Tana's face; for all one day had gone, and the evening come again, yet he had never seen her since he had lifted her unconscious form from beside the chair of Harris. Her words, "I know now! Joe—Joe Hammond!" were yet whispering through his senses. Did those words mean anything? or was the child simply overwrought by that tragedy told in the letters? He did not imagine she would comprehend all the sadness of it until she had fallen in that faint.

The night he had talked with her first in Akkomi's tepee, and afterward in the morning by the river, he had promised to be satisfied with what she chose to tell him of herself, and ask no questions of her past. But since the insinuations of Harris and her own peculiar words and manner, he discovered that the promise was not easy to keep—especially when Lyster besieged him with questions; for 'Tana had spent the day utterly alone, but for the ministrations of Mrs. Huzzard. She would not see even the doctor, as she said she was not sick. She would not see Overton, Lyster, or any one else, because she said she did not want to talk; she was tired, and that reason must suffice. It did for Lyster, especially after he had received a nod, a smile, and a wave of her hand from her window—a circumstance he related hopefully to Overton, as it banished the lingering fear in his mind that her exile was one caused by absolute illness.

"I candidly believe, Dan, that she is simply ashamed of having fainted before us last evening—fancies it looks weak, I suppose; and she does pride herself so on her ungirlish strength. I've no doubt she will emerge from her seclusion to-morrow morning, and expect us to ignore her sentimental swoon. How is your other patient?"

"Better."

"Much?"

"Well, just the difference of turning his eyes quickly toward a thing, instead of slowly, as at first. The doctor just told me he is able to move his head slightly, so I guess he is not to go under this trip. But he'll never be a well man again."

"Rather heavy on you, old fellow, that you feel bound to look after him. I can't see the necessity of it. Why don't you let the rest of the camp—"

But Overton had turned away and resumed his walk. Lyster stared at him in wonder for a moment and then laughed.

"All right, Rothschild," he observed. "You know the depth of your own purse best. But, to tell the truth, you don't act like your own responsible self to-day. You go moping around as though the other fellow's stroke had touched you, too. You are a great fellow, Dan, to take other people's loads on your shoulders; but it is a bad habit, and you'd better reform."

"I will, when I have time," returned Overton, with a grim smile. "Just now I have other things to think of. Don't mind me."

"I sha'n't. I confess I don't mind any of you very much since I saw the cheery vision of your protegee at the window—and waving her hand to me, too; the first bit of sunshine I've seen in camp to-day. For the average specimen I've run across has looked to me like you—glum."

Receiving no reply whatever to this criticism, he strolled away after a smiling glance upward to 'Tana's window. But no girlish hand waved greeting to him this time, and he comforted himself by humming, "My Love is but a Lassie Yet." This was a mischievous endeavor to attract Overton's attention and make him say something, even though the something should prove uncomplimentary to the warbler.

But it was a failure. Overton only thrust his hands a little deeper in his pockets as he stared after the handsome, light-hearted fellow. Of course, it would be Max to whom she would wave her hand; and he was glad somebody felt like singing, though he himself could not. His mind was too much tormented by the thoughts of those two who formed a nucleus for the hospital already contemptuously alluded to by the captain.

And those two?

One sat almost motionless, as he had been for the twenty-four hours. But as Mrs. Huzzard and the captain left his room, each spoke hopefully of his appearance. Mrs. Huzzard especially was very confident his face showed more animation than she had observed at her noonday visit; and the fact that he could move his head and nod in reply to questions certainly did seem to promise recovery.

In the adjoining room, close to the very thin partition, 'Tana lay with ears strained to catch each word of the conversation. But when her door was opened by Mrs. Huzzard, all semblance of interest was gone, and she lay on the little bed with closed eyes.

"I'm right glad she's taking a nap at last," said the good soul as she closed the door softly. "That child scarce slept a bit all night, and I know it. Curious how nervous she got over that man's troubles. But, of course, he did look awful at first, and nigh about scared me."

'Tana lay still till the steps died away on the stairs, and the voices were heard more faintly on the lower floor. All the day she had waited for the people to leave the stranger in the next room alone; and, for the first time, no voice of visitors broke the silence of the upper floor.

She slipped to the door and listened. Her movements were stealthy as that of some forest animal evading a hunter. She turned the knob softly, and with still swiftness was inside the stranger's room, and the door closed behind her.

He certainly was more alert, for his eyes met hers instantly. His look was almost one of fear, and she was trembling visibly.

"I had to come," she said, nervously, in a half whisper, "I heard the letters read, and I have to tell you something I've thought all night—all day—and I have to tell you. Do you understand? Try to understand. Nod your head if you do. Do you?"

Her speech was rapid and impatient, while she listened each moment lest a step sound on the stairs again. But in all her eagerness to hear she never looked away from his face, and she uttered a low exclamation of gladness when the man's head bent slowly in assent.

"Oh, I am so glad—so glad! You will get well; you must! Listen! I know you now, and why you looked at me so. You think you saw me up at Revelstoke—I think I remember your face there—and you don't trust me. You are looking for that man—the man that took her away from you. You think I could find a trail to him; but you are wrong. He is dead, and I know she is—I know! Your name was the last word she said—'Joe.' She wanted you to forgive her, and not cross his path. You don't believe me, perhaps; but it is all true. I went to the camp with—with the boy she wrote of. She talked of you to me. I had word to give you if we ever met. But how was I to know that Jim Harris was the man—the same man? Do you hear—do you believe me?"

Those burning eyes—eyes in which all of life in him seemed concentrated—looked out on her from the pale, strange face; looked on her until her own cheeks grew colorless, for there was something awful in the searching regard of the man who was but half alive.

"See!" she said, and slipped from her belt a package in which paper rustled, "I've had that plan of the gold find ever since—since she died. She gave it to me, in case you should be—as you are, and no one to look after it for you. Or, if you should go under, she said, I was to look it up. And I started to look it up—yes, I did; but things were against me, and I let it go for a while. But now, listen! If you get well, it means money must do it. See? Dan hasn't very much—not enough to float you long. Now, I've thought it all out. You give up the notion of looking for that man, who wasn't worth a shot of powder when he was alive, and worth less now. It's that notion that's been eating the life out of you. Oh, I've thought it all out! Now you just turn honest prospector, like you was when that man Ingalls first spotted you. I'm only a girl, but I'll try to help make amends for the wrongs he did you. I'll go partners with you. Look! here is the plan; and I'm almost sure I know where the two little streams meet. I've thought of it a heap; but the face of—of that dead girl, kept me from doing anything till I had either found you or knew you were dead. No one knows I have the plan—though he would have cut throats for it. Now do you trust me?"

She held the plan up so he could see it—a queer puzzle of lines and dots; but a glance sufficed, and he turned his eyes again to the face of the girl. Her eagerness, her intensity, awakened him to trust and sympathy. He looked at her and nodded his head.

"Oh, I knew you would!" she breathed, thankfully. "And I'll stand by you—you'll see! I've wanted a chance like this—a chance to make up for some of the devilment he's done to folks—and some he's made me help at. You know who I am, but none of the rest do—and they sha'n't. I'm a new girl now. I want to make up for some of the badness that has been. It's all over; but sometimes I hate the blood in my veins because—you know! And if I can only do some good—"

She paused, for the eyes of the paralyzed man had moved from her face, and were resting on something back of her.

It was Overton! He entered and closed the door, and stood looking doubtful and astonished, while 'Tana rose to her feet trembling and a little pale.

"How long—were you there?" she demanded, angrily.

He looked at her very steadily before making reply—such a curious, searching look that she moved uneasily because of it; but her face remained defiant.

"I just now opened the door," he said at last, speaking in a slow, deliberate way. "I slipped here as quietly as I could, because they told me you were asleep, and I must not make a noise. I got here just as you were telling this man that no one but him should know who you were before you came among us—that is all, I guess."

She had sat down on a seat close to Harris, and dropped her face in her hands.

Overton stood with his back against the door, looking down at her. In his eyes was a keen sorrow as she sat down in that despairing fashion, and crept close to the stranger as though for refuge from him.

"I might have avoided telling what I heard," he continued; "but I don't think that would be quite square among friends. Then, as I see you have found a new acquaintance here, I thought maybe you would have something to tell me if you knew what I heard you say to him."

But, kindly as his words were, she seemed to shrink from them.

"No; I can't. Oh, Mr. Dan, I can't—I can't," she muttered, with her head still bowed on the arm of the chair occupied by Harris. "If you can't trust me any more, I can't blame you. But I can't tell you—that's all."

"Then I'll just go down stairs again," he decided, "and you can finish your talk with Harris. I'll keep the rest of the folks from interrupting you as I did. But if you want me, little girl, you know I'll not be far away."

The tears came in her eyes. His persistent kindness to her made her both ashamed and glad, and she reached out her hand.

"Wait," she said, "maybe I have something to tell you," and she unfolded the paper again and showed it to Harris.

"Shall I tell him? Would you rather he would be the man to do the business?" she asked. "You know I'm willing, but I don't know enough myself. Do you want him to be the man?"

Harris nodded his head.

With a look of relief on her face, she turned to Overton, who watched them wonderingly.

"What sort of man is it you want? or what is it you want to tell me?"

"Only that I've found a plan of the ground where he made that rich find the letter told of," she answered, with a bit of a tremble in her voice. "He's never been able to look after it himself, and was afraid to trust any one. But now—"

"And you have the plan—you, 'Tana?"

"Yes, I have it. I think I even know where the place is located. But—don't ask me anything about how I got the plan. He knows, and is satisfied—that is all."

"But, 'Tana, I don't understand. You are giving me surprises too thick this evening. If he has found a rich yield of ore, and has taken you into partnership, it means that you will be a rich woman. A streak of pay ore can do more for you than a ranger like myself; so I guess you can afford to drop me."

Her face fell forward in her hands again. The man in the chair looked at her and then turned his eyes pleadingly to the other man, who remained standing close to the door.

Overton recognized the pleading quality of the glance, and was filled with amazement by it. Witchery seemed to have touched the stranger when paralysis touched him, else he would not so quickly have changed from his suspicion of the girl into that mute pleading for her.

She was trying so hard to keep back the tears, and in the effort her jaws were set and her brows drawn together stormily. She looked to him as she had looked in the lodge of Akkomi.

"You don't trust me," she said at last; "that's why you won't help us. But you ought to, for I've never lied to you. If it's because I'm in it that you won't have anything to do with the mine, I'll leave. I won't bother you about that school. I won't bother you about anything. I'll help locate the place if—if Joe here is willing; and then you two can be partners, and I'll be out of it, for I can trust you to take care of him, and see that the money does what it can for him. I can trust you if you can't me. So you are the one to speak up. What is your answer?"



CHAPTER XII.

PARTNERS.

"Well, I've been a 'hoodoo' all my, life; and if I only lead some one into luck now—good luck—oh, wouldn't I learn a sun-dance, and dance it!"

The world was two weeks older, and it was 'Tana who spoke; not the troubled 'Tana who had crouched beside the paralytic and cowered under her fear of Overton's distrust, but a girl grown lighter-hearted by the help of work to be done—work in which she was for once to stand side by side with Overton himself, for his decision about the prospecting had been in her favor. He had "spoken up," as she had asked him to do, and a curious three-cornered partnership had been arranged the next day; a very mysterious partnership, of which no word was told to any one. Only 'Tana suddenly decided that the schooling must wait a little longer. Lyster would have to make the trip to Helena without her; she was not feeling like it just then, and so forth.

Therefore, despite the very earnest arguments of Mr. Lyster, he did have to go alone. During all the journey, he was conscious of a quite unreasonable disappointment, an impatience with even Overton, for not enforcing his authority as guardian, and insisting that she at once commence the many studies in which she was sadly deficient.

But Overton had stood back and said nothing. Lyster did not understand it, and could not succeed in making either of them communicative.

"You'll be back here in less than a month," said Overton. "We will send her then, if she feels equal to it. In the meantime, we'll take the best care we can of her here at the Ferry. I find I will have time to look after her a little until then. I have only one short trip to make up the river; so don't get uneasy about her. She'll be ready to go next run you make, sure."

So Lyster wondered, dissatisfied, and went away. He was even a little more dissatisfied with his last memory of the girl—a vision of her bending over that unknown, helpless miner. His sympathies were with the man. He was most willing to assist, in a financial way, toward taking care of one so unfortunate. But the thing he was not willing to do was to see 'Tana devote herself without restraint to the welfare of a stranger—a man they knew nothing of—a fellow who, of course, could have no appreciation of the great luck he was in to have her constantly beside him. It was a clean waste of exceptionable sympathy; and a squaw, or some miner out of work, would do as well in this case.

He even offered to pay for a squaw, or for any masculine nurse; but the girl had very promptly suggested that he busy himself with his own duties, if he had any. She stated further that he had no control whatever over her actions, and she could not understand—

"I know I have none," he retorted, with some impatience, and yet a good deal of fondness in his handsome eyes. "That is why I'm complaining. I wish I had. And if I had, wouldn't I whisk you away from this uncouth life! I wonder if you will ever let me do so, Tana?"

"I think you'd better be packing your plunder," she remarked, coolly. "If you don't, you'll keep the whole outfit waiting."

And that was how they let even Lyster go away. Not a hint was he given of the all-engrossing plan that bound both 'Tana and Overton to the interests of the passive stranger, who looked at them with intelligence, but who could not speak.

Their partnership was a curious affair, and the arrangement for interests in it was conducted on the one side by nods or shakes of the head, while the other two offered suggestions, and asked questions, until a very clear understanding was arrived at.

Only one knotty discussion had arisen. Overton offered to give one month of time to the search, on condition that one half of the find, if there was any made, should belong to 'Tana, while the original finder should have the other half. He himself would give that much time to helping them out in a friendly way; but more than that he could not give, because of other duties.

To this the man Harris shook his head with all possible vigor, while 'Tana was quite as emphatic in an audible way. Harris desired that all shares be equal, and Overton count himself in for a third. 'Tana approved the plan, insisting that she would not accept an ounce of the dust if he did not. So Dan finally agreed and ended the discussion concerning the division of the gold they might never find.

"And don't be so dead sure that the dirt will pan out well, even if we do find the place," he said, warningly, to 'Tana. "Why, my girl, if the average of dust had been as high as my average of hope over strikes I've made myself, I would have been a billionaire long ago."

"I never heard you talk of prospecting," remarked 'Tana. "All the rest do here, and not you—how is that?"

"Oh, prospecting strikes one like a fever; sometimes a man recovers from it, or seems to for a while. I had the fever bad about two years ago—out in Nevada. Well, I left there. I sunk my stock of capital in a very big hole, and lost my enthusiasm for a while. Maybe I will find it again, drifting along the Kootenai; but as yet it has not struck me hard. From what I can gather, this fellow must simply have dropped on a nugget or little pocket, and something must have made him distrust his partner to such an extent that he kept the secret find to himself. So there evidently has been no testing of the soil, no move toward development. We may never find an ounce of metal, for such disappointments have been even where very large nuggets have been found. You must not expect too much of this search. Golden hope lets you down hard when you do fall with it."

But, despite his warnings, he made arrangements for their river journey with all speed possible. The three of them were to go; and, as chaperon, Mrs. Huzzard was persuaded to join their queer "picnic" party, for that was the idea given abroad concerning their little trip to the north. It was to be a venture in the interests of Harris—supposedly the physical interests; though Captain Leek did remark, with decided emphasis, that it was the first time he ever knew of a man being sent out to live in the woods as a cure for paralysis.

But the preparations were made; even the fact that Mrs. Huzzard was seized with an unreasonable attack of rheumatism on the eve of departure did not deter them at all.

"Unless you need me to stay here and look after you, we'll go just the same," decided 'Tana. "A squaw won't be much of a substitute for you; but she'll be better than no one, and we'll go."

So the squaw was secured, through the agency of her husband, whom Overton knew, and who was to take their camp outfit up the river for them. This was one reason why Mrs. Huzzard, as she watched them depart, was a little thankful for the visitation of rheumatism.

Their camp was only a day old when 'Tana announced her willingness to dance if only good fortune would come to her.

It seemed a thing probable, for as Overton poured water slowly from a tin pan into the shallow little stream, there were left in the bottom of the pan, as the last sifting bit of soil was washed out, some tiny bits of yellow the size of a pin-head, and one as large as a grain of wheat.

'Tana gave a little ecstatic cry as she bent over it and touched the particles with her finger.

"Oh, Dan—it is the gold!—the real gold! and we are millionaires!—millionaires, and you would not believe it!"

He raised his finger warningly, and shook his head.

"Wait until we are millionaires before you commence to shout," he advised. "It is a good show here—yes; but, after all, it may be only a chance washing from hills far enough away. Show them to Harris, though; he may be interested, though he appears to me very indifferent about the matter."

"He don't seem to care," she agreed. "He just looks at us as though we were a couple of children he had found a new plaything for. But don't you think he looks brighter?"

"Well, yes; the river trip has done him good, instead of the harm the Ferry folks prophesied. But you run along and show him the 'yellow,' and don't draw the squaw's attention to it."

The squaw was wrapped neck and heels in a blanket, although the day was one of the warmest of summer; and stretched asleep in the sun, she gave no heed to the quick, light step of the girl.

Neither did Harris, at whose tent door she lay. He must have thought it was the stoical, indifferent Indian, for he gave her a quick, startled glance as he heard her surprised "Oh!" at the door. Then she walked directly to him, lifted his right hand, and let go again. It fell on his knee in the old, helpless way.

"But you did raise it," she said, accusingly. "I saw you as I came to the door. You stretched out your hand."

He looked at her and nodded very slightly, then looked at his hand and appeared trying to lift it; but gave up, and shook his head sadly.

"You mean you moved it a little once, but can't do it again?" she asked, and he nodded assent.

"Oh, well, that's all right," she continued, cheerfully. "You are sure to get along all right, now that you have commenced to manage your hands if ever so little. But just at first, when I saw you, I had a mighty queer notion come into my head. I thought you were getting over that stroke faster than you let us know. But I'm too suspicious, ain't I? Maybe it's a bad thing for folks to trust strangers too much in this world; but it is just as bad for a girl to grow up where she can't trust any one. Don't you think so?"

The man nodded. They had many conversations like that, and she had grown not to notice his lack of speech nearly so much as at first. He was so good a listener, and she had become so used to his face gradually gaining again expressive power, that she divined his wishes more readily than the others.

"But trusting don't cut any figure in what I came to speak to you about," she continued. "No 'trust and hope on, brethren,' about this, I guess," and she held the grains of yellow metal before his eyes. "There it is—the gold! Dan found it in the little hollow where the spring is. Is that where you found it?"

He shook his head, but looked pleased at the show they had found.

"Was it bigger bundles of it than this you struck?"

He nodded assent.

"Bigger than this! Well, it must have been rich. These lumps are enough in size if they only turn out enough in number. Oh, how I wish you had put the very spot on that plan of the ground and the rivers! Still, I suppose you were right to be cautious. And if I hadn't been on a lone trail through this country last spring, and got lost, and happened to notice the two little streams running into the river so close to each other, we might have had a year's journey along the Kootenai before we could have found the particular little stream and followed the right one to its source. I think we are close on the trail now, Joe."

He shook his head energetically when she called him Joe.

"Well, I forget," she said. "You see, I've been thinking for months about finding Joe Hammond; and now that I've found you, I can't get used to thinking you are Jim Harris. What's the use of your changing your name, anyway? You did it so you could trail him, your partner, better. But what was the use, with him well and strong, and with devils back of him, and you alone and barely able to crawl? Your head was wrong, Joe—Jim, I mean. If you hadn't been looney, you'd just have settled down and worked your claim, got rich, and then looked for your man."

He shook his head impatiently, and looked at her with as much of a frown as his locked muscles would allow, and a very queer, hard smile about his eyes and mouth.

"Ah!" and 'Tana shivered a little; "don't look like that, Joe. You wouldn't get any Sunday-school prizes for a meek and lowly spirit if the manager saw you fix your face in that fashion. I guess I know how you felt. If you had just so much strength, and couldn't hope for more, you wouldn't waste it looking for gold while he was above ground. Now, ain't I about right?"

He gave no assent, but smiled in a more kindly way at the shrewdness of her guess.

"You won't own up, but I know I am right," she said; "and the way I know it is because I think I'd feel just like that myself if some one hurt me bad. I wonder if girls often feel that way. I guess not. I know Ora Harrison, the doctor's girl, don't. She says her prayers every night, and asks God to let her enemies have good luck. U'm! I can't do that."

The man watched her as she sat silent for a little, looking out into the still, warm sunshine. The squaw slumbered on, and the girl stared across her, and her face grew sad and moody with some hard thought.

"It's awful to hate," she said, at last. "Don't you think it is?—to hate so that you can't breathe right when the person you hate comes near where you are—to be able to feel if he comes near, even when you don't see or hear him, to feel a devil that rises up in your breast and makes you want to get a knife and cut—cut deep, until the blood you hate runs away from the face you hate, and leaves it white and cold. Ah! it's bad, I reckon, to have some one hate you; but it's a thousand times worse to hate back. It makes the prettiest day black when the devil tells you of the hate you must remember, and you can't pray it away, and you can't forget it, and you can't help it! Oh, dear!"

She put her hands over her eyes and leaned her head against his hand. He felt her tears, but could not comfort her.

"You see, I know—how you felt," she said, trying to speak steadily. "Girls shouldn't know; girls should have love and good thoughts taught to them. I—I've dreamed dreams of what a girl's life ought to be like; something like Ora's home, where her mother kisses her and loves her, and her father kisses and loves them both. I went to their home once, and I never could go again. I was starving for the kind of home she has, and I knew I never would get it. That is the hardest part of it—to know, no matter how hard you try to be good, all your life, you can't get back the good thoughts and the love that should have been yours when you were little—the good thoughts that would have kept hate from growing in your heart, until it is stronger than you are. Oh, it's awful!"

The squaw, who did not understand English, but did understand tears, rolled over and peered out from her blanket at the girl who knelt there as at the feet of a confessor. But the girl did not see her; she still knelt there, almost whispering now.

"And the worst of it is, Joe, after they are dead—the ones you hate—then the devil in you commences to torment you by making you think of some good points among the bad ones; some little kind word that would have made the hate in your heart less if it had not been for your own terrible wickedness. And it gnaws and torments you just like a rat gnawing the heart out of a log for a nest. And hate is terrible! whether it is live hate, or dead, it is terrible. Maybe I won't feel so bad now that I've said out loud to some one how I feel—how much harder my heart is than it ought to be. I couldn't tell any one else. But you hate, too, you know. Maybe you know, too, that dead hate hurts worst—that it haunts like a ghost."

She looked up at him, and saw again that queer, wise smile about his lips.

"You don't believe he's dead!" she said, and her face grew paler. "You think he's still alive, and that is why you don't want folks to use your old name. You are laying for him yet, and you so helpless you can't move!"

The man only looked at her grimly. He would not deny; he would not assent.

"But you are wrong," she persisted. "He is dead. The Indians told me so—Akkomi told me so. Would they lie to me? Joe, can't you let the hate go by, now that he is dead—dead?"

But no motion answered her, though his eyes rested on her kindly enough. Then the squaw arose and slouched away to pick up firewood in the forest, and the girl arose, too, and touched his hand.

"Well, whether you can or not, I am glad I told you what I did. Maybe it won't worry me so much now; for sometimes, just when I'm almost happy, the ghost of that bad hate seems to whisper, whisper, and there ain't any more good times for me. I'm glad I told you. I would not have, though, if you could talk like other folks, but you can't."

She got him a drink of water, slipped their first find of the gold into his pocket, and then stood at the tent door, watching for Overton.

But he did not come, and after a little she picked up the pan again and started for the small stream where she had left him.

The man in the chair watched her go, and when she was out of sight, that right hand was again slowly raised from the chair.

"C—an't I?" he whispered, in a strange, indistinct way. "Poor lit—tle girl! poor little—girl!"



CHAPTER XIII.

THE TRACK IN THE FOREST.

Their camp was about a mile from the Kootenai River, and close to a stream of depth sufficient to carry a canoe; while, a little way north of their camp, a beautiful spring of clear water gurgled out from under a little bank, and added its portion to the larger stream that flowed eastward to the river.

There was a little peculiarity about the spring, which made it one to remember—or, rather, two to remember, for it was really a twin, and its sister stream slipped from the other side of the narrow ledge and ran north for a little way, and then turned to the east and emptied into the Kootenai, not a hundred yards from the stream into which its mate had run.

The two springs were not twenty feet apart, and lay direct north and south from each other. Then their wide curves, in opposite directions, left within their circle a tract of land like an island, for the streams bounded it entirely except for that narrow neck of rock and soil joining it to the bigger hills to the west.

It was in the vicinity of the two springs that the rude sketch of Harris bade them search; but more definite directions than that he had not given. He had marked a tree where the north stream joined the river; and finding that as a clew, they followed the stream to its source. When they reached the larger stream, navigable for a mile, they concluded to move their tents there, for no lovelier place could be found.

It was 'Tana and Overton who tramped over the lands where the streams lay, and did their own prospecting for location. He was surprised to find her knowledge of the land so accurate. The crude drawing was as a solved problem to her; she never once made a wrong turn.

"Well, I've thought over it a heap," she said, when he commented on her clever ideas. "I saw that marked tree as we went down to the Ferry, and I remembered where it was; and the trail is not hard if you only get started on it right. It's getting started right that counts—ain't it, Dan?"

There seemed fewer barriers between them in the free, out-of-door life, where no third person's views colored their own. They talked of Lyster, and missed him; yet Dan was conscious that if Lyster were with them, he would have come second instead of first in her confidences, and her friendly, appealing ways.

Whether he trusted her or not, she did not know. He had not asked a question as to how that survey of the land came to her; but he watched Harris sometimes when the girl paid him any little attention, and he could read only absolute trust in the man's eyes.

Overton was not given to keen analysis of people or motives; a healthy unconcern pervaded his mind as to the affairs of most people. But sometimes the girl's character, her peculiar knowledge, her mysterious past, touched him with a sense of strange confusion, yet in the midst of the confusion—the deepest of it—he had put all else aside when she appealed to him, and had followed her lead into the wilderness.

And as she ran from him with the particles of gold, and carried them, as he bade her, to Harris, he followed her with his gaze until she disappeared through the green wall of the bushes. Once he started to follow her, and then stopped, suddenly muttered something about a "cursed fool," and flung himself face down in the tall grass.

"It's got to end here," he said, aloud, as men grow used to thinking when they live alone in the woods much. Then he raised himself on his elbows and looked over the little grassy dip of the land to where the stream from the hills sparkled in the warm sun; and then away beyond to where the evergreens raised their dark heads along the heights, looking like somber guardians keeping ward over the sunny valley of the twin springs. Over them all his gaze wandered, and then up into the deep forest above him—a forest unbroken from there to the swift Columbia.

The perfect harmony of it all must have oppressed him until he felt himself the one discordant note, for he closed his eyes with a sigh that was almost a groan.

"I'll see it all again—often, I suppose," he muttered; "but never quite as it is now—never, for it's got to end. The little bits of gold I found are a warning of the changes to come here—that is the way it seems to me. Queer how a man will change his idea of life in a year or so! There have been times when I would have rejoiced over the prospect of wealth there is here; yet all I am actually conscious of is regret that everything must change—the place—the people—all where gold is king. Pshaw! what a fool I would seem to any one else if he knew. Yet—well, I have dreamed all my days of a sort of life where absolute happiness could be lived. Other men do the same, I suppose—yes, of course. I wonder if others also come in reach of it too late. I suppose so. Well, reasoning won't change it. I marked out my own path—marked it out with as little thought as many another fool; but I've got to walk in it just the same, and cursing back don't help luck. But I had to have a little pow-wow all alone and be sorry for myself, before turning my back on the man I'd like to be—and—the rest of my dreams that have come in sight for a little while but can never come nearer—There she comes again! I'm glad of it, for she will at least keep me from drifting into dreams alone."

But she appeared to be dreaming a little herself. At any rate, the scene she had passed through in the tent left memories too dark with feeling to be quickly dispelled, and he noticed at once the change in her face, and the traces of tears left about her eyes.

"What has hurt you?" he asked.

She shook her head and said:

"Nothing."

"Oh! So you leave here jolly enough, and run around to camp, and cry about nothing—do you?" he asked, with evident unbelief. "Were you crying for joy over those little grains of gold—or over your loneliness in being so far from the Ferry folks?"

She laughed at the mere idea of either—and laughter dispels tear traces so quickly from faces that are young. "Lonely!" she exclaimed: "lonely here? why, I feel a heap more satisfied here than down at the Ferry, where the whole place smelled like saw-mills and new lumber. I always had a grudge against saw-mills, for they spoil all the lovely woods. That is why I like all this," and she made a sweep of her arm, embracing all the territory in sight; "for in here not a tree has been touched with an ax. Lonely here! Why, Dan, I've been so perfectly happy that I'm afraid—yes, I am. Didn't you ever feel like that—just as if you were too happy to last, and you were afraid some trouble would come and end it all?"

But Overton stooped to lift the pick he had been using, and so turned his face away from her.

"Well, I'm glad you are not getting blue over lack of company," he remarked; "for we have only commenced prospecting, you know, and it will be at least a week before we can hope to send for any one else to join us."

"A week! Do you intend to send for other folks, then?" and her tone was one of regret. "Oh, it would be all different, then. My pretty camp would be spoiled for me if folks should come talking and whistling up our creek. Don't let any one know so soon!"

"You don't know what you are talking of," he answered, a little roughly. "This is a business trip. We did not come up here just because we were looking for a pretty picture of a place to camp in."

"Oh!" and surprise and dismay were in the exclamation. "Then you don't care for it—you want other people just as soon as you find the rich streak where the gold is? Well"—and she looked again over their little chosen valley—"I almost hope you won't find it very soon—not for several days. I would like to live just like this for a whole week. And I thought—I was so sure you liked it, too."

"Oh, yes," he answered, indifferently enough, evidently giving his whole attention to examining the soil he had commenced to dig up again, "I like the camp all right, but we can't just stand around and admire it, if we want to accomplish what we came for. And see here, 'Tana," he said, and for the first time he looked at her with a sort of unwillingness, "you must know that this gold is going to make a big change in things for you. You can't live out in the woods with a couple of miners and an Indian squaw, after your fortune is made—don't you see that? You must go to school, and live out in the world where your money will help you to—well, the right sort of society for a girl."

"What is the use of having money if it don't help you to live where you please?" she demanded. "I thought that was what money was for. I'd a heap rather stay poor here in the woods, with—with the folks I know, instead of going where I'll have to buy friends with money. Don't think I'd want the sort of friends who have to be baited with money, anyway."

He stared at her helplessly. She was saying to him the things he had called himself a fool for thinking. But he could not call her a fool. He could only stifle an impatient groan, and wonder how he was to reason her into thinking as other girls would think of wealth and its advantages.

"Why were you so wild about finding the gold, if you care so little for the things it brings?" he demanded, and she pointed toward the tents.

"It was for him I thought at first—of how the money would, maybe, help to make him well—get him great doctors, and all that. The world had been rough on him—people had brought him trouble, and—and I thought, maybe, I could help clear it away. That was what I had in my mind at first."

"You need things, too, don't you?—not doctors, but education—books, beautiful things. You want pictures, statues, fine music, theaters—all such things. Well, the money will help you get them, and get people to enjoy them with you. I've heard you talk to Max about how you would like to live, and what you would like to see; and I think you can soon. But, 'Tana, you will live then where people will be more critical than we are here—"

"More like Captain Leek?" she asked, with a deep wrinkle between her brows; "for if they are, I'll stay here."

"N—no; not like him; and yet they will think considerable of his sort of ideas, too," he answered, blunderingly. "One thing sure is this: When your actual work here is over, you must go at once back to Mrs. Huzzard. It was necessary for you to come, else I wouldn't have allowed it. But, little girl, when you get among those fine friends you are going to have, I don't want them to think you had a guardian up here who didn't take the first bit of civilized care of you. And that's what they would think if I let you stay here, just as though you were a boy. So you see, 'Tana, I just felt I'd have to tell you plain that you would have to try and fit yourself to city ways of living. And when you are a millionairess, as you count on being, we three partners can't keep on living in tents in the Kootenai woods."

She pulled handfuls of the plumy grasses beside her, and stared sulkily ahead of her. Evidently it was a great deal for her to understand at once.

"Would they blame you—you for it, if they knew?" she asked at last.

"Yes, they would—if they knew," he said, savagely; and turning away, he walked across the little grassy level to where the abrupt little wall or ledge commenced—the one from under which the springs flowed.

She thought he was simply out of patience with her. He was going to the woods—anywhere to be rid of her and her stupid ideas; and swift as a bird, she slipped after him.

"Then I'll go, Dan," she said reassuringly, catching his arm. "So don't be vexed at me for being stubborn. Come! let me look for the gold with you, and then—then I'll go when you say."

"It's a bargain," he said, briefly, and drew his arm away. "And if we are going to do any more prospecting this evening, we had better begin."

He stood facing her, with his back to the bank that was the first tiny step toward the mountain that rose dark and shadowy far above. He had walked along there before, looking with a miner's attention to the lay of the land. Suddenly he uttered an exclamation, and a light of comprehension brightened his eyes.

"I've got a clew to it, sure, 'Tana!" he said, eagerly. "Do you know where we are standing? Well, if I don't make a big mistake, a good-sized river once rolled along just where we are now. The little creek is all that's left of it. This soil is all a comparatively recent deposit, and it and the gold dust in it have been washed down from the mountain. Which means that this little valley is only a gateway, and the dust we found is only a trail we are to follow up to the mine from which it came. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I think so," she answered, looking at the green-covered banks, and trying to realize how they looked when a mountain river had cut its way through and covered all the pretty level where the spring stream slipped now. "But doesn't that make the gold seem farther away—much farther? Will we have to move up higher in the mountains?"

"That is a question I need time to answer, but if I am right—if there is a backing of gold ore somewhere above this old river bed, it means a much surer thing than an occasional bit of dust washed out of the mud here. But we won't ignore our little placer digging either. There is an advantage to a poor prospector in having a claim he can work without any machinery but a pick, shovel, and pan; while the gold ore needs a fortune to develop it. Let us go back and talk to Harris, to see if his evidence substantiates my theory. If not, we will just stake out our claims on the level, and be thankful. Later we will investigate the hills."

The girl walked slowly beside him back to their camp. The shadows were commencing to lengthen. It was nearing supper time, and their day had been a busy, tiring one, for they had moved their camp many miles since dawn.

"You are very nearly worn out, aren't you?" he asked, as he noticed her tired eyes and her listless step. "You see, you would tramp along the shore this morning when I wanted you to stay in the boat."

"Yes, I know," she answered; "but I don't think that made me tired. Maybe it's the gold we are to find. How queer it is, Dan, that a person will want and want some one thing all his life, and he thinks it will make him so happy; and yet, when at last he gets in sight of it, he isn't happy at all. That is the way I feel about our gold. I suppose I ought to be singing and laughing and dancing for joy. I said I would, too. Yet here I am feeling as stupid as can be, and almost afraid of the fine life you say I must go to. Oh, bother! I won't think over it any more. I am going to get supper."

For while 'Tana would accept the squaw as an assistant and a gatherer of fuel, she decidedly declined to have her installed as head cook. She herself filled that office with a good deal of girlish conceit, encouraged by the praise of Overton and the approving nods of Harris.

There had been a fifth member of their party, Flap-Jacks' husband. 'Tana had bestowed that name on the squaw in the very beginning of their acquaintance. But Overton had sent him on an errand back to Sinna Ferry, not wishing to have his watchful eyes prying into their plans in the very beginning of their prospecting. And it was not until he had started on his journey that the pick and pan had disclosed the golden secret of the old river bed.

Harris watched the two approach, and his keen gray eyes turned with a certain fondness from one to the other. They were as guardian angels to him, and their mutual care of him had brought them closer to each other there in the wilderness than they ever had been in the little settlement farther down the river.

"Squaw not here yet?" asked 'Tana, and at once set to work preparing things for the supper.

Harris shook his head, but at that moment their hand-maiden did return, carrying a great load of sticks for fire, and then brought to the girl a number of fine trout she had caught almost at their door. She built the fire outside, where two forked sticks had been driven into the ground, and across them a pole lay, from which kettles could be hung. As 'Tana set the coffee pot on the hot coals, the Indian woman spoke to her in that low voice which is characteristic of the red people.

"More white men to come into camp?" she asked.

"White men? No. Why do you ask?"

"I see tracks—not Dan's tracks—not yours."

"Made when?"

"Now—little while back—only little."

Overton heard their voices, though not their words; and as 'Tana re-entered the wigwam, he glanced around at her with a dubious smile.

"That is the first time I ever heard you actually talking Chinook," he observed; "though I've had an idea you could, ever since the evening in Akkomi's village. It is like your poker playing, though you have been very modest about it."

"I was not the night I played the captain," she answered; "and I think you might let me alone about that, after I gave him back his money."

"That is just the part I can not forgive you for," he said. "He will never get over the idea, now, that you cheated him, and that your conscience got the better of you to such an extent that you tried to wipe a sin away by giving the money back."

"Perhaps I did," she answered, quietly. "I had to settle his conceit some way, for he did bother me a heap sometimes. But I'm done with that."

She seemed rather thoughtful during the frying of the fish and the slicing down of Mrs. Huzzard's last contribution—a brown loaf.

She was disturbed over the footprints seen by the Indian woman—the track of a white man so close to their camp that day, yet who had kept himself from their sight! Such actions have a meaning in the wild countries, and the meaning troubled her. While it would have been the most simple thing in the world to tell Overton and have him make a search, something made her want to do the searching herself—but how?

"I was right in my theory about the old river bed," he said to her, as she poured his coffee. "Harris backs me up in it, and it was ore he found, and not the loose dirt in the soil. So the thing I am going to strike out for is the headquarters where that loose dust comes from."

"Oh! then it was ore you found?" she asked.

Harris nodded his head.

"Ore on the surface—and near here."

That news made her even more anxious about that stranger who had prowled around. Perhaps he, too, was searching for the hidden wealth.

When the supper was over, and the sun had slipped back of the mountain, she beckoned to the squaw, and with the water bucket as a visible errand, they started toward the spring.

But they did not stop there. She wanted to see with her own eyes those footprints, and she followed the Indian down into the woods already growing dusky in the dying day.

The birds were singing their good-night songs, and all the land seemed steeped in repose. Only those two figures, gliding between the trees, carried with them the spirit of unrest.

They reached an open space where no trees grew very close—a bit of marsh land, where the soil was black and tall ferns grew. The squaw led her straight to a place where two of the fern fronds were bent and broken. She parted the green lances, and there beside it was a scraping away of the earth, as though some one walking there had slipped, and in the black sandy loam a shoe had sunk deep. The Indian was right; it was the mark of a white man, for the reds of that country had not yet adopted the footgear of their more advanced neighbors.

"It turn to camp," said the squaw. "Maybe some white thief, so I tell you. Me tell Dan?"

"Wait," answered the girl; and, kneeling down, she studied the slender outline of the foot attentively. "Any more tracks?"

"No more—only leaves stirred nearer to camp; he go that way."

The full moon rose clear and warm in the east, while yet the sun's light lingered over the wilderness. Beautiful flowers shone white and pink and yellow in the opaline light of the evening; and 'Tana mechanically plucked a few that touched her as she passed, but she gave little notice to their beauty. All her thought was on the slender footprint of the man in the woods, and her face looked troubled.

They walked on, looking to right and left in any nook where deep shadows lay, but never a sign could they see of aught that was human besides themselves, until they neared the springs again, when the squaw laid her hand on the arm of the girl.

"Dan," she said, in her low, abrupt way.

The girl, looking up, saw him a little way ahead of them, standing there straight, strong, and surely to be trusted; yet her first impulse was to tell him nothing.

"Take the water and go," she said to the Indian, and the woman disappeared like a mere wraith of a woman in the pale shadows.

"Don't go so far next time when you want to pick flowers in the evening," said Overton, as 'Tana came nearer to him. "You make me realize that I have nerves. If you had not come in sight the instant you did, I should have been after you."

"But nothing will harm us; I am not afraid, and it is pretty in the woods now," she answered lamely, and toyed with the flowers. But the touch of her fingers was nervous, and the same quality trembled in her voice. He noticed it and reaching out took her hand in his very gently, and yet with decision that forced her to look up at him.

"Little girl—what is it? You are sick?"

She shook her head.

"No, I am not—I am not sick," and she tried to free her hand, but could not.

"'Tana," and his teeth closed for a moment on his lip lest he say all the warm words that leaped up from his heart at sight of her face, which looked startled and pale in the moonlight—"'Tana, you won't need me very long; and when you go away, I'll never try to make you remember me. Do you understand, little girl? But just now, while we are so far off from the rest of the world, won't you trust me with your troubles—with the thoughts that worry you? I would give half of my life to help you. Half of it! Ah, good God! all of it! 'Tana—"

In his voice was all the feeling which compels sympathy, or else builds up a wall that bars it out. But in the eyes of the girl, startled though she was, no resistance could be read. Her hand was in his, her face lifted to him, and alight with sudden gladness. In his eyes she read the force of an irresistible power taking possession of a man's soul and touching her with its glory.

"'Tana!" he said very softly, in a tone she had never before heard Dan Overton use—a tone hushed and reverent and appealing. "'Tana!"

Did he guess all the stormy emotions locked alone in the girl's heart, and wearing out her strength? Did he guess all the childish longing to feel strong, loving arms around her as a shield? His utterance of her name drew her to him. His arm fell around her shoulders, and her head was bowed against his breast. The hat she wore had fallen to the ground, and as he bent over her, his hand caressed her hair tenderly, but there was more of moody regret than of joy in his face.