"'Tana, my girl! poor little girl!" he said softly.

But she shook her head.

"No—not so poor now," she half whispered and looked up at him—"not so very poor."

Then she uttered a half-strangled scream of terror and broke away from him; for across his shoulder she saw a face peering at her from the shadows of the over-hanging bushes above them, a white, desperate face, at sight of which she staggered back and would have fallen had Overton not caught her.

He had not seen the cause of her alarm, and for one instant thought it was himself from whom she shrank.

"Tell me—what is it?" he demanded. "'Tana, speak to me!"

She did not speak, but a rustle in the bushes above them caught his ear; and looking up, he saw a form pass lightly through the shadows and away from them. He could not tell whether it was an Indian, a white man, or even an animal scampering off that way through the bushes. But anything that spied like that and ran when discovered was a thing to shoot at. He dropped his hand to his revolver, but she caught his arm.

"No, Dan! Oh, don't—don't shoot him!"

He stared at her, conscious that it was no ordinary fear that whitened her face. What did it mean? She herself had just come from the woods—pale, agitated, and with only a semblance of flower gathering to explain her absence. Had she met some one there—some one who—

He let go of her and started to run up the side of the steep bank; but swiftly as he moved, she caught him and clung to him, half sobbing.

"Don't go! Oh, Dan, let him go!" she begged, and her grasp made it impossible for him to go unless he picked her up and carried her along.

He stooped, took her head roughly in his hands, and turned her face up, so that the light would fall upon it.

"Him! Then you know who it is?" he said, grimly. "What sort of business is this, 'Tana? Are you going to tell me?"

But she only crouched closer to him, and, sobbing, begged him not to go. Once he tried to break away but lost his footing, and the soil and bits of boulders went clattering down past her.

With a muttered oath of impatience, he gave up the pursuit, and stared down at her with an expression more bitter than any she had ever seen on his face before.

"So you are bound to protect him, are you?" he asked, coldly. "Very well. But if you value him so highly you had better keep him clear of this camp, else he'll find himself ready for a box. Come! get up and go to the tents. That is a better place for you than here. Your coming out here this evening has been a mistake all around—or else mine has. I wish to Heaven I could undo it all."

She stood a little apart from him, but her hand was still outstretched and clasping his arm.

"All, Dan?" she asked, and her mouth trembled. But his own lips were firm enough, as he nodded his head and looked at her.

"All," he said briefly. "Go now; and here are your flowers for which you hunted so long in the woods."

He stooped to pick them up for her from where they had fallen—the white, fragrant things he had thought so beautiful as she came toward him with them in the moonlight.

But as he lifted them from the bank, where they were scattered, he saw something else there which was neither beautiful nor fragrant, but over which he bent with earnest scrutiny. An ordinary looking piece of shale or stone it would have seemed to an inexperienced eye, a thing with irregular veins of a greenish appearance, and the green dotted plainly with yellow—so plainly as to show even in the moonlight the nature of the find.

He turned to the girl and reached it to her with the flowers.

"There! When my foot slipped I broke off that bit of 'float' from the ledge," he said curtly. "Show it to Harris. We have found the gold ore, and I'll stake out the claims to-night. You can afford to leave for civilization now as soon as you please, I reckon, for your work in the Kootenai country is over. Your fortune is made."



CHAPTER XIV.

NEW-COMERS.

Many days went by after that before more time was given to the hunting of gold in that particular valley of the Kootenai lands; for before another day broke, the squaw spoke at the door of Overton's tent and told him the girl was sick with fever, that she talked as a little child babbles and laughs at nothing.

He went with her, and the face he had seen so pale in the moonlight was flushed a rosy red, and her arms tossed meaninglessly, while she muttered—muttered! Sometimes her words were of the gold, and of flowers. He even heard his name on her lips, but only once; and then she cried out that he hurt her. She was ill—very ill; he could see that, and help must be had.

He went for it as swiftly as a boat could be sped over the water. During the very short season of waiting for the doctor and Mrs. Huzzard, he wrote to Lyster, and secured some Indians for work needed. If the doctor thought her able for the journey, he meant to have her brought back in a boat to Sinna Ferry, where she would have something more substantial than canvas walls about her.

But the doctor did not. He was rather mystified by her sudden illness, as there had been no forewarnings of it. That it was caused by some shock was possible; and that it was serious was beyond doubt.

The entire party, and especially Mrs. Huzzard, were taken aback by finding a newly arrived, self-imposed guardian at the door of Tana's tent. It was the blanket-draped figure of old Akkomi, and his gaily painted canoe was pulled up on the bank of the creek.

"I heard on the wind the child was sick," he said briefly to Overton. "I come to ask if you needed help."

But Overton looked at him suspiciously. It was impossible that he could have heard of her illness so soon, though he might have heard of her presence there.

"Were any of your people here at nightfall yesterday?" he asked. The old fellow shook his head.

"No, none of my people," he said briefly; then he puffed away at his pipe, and looked approvingly at Mrs. Huzzard, who tried to pass him without turning her back to him at all, and succeeded in making a circuit bearing some relation to progress made before a throne, though the relationship was rather strained. His approving eyes filled her with terror; for, much as she had reveled in Indian romances (on paper) in her youth, she had no desire to take any active part in them in her middle age.

And so, with the help of the doctor and Mrs. Huzzard, they commenced the nursing of 'Tana back to consciousness and health. Night after night Dan walked alone in the waning moonlight, his heart filled with remorse and blame for which he could find no relief. The gathering of the gold had no longer allurements for him.

But he moved Harris' tent on to one of the claims, and he cut small timber, and in a day and a half had a little log house of two rooms put up and chinked with dry moss and roofed with bark, that 'Tana might have a home of her own, and have it close to where the ore streaked with gold had been found. Then he sent the Indians up the river again, and did with his own hands all labor needed about the camp.

"You'll be sick yourself, Overton," growled the doctor, who slept in the tent with him, and knew that scarce an hour of the night passed that he was not at the door of 'Tana's cabin, to learn if any help was needed, or merely to stand without and listen to her voice as she spoke.

"For mercy's sake, Mr. Dan, do be a little careful of yourself," entreated Mrs. Huzzard; "for if you should get used up, I don't know what I ever would do here in this wilderness, with 'Tana and the paralyzed man and you to look after—to say nothing of the fear I'm in every hour because o' that nasty beast of an Indian that you say is a chief. He is here constant!"

"Proof of your attractive powers," said Overton, reassuringly. "He comes to admire you, that is all."

"And enough, too! And if it wasn't for you that's here to protect me, the good Lord only knows whether I'd ever see a milliner shop or a pie again, as long as I lived. So I am set on your taking more care of yourself—now won't you?"

"Wait until you have cause, before you worry," he advised, "I don't look like a sick man, do I?"

"You don't look like a well one, anyway," she said, looking at him carefully; "and you don't look as I ever saw you look before. You are as hollow eyed as though you had been sick yourself for a month. Altogether, I think your coming out here to camp in the wild woods has been a big mistake."

"It looks like it just now," he agreed, and his eyes, tired and troubled, looked past her into the cabin where 'Tana lay. "Does she seem better?"

"Just about the same. Eight days now since she was took down; and the doctor, he said to-morrow would be the day to hope for a change, either for the better or—"

But the alternative was not a thing easy for the good soul to contemplate, and she left the sentence unfinished and disappeared into the cabin again, while the man outside dropped his head in his hands, feeling the most helpless creature in all the world.

"Better to-morrow, or—worse;" that was what Mrs. Huzzard meant, but could not utter. Better or worse! And if the last, she might be dying now, each minute! And he was powerless to help her—powerless even to utter all the regret, the remorse, the heart-aching sorrow that was with him, for her ears were closed to the sense of words, and his lips were locked by some key of some past.

His own judgment on himself was not light as he went over in his mind each moment of their hours together. Poor little 'Tana! poor little stray!

"I promised not to question her; yes, I promised that, or she would never have left the Indians with me. And I—I was savage with her, just because she would not tell me what she had a perfect right to keep from me if she chose. Even if it was—a lover, what right had I to object? What right to hold her hands—to say all the things I said? If she were a woman, I could tell her all I think—all, and let her judge. But not as it is—not to a girl so young—so troubled—so much of a stray. Oh, God! she shall never be a stray again, if only she gets well. I'd stay here digging forever if I could only send her out in the world among people who will make her happy. And she—the child, the child! said she would rather live here as we did than to have the gold that would make her rich. God! it is hard for a man to forget that, no matter what duty says."

So his thoughts would ramble on each day, each night, and his restlessness grew until Harris took to watching him with a great pity in his eyes, and mutely asked each time he entered if hope had grown any stronger.

By the request of Mrs. Huzzard they had moved Harris into the other room of the cabin, because of a rain which fell one night, and reminded them that his earthen floor might prove injurious to his health. Mrs. Huzzard declared she was afraid, with that room empty; and Harris, though having a partially dead body, had at least a living soul, and she greatly preferred his presence to the spiritless void and the fear of Indian occupancy.

So she shared the room with 'Tana, and the doctor and Overton used one tent, while the squaw used the other. All took turns watching at night beside the girl, who never knew one from the other, but who talked of gold—gold that was too heavy a load for her to carry—gold that ran in streams where she tried to find water to drink and could not—gold that Dan thought was better than friends or their pretty camp. And over those woes she would moan until frightened from them by ghosts, the ghosts she hated, and which she begged them so piteously to keep out of her sight.

So they had watched her for days, and toward the evening of the eighth Overton was keeping an ever-watchful ear for the Indian and the doctor who had gone personally to fetch needed medicines from the settlement.

Akkomi was there as usual. Each day he would come, sit in the doorway of the Harris cabin for hours, and contemplate the helpless man there. When evening arrived he would enter his canoe and go back to his own camp, which at that time was not more than five miles away.

Overton, fearing that Harris would be painfully annoyed by the presence of this self-invited visitor, offered to entertain him in his own tent, if Harris preferred. But while Harris looked with no kindly eye on the old fellow, he signified that the Indian should remain, if he pleased. This was a decision so unexpected that Overton asked Harris if he had ever met Akkomi before.

He received an affirmative nod, which awakened his curiosity enough to make him question the Indian.

The old fellow nodded and smoked in silence for a little while before making a reply; then he said:

"Yes, one summer, one winter ago, the man worked in the hills beyond the river. Our hunters were there and saw him. His cabin is there still."

"Who was with him?"

"White man, stranger," answered Akkomi briefly. "This man stranger, too, in the Kootenai country—stranger from away somewhere there," and he pointed vaguely toward the east. "Name—Joe—so him called."

"And the other man?"

"Other man stranger, too—go way—never come back. This one go away, too; but he come back."

"And that is all you know of them?"

"All. Joe not like Indian friends," and the old fellow's eyes wrinkled up in the semblance of laughter; "too much tenderfoot, maybe."

"But Joe's partner," persisted Overton, "he was not tenderfoot? He had Indian friends on the Columbia River."

"Maybe," agreed the old fellow, and his sly, bead-like eyes turned toward his questioner sharply and were as quickly withdrawn, "maybe so. They hunt silver over there. No good."

Just inside the door Harris sat straining his ears to catch every word, and Akkomi's assumption of bland ignorance brought a rather sardonic smile to his face, while his lips moved in voiceless mutterings of anger. Impatience was clearly to be read in his face as he waited for Overton to question further, and his right hand opened and closed in his eagerness.

But no other questions were asked just then; for Overton suddenly walked away, leaving the crafty-eyed Akkomi alone in his apparent innocence of Joe's past or Joe's partner.

The old fellow looked after him kindly enough, but shook his head and smoked his dirty black pipe, while an expression of undivulged knowledge adorned his withered physiognomy.

"No, Dan, no," he murmured. "Akkomi good friend to little sick squaw and to you; but he not tell—not tell all things."

Then his ears, not so keen as in years gone by, heard sounds on the water, sounds coming closer and closer. But Dan's younger ears had heard them first, and it was to learn the cause that he had left so abruptly and walked to the edge of the stream.

It was the doctor and the Indian boatman who came in sight first around the bend of the creek. Back of them was another canoe, but a much larger, much more pretentious one. In this was Lyster and a middle-aged gentleman of rather portly build, who dressed in a fashion very fine when compared with the average garb of the wilderness.

Overton watched with some surprise the approach of the man, who was an utter stranger to him, and yet who bore a resemblance to some one seen before. A certain something about the shape of the nose and general contour of the face seemed slightly familiar. He had time to notice, also, that the hair was auburn in color, and inclined to curl, and that back of him sat a female form. By the time he had made these observations, their boat had touched the shore, and Lyster was shaking his hand vigorously.

"I got your letter, telling me of your big strike. It caught me before I was quite started for Helena, so I just did some talking for you where I thought it would do the most good, old fellow, and turned right around and came back. I've been wild to hear about 'Tana. How is she? This is my friend, Mr. T. J. Haydon, my uncle's partner, you know. He has made this trip to talk a little business with you, and when I learned you were not at the settlement, but up here in camp, I thought it would be all right to fetch him along."

"Of course it is all right," answered Overton, assuringly. "Our camp has a welcome for your friend even if we haven't first-class accommodations for him. And is this lady also a friend?"

For Lyster, forgetful of his usual gallantry, had allowed the doctor to assist the other voyager from the canoe—a rather tall lady of the age generally expressed as "uncertain," although the certainty of it was an indisputable fact.

A rather childish hat was perched upon her thin but carefully frizzed hair, and over her face floated a white veil, that was on a drawing string around the crown of the hat and drooped gracefully and chastely over the features beneath, after the fashion of 1860. A string of beads adorned the thin throat, and the rest of her array was after the same order of elegance.

The doctor and Lyster exchanged glances, and Lyster was silently proclaimed master of ceremonies.

"Oh, yes," he said, easily. "Pardon me that I am neglectful, and let me introduce you to Miss Slocum—Miss Lavina Slocum of Cherry Run, Ohio. She is the cousin of our friend, Mrs. Huzzard, and was in despair when she found her relative had left the settlement; so we had the pleasure of her company when she heard we were coming direct to the place where Mrs. Huzzard was located."

"She will be glad to see you, miss," said Overton, holding out his hand to her in very hearty greeting. "Nothing could be more welcome to this camp just now than the arrival of a lady, for poor Mrs. Huzzard has been having a sorry siege of care for the last week. If you will come along, I will take you to her at once."

Gathering up her shawl, parasol, a fluffy, pale pink "cloud," and a homemade and embroidered traveling bag, he escorted her with the utmost deference to the door of the log cabin, leaving Lyster without another word.

That easily amused gentleman stared after the couple with keen appreciation of the picture they presented. Miss Slocum had a queer, mincing gait which her long limbs appeared averse to, and the result was a little hitchy. But she kept up with Overton, and surveyed him with weak blue eyes of gratitude. He appeared to her a very admirable personage—a veritable knight of the frontier, possibly a border hero such as every natural woman has an ideal of.

But to Lyster, Dan with his arms filled with female trappings and a lot of pink zephyr blown about his face and streaming over his shoulder, like a veritable banner of Love's color, was a picture too ludicrous to be lost. He gazed after them in a fit of delight that seemed likely to end in apoplexy, because he was obliged to keep his hilarity silent.

"Just look at him!" he advised, in tones akin to a stage whisper. "Isn't he a great old Dan? And maybe you think he would not promenade beside that make-up just as readily on Broadway, New York, or on Chestnut street, Philadelphia? Well, sir, he would! If it was necessary that some man should go with her, he would be the man to go, and Heaven help anybody he saw laughing! If you knew Dan Overton twenty years you would not see anything that would give you a better key to his nature than just his manner of acting cavalier to that—wonder."

But Mr. Haydon did not appear to appreciate the scene with the same degree of fervor.

"Ah!" he said, turning his eyes with indifference to the two figures, and with scrutiny over the little camp-site and primitive dwellings. "Am I to understand, then, that your friend, the ranger, is a sort of modern Don Juan, to whom any order of femininity is acceptable?"

"No," said Lyster, facing about suddenly. "And if my thoughtless manner of speech would convey such an idea of Dan Overton, then (to borrow one of Dan's own expressions) I deserve to be kicked around God's footstool for a while."

"Well, when you speak of his devotion to any sort of specimen—"

"Of course," agreed Lyster. "I see my words were misleading—especially to one unaccustomed to the life and people out here. But Dan, as Don Juan, is one of the most unimaginable things! Why, he does not seem to know women exist as individuals. This is the only fault I have to find with him; for the man who does not care for some woman, or never has cared for any woman, is, according to my philosophy, no good on earth. But Dan just looks the other way if they commence to give him sweet glances—and they do, too! though he thinks that collectively they are all angels. Yes, sir! let the worst old harridan that ever was come to Overton with a tale of virtue and misfortune, and he will take off his hat and divide up his money, giving her a good share, just because she happens to be a woman. That is the sort of devotion to women I had reference to when I spoke first; the wonder to me is that he has not been caught in a matrimonial noose long ere this by some thrifty maid or matron. He seems to me guileless game for them, as his sympathy is always so easily touched."

"Perhaps he is keeping free from bonds that he may marry this ward of his for whom he appears so troubled," remarked Mr. Haydon.

Lyster looked anything but pleased at the suggestion.

"I don't think he would like to hear that said," he returned. "'Tana is only a little girl in his eyes—one left in his charge at the death of her own people, and one who appeals to him very strongly just now because of her helplessness."

"Well," said Mr. Haydon, with a slight smile, "I appear to be rather unfortunate in all my surmises over the people of this new country, especially this new camp. I do not know whether it is because I am in a stupid mood, or because I have come among people too peculiar to be judged by ordinary standards. But the thing I am interested in above and beyond our host and his protegee is the gold mine he wrote you to find a buyer for. I think I could appreciate that, at least, at its full value, if I was allowed a sight of the output."

The doctor had hurried to the cabin even before Overton and Miss Slocum, so the two gentlemen were left by themselves, to follow at their leisure. Mr. Haydon seemed a trifle resentful at this indifferent reception.

"One would think this man had been making big deals in gold ore all his life, and was perfectly indifferent as to whether our capital is to be used to develop this find of his," he remarked, as they approached the cabin. "Did you not tell me he was a poor man?"

"Oh, yes. Poor in gold or silver of the United States mint," agreed Lyster, with a strong endeavor to keep down his impatience of this magnate of the speculative world, this wizard of the world of stocks and bonds, whom his partners deferred to, whose nod and beck meant much in a circle of capitalists. "I myself, when back East," thought Lyster to himself, "considered Haydon a wonderful man, but he seems suddenly to have grown dwarfed and petty in my eyes, and I wonder that I ever paid such reverence to his judgment."

He smiled dubiously to himself at the consciousness that the wide spirit of the West must have already changed his own views of things somewhat, since once he had thought this marketer of mines superior.

"But no one out here would think of calling Dan Overton poor," he continued, "simply because he is not among the class that weighs a man's worth by the dollars he owns. He is considered one of the solid men of the district—one of the best men to know. But no one thinks of gauging his right to independence by the amount of his bank account."

Mr. Haydon shrugged his shoulders, and tapped his foot with the gold-headed umbrella he carried.

"Oh, yes. I suppose it seems very fine in young minds and a young country, to cultivate an indifference to wealth; but to older minds and civilization it grows to be a necessity. Is that object over there also one of the solid men of the community?"

It was Akkomi he had reference to, and the serene manner with which the old fellow glanced over them, and nonchalantly smoked his pipe in the doorway, did give him the appearance of a fixture about the camp, and puzzled Lyster somewhat, for he had never before met the ancient chief.

He nodded his head, however, saying "How?" in friendly greeting, and the Indian returned the civility in the same way, but gave slight attention to the speaker. All the attention of his little black eyes was given to the stranger, who did not address him, and whose gaze was somewhat critical and altogether contemptuous.

Then Mrs. Huzzard, without waiting for them to reach the door, hurried out to greet Lyster.

"I'm as glad as any woman can be to see you back again," she said heartily, "though it's more than I hoped for so soon, and—Yes, the doctor says she's a little better, thank God! And your name has been on her lips more than once—poor dear!—since she has been flighty, and all the thanks I feel to you for bringing Lavina right along I can never tell you; for it seems a month since I saw a woman last. I just can't count the squaw! And do you want to come in and look at our poor little girl now? She won't know you; but if you wish—"

"May I?" asked Lyster, gratefully. Then he turned to the stranger.

"Your daughter back home is about the same age," he remarked. "Will you come in?"

"Oh, certainly," answered Mr. Haydon, rather willing to go anywhere away from the very annoying old redskin of the pipe and the very—very scrutinizing eyes.

The doctor and Overton had passed into the room where Harris was, and Mrs. Huzzard halted at the door with her cousin, so that the two men approached the bed alone. The dark form of Akkomi had slipped in after them like a shadow, but a very alert one, for his head was craned forward that his eyes might lose never an expression of the fine stranger's face.

'Tana's eyes were closed, but her lips moved voicelessly. The light was dim in the little room, and Lyster bent over to look at her, and touched her hot forehead tenderly.

"Poor little girl! poor 'Tana!" he said, and turned the covering from about her chin where she had pulled it. He had seen her last so saucy, so defiant of all his wishes, and the change to this utter helplessness brought the quick tears to his eyes. He clasped her hand softly and turned away.

"It is too dark in here to see anything very clearly," said the stranger, who bent toward her slightly, with his hat in his hand.

Then Akkomi, who had intercepted the light somewhat, moved from the foot of the bed to the stranger's side, and a little sunshine rifted through the small doorway and outlined more clearly the girl's face on the pillow.

The stranger, who was quite close to her, uttered a sudden gasping cry as he saw her face more clearly, and drew back from the bed.

The dark hand of the Indian caught his white wrist and held him, while with the other hand he pointed to the curls of reddish brown clustering around the girl's pale forehead, and from them to the curls on Mr. Haydon's own bared head. They were not so luxuriant as those of the girl, but they were of the same character, almost the same color, and the vague resemblance to something familiar by which Overton had been impressed was at once located by the old Indian the moment the stranger lifted the hat from his head.

"Sick, maybe die," said Akkomi, in a voice that was almost a whisper—"die away from her people, away from the blood that is as her blood," and he pointed to the blue veins on the white man's wrist.

With an exclamation of fear and anger, Mr. Haydon flung off the Indian's hand.

Lyster, scarce hearing the words spoken, simply thought the old fellow was drunk, and was about to interfere, when the girl, as though touched by the contest above her, turned mutteringly on the pillow and opened her unconscious eyes on the face of the stranger.

"See!" said the Indian. "She looks at you."

"Ah! Great God!" muttered the other and staggered back out of the range of the wide-open eyes.

Lyster, puzzled, astonished, came forward to question his Eastern friend, who pushed past him rudely, blindly, and made his way out into the sunshine.

Akkomi looked after him with a gratified expression on his dark, wrinkled old face, and bending over the girl, he muttered in a soothing way words in the Indian tongue, as though to quiet her restlessness with Indian witchery.



CHAPTER XV.

SOMETHING WORSE THAN A GOLD CRISIS.

"What is the matter with your friend?" asked Overton, as Lyster stood staring after Mr. Haydon, who walked alone down the way they had come from the boats. "Is one glimpse of our camp life enough to drive him to the river again?"

"No, no—that is—well, I don't just know what ails him," confessed Lyster, rather lamely. "He went in with me to see 'Tana, and seems all upset by the sight of her. She does look very low, Dan. At home he has a daughter about her age, who really resembles her a little—as he does—a girl he thinks the world of. Maybe that had something to do with his feelings. I don't know, though; never imagined he was so impressionable to other people's misfortunes. And that satanic-looking old Indian helped make things uncomfortable for him."

"Who—Akkomi?"

"Oh, that is Akkomi, is it? The old chief who was too indisposed to receive me when I awaited admittance to his royal presence! Humph! Well, he seemed lively enough a minute ago—said something to Haydon that nearly gave him fits; and then, as if satisfied with his deviltry, he collapsed into the folds of his blanket again, and looks bland and innocent as a spring lamb at the present speaking. Is he grand chamberlain of your establishment here? Or is he a medicine man you depend on to cure 'Tana?"

"Akkomi said something to Mr. Haydon?" asked Overton, incredulously. "Nonsense! It could not have been anything Haydon would understand, anyway, for Akkomi does not speak English."

Lyster looked at him from the corner of his eyes, and whistled rather rudely.

"Now, it is not necessary for any reason whatever, for you to hide the accomplishments of your noble red friend," he remarked. "You are either trying to gull me, or Akkomi is trying to gull you—which is it?"

"What do you mean?" demanded Overton, impatiently. "You look as though there may be a grain of sense in the immense amount of fool stuff you are talking. Akkomi, maybe, understands English a little when it is spoken; but, like many another Indian who does the same, he will not speak it. I have known him for two years, in his own camp and on the trail, and I have never yet heard him use English words."

"Well, I have not had the felicity of even a two-hour acquaintance with his royal chieftainship," remarked Lyster, "but during the limited space of time I have been allowed to gaze on him I am confident I heard him use five English words, and use them very naturally."

"Can you tell me what they were?"

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

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

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

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

"You can—directly. Who is he?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XVI.

THROUGH THE NIGHT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I suppose not," agreed the other.

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

"What did Akkomi tell you of her?"

"Akkomi?"

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

"Oh, that fellow? Some gibberish."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You do not?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But you do?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Twenty-four hours later he thought he knew.



CHAPTER XVII.

MISS SLOCUM'S IDEAS REGARDING DEPORTMENT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The doctor laughed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Certainly. But I don't understand—"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XVIII.

AWAKENING.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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