CHAPTER XXVII.
LIFE AT TWIN SPRINGS.
Over all the land of the Kootenai the sun of early June was shining. Treesof wild fruits were white with blossoms, as if from far above on themountains the snows had blown down and settled here and there on the newtwigs of green.
And high up above the camp of the Twin Springs, Overton and Harris satlooking over the wide stretches of forest, and the younger man lookedtroubled.
"I think your fear is all an empty affair," he said, in an argumentativetone. "You eat well and sleep well. What gives you the idea you are to becalled in soon?"
"Several things," said the other, slowly, and his speech was yetindistinct; "but most of all the feel of my feet and legs. A week ago myfeet turned cold; this week the coldness is up to my knees, and it won'tgo away. I know what it means. When it gets as high as my heart I'll bedone for. That won't take long, Dan; and I want to see her first."
"She can't help you."
"Yes, she can, too. You don't know. Dan, send for her."
"Things are all different with her now," protested the other. "She's withfriends who are not of the diggings or the ranges, Joe. She is going tomarry Max Lyster; and, altogether, is not the same little girl who madeour coffee for us down there in the flat. You must not expect that shewill change all her new, happy life to run back here just because you wantto talk to her."
"She'll come if you telegraph I want her," insisted Harris. "I know herbetter than you do, Dan. The fine life will never spoil her. She would behappier here to-day in a canoe than she would be on a throne. I know herbest."
"She wasn't very happy before she left here."
"No," he agreed; "but there were reasons, Dan. Why are you so set againsther coming back?"
"Set against it? Oh, no."
"Yes, you are. Mrs. Huzzard and all the camp would be only too glad to seeher; but you--you say no. What's your reason?"
"Joe, not many months ago you tried to make me suspicious of her," saidOverton, not moving his eyes from a distant blue peak of the hills. "Youremember the day you fell in a heap? Well, I've never asked you yourreasons for that; though I've thought of it considerably. You changed yourmind about her afterward, and trusted her with the plan of this gold fielddown here. Now, you had reasons for that, too; but I never have asked youwhat they are. Do the same for me, will you?"
The other man did not answer for a little while, but he watched Dan'smoody face with a great deal of kindness in his own.
"You won't tell me?" he said at last. "Well, that's all right. But one ofthe reasons I want her back is to make clear to you all the unexplainedthings of last summer. There were things you should have been told--thatwould have made you two better friends, would have broken down the wallthere always seemed to be between you--or nearly always. (She wouldn'ttell you, and I couldn't.) It left her always under a cloud to you, andshe felt it. Many a time, Dan, she has knelt beside me and cried over hertroubles to me--and they were troubles, too!--telling them all to me justbecause I couldn't speak and tell them again. And I won't, unless she letsme. But I don't want to go over the range and know that you two, all yourlives, will be apart and cold to each other on account of suspicions Icould clear away."
"Suspicions? No, I have no suspicions against her."
"But you have had many a troubled hour because of that man found dead inher room, and his visit to her the night before, and that money she askedfor that he was after. All such things that you could not clear her of inyour own mind, when you cleared her of murder--they are things I wantstraightened out before I leave, Dan. You have both been good friends tome, and I don't want any bar between you."
"What does all that matter now, Joe? She is out of our lives, and in ahappier one some one else is making for her. I am not likely ever to seeher again. She won't come back here."
"I know her best; she will come if she is needed. I need her for once; andif you don't send for her, I will, Dan. Will you send?"
But Overton got up and walked away without answering. Harris thought hewould turn back after a little while, but he did not. He watched him outof sight, and he was still going higher up in the hills.
"Trying to walk away from his desire for her," thought Joe, sadly. "Well,he never will. He thinks I don't know. Poor Dan!"
Then he whistled to a man down below him, and the man came and helped himdown to camp, for his feet had grown helpless again in that strange chillof which he had spoken.
Mrs. Huzzard met him at the door of a sitting room, gorgeous as anapartment could well be in the Northern wilderness. All the luxuriesobtainable were there; for, as Harris had to live so much of his timeindoors, Overton seemed determined that he should get benefit from his newfortune in some way. The finest of furs and of weavings furnished theroom, and a dainty little stand held a tea service of shell-pink china,from which the steam floated cheerily.
And Lorena Jane herself partook of the general air of prosperity, as shedrew forward a great cushioned chair for the invalid and brought him a cupof fragrant tea.
"I just knew you was tired the minute I saw you coming down that hill,"she said, filling a cup herself and sitting down to enjoy it. "I knew acup of tea would do you good, for you ain't quite so brisk as you was afew weeks ago."
"No," he agreed, and gulped down the beverage with a dubious expression onhis face. He very much preferred whisky as a tonic; but as Mrs. Huzzardwas bound to use that new tea service every day for his benefit, hesubmitted without a protest and enjoyed most the number of cups shedisposed of.
"I suppose, now, you got sight from up there on the hill of the two youngfolks going boat riding?" she remarked, with attempted indifference; andhe looked at her questioningly.
"Oh, I mean Lavina and the captain! Yes, he did get up ambition enoughto paddle a boat and ask her to ride in it; and away they went, giddy asyou please!"
"I thought you had a high regard for the captain?" remarked Harris.
"Who? Me? Well, as Mr. Overton's relation, of course I show him respect,"and her tone was almost as pompous as that of the captain used to be. "ButI must say, sir, that to admire a man--for me to admire a man--he musthave a certain lot of push and ambition. He must be a real American, whodon't depend on the record of his dead relations to tell you how great heis--a man who will dig either gold or potatoes if he needs them, and notbe afraid of spoiling his hands."
"Somebody like this new lucky man, McCoy," suggested Harris, and shesmiled complacently but did not answer.
And out on the little creek, sure enough, Lavina and the captain weregliding with the current, and the current had got them into dangerouswaters.
"And you won't say yes, Lavina?" he asked, and she tapped her footimpatiently on the bottom of the boat.
"I told you yes twenty-five years ago, Alf Leek," she answered.
He sighed helplessly. His old aggressive manner was all gone. The tacticshe would adopt for any other woman were useless with this one. She knewhim like a book. She had him completely cowed and miserable. No longer didhe regale admiring friends with tales of the late war, and incidentallyallow himself to be thought a hero. One look from Lavina would freeze thestory of the hottest battle that ever was fought.
To be sure, she had as yet refrained from using words against him; but howlong would she refrain? That question he had asked himself until, indespair, a loop-hole from her quiet vengeance had occurred to him, and hehad asked her to marry him.
"You never could--would marry any one else," he said, pleadingly.
"Oh, couldn't I?"
"And I couldn't, either, Lavina," he continued, looking at hersentimentally. But Lavina knew better.
"You would, if anybody would have you," she retorted. "I know I reachedhere just in time to keep poor Lorena Jane from being made a victim of.You would have been a tyrant over her, with your great pretensions, if Ihadn't stopped it. You always were tyrannical, Alf Leek; and the only timeyou're humble as you ought to be is when you meet some one who cantyrannize over you. You
are one of the sort that needs it."
"That's why I asked you to marry me," he remarked, meekly.
And after a moment she said:
"Well, thinking of it from that point of view, I guess I will."
Far up on the heights, a man lying there alone saw the canoe with the manand the woman in it, and it brought back to him keen rushes of memory fromthe summer time that had been. It was only a year ago that 'Tana hadstepped into his canoe, and gone with him to the new life of thesettlement. How brave she had been! how daring! He liked best to rememberher as she had been then, with all the storms and sunshine of her face. Heliked to remember that she had said she would be cook for him, but for noother man. Of course her words were a child's words, soon forgotten byher. But all her words and looks and their journeys made him love theland he had known her in. They were all the treasures he had with which tocomfort his loneliness.
And when in the twilight he descended to the camp, Joe--or his ownlongings--had won.
"I will send the telegram for you, old fellow," he said, and that was all.
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