But he did look curious when she expressed those independent ideas on questions over which most girls would blush or appear at least a little conscious.
“So, you would put a veto on love at first sight, would you?” he asked, laughingly. “And the beauty of the hero would not move you at all? What a very odd young lady you would have me think you! I believe love at first sight is generally considered, by your age and sex, the pinnacle of all things hoped for.”
A little color did creep into her face at the unnecessary personal construction put on her words. She frowned to hide her embarrassment and thrust out her lips in a manner that showed she had little vanity as to her features and their attractiveness.
“But I don’t happen to be a young lady,” she retorted; “and we think as we please up here in the bush. Maybe your proper young ladies would be very odd, too, if they were brought up out here like boys.”
She arose to her feet, and he saw more clearly then how slight she was; her form and face were much more childish in character than her speech, and the face was looking at him with resentful eyes.
“I’m going back to camp.”
“Now, I’ve offended you, haven’t I?” he asked, in surprise. “Really, I did not mean to. Won’t you forgive me?”
She dug her heel in the sand and did not answer; but the fact that she remained at all assured him she would relent. He was amused at her quick show of temper. What a prospect for Dan!
“I scarcely know what I said to vex you,” he began; but she flashed a sullen look at him.
“You think I’m odd—and—and a nobody; just because I ain’t like fine young ladies you know somewheres—like Miss Margaret Haydon,” and she dug the sand away with vicious little kicks. “Nice ladies with kid slippers on,” she added, derisively, “the sort that always falls in love with the pretty man, the hero. Huh! I’ve seen some men who were heroes—real ones—and I never saw a pretty one yet.”
As she said it, she looked very straight into the very handsome face of Mr. Lyster.
“A young Tartar!” he decided, mentally, while he actually colored at the directness of her gaze and her sweepingly contemptuous opinion of “pretty men.”
“I see I’d better vacate your premises since you appear unwilling to forgive me even my unintentional faults,” he decided, meekly. “I’m very sorry, I’m sure, and hope you will bear no malice. Of course I—nobody would want you to be different from what you are; so you must not think I meant that. I had hoped you would let me buy that clay bust as a memento of this morning, but I’m afraid to ask favors now. I can only hope that you will speak to me again to-morrow. Until then, good-by.”
She raised her eyes sullenly at first, but they dropped, ashamed, before the kindness of his own. She felt coarse and clumsy, and wished she had not been so quick to quarrel. And he was turning away! Maybe he would never speak nicely to her again, and she loved to hear him speak.
Then her hand was thrust out to him, and in it was the little clay model.
“You can have it. I’ll give it to you,” she said, quite humbly. “It ain’t very pretty, but if you like it—”
Thus ended the first of many differences between Dan’s ward and Dan’s friend.
When Daniel Overton himself came stalking down among the Indian children, looking right and left from under his great slouch hat, he halted suddenly, and with his lips closed somewhat grimly, stood there watching the rather pretty picture before him.
But the prettiness of it did not seem to appeal to him strongly. He looked on the girl’s half smiling, drooped face, on Lyster, who held the model and his hat in one hand and, with his handsome blonde head bared, held out his other hand to her, saying something in those low, deferential tones Dan knew so well.
Her hand was given after a little hesitation. When they beheld Dan so near them, the hands were unclasped and each looked confused.
Mr. Lyster was the first to recover, and adjusting his head covering once more, he held up the clay model to view.
“Thought you’d be around before long,” he remarked, with a provoking gleam in his eyes. “I really had no hope of meeting Miss Rivers before you this morning; but fortune favors the brave, you know, and fortune sent me right along these sands for my morning walk—a most indulgent fortune, for, look at this! Did you know your ward is an embryo sculptress?”
The older man looked indifferently enough at the exalted bit of clay.
“I leave discoveries of that sort to you. They seem to run in your line more than mine,” he answered, briefly. Then he turned to the girl. “Akkomi told me you were here with the children, ’Tana. If you had other company, Akkomi would have made him welcome.”
He did not speak unkindly, yet she felt that in some way he was not pleased; and perhaps—perhaps he would change his mind and leave her where he found her! And if so, she might never see—either of their faces again! As the thought came to her, she looked up at Dan in a startled way, and half put out her hand.
“I—I did not know. I don’t like the lodges. It is better here by the river. It is your friend that came, and I—”
“Certainly. You need not explain. And as you seem to know each other, I need not do any introducing,” he answered, as she seemed to grow confused. “But I have a little time to talk to you this morning and so came early.”
“Which means that I can set sail for the far shore,” added Lyster, amiably. “All right; I’m gone. Good-by till to-morrow, Miss Rivers. I’m grateful for the clay Indian, and more grateful that you have agreed to be friends with me again. Will you believe, Dan, that in our short acquaintance of half an hour, we have had time for one quarrel and ’make up’? It is true. And now that she is disposed to accept me as a traveling companion, don’t you spoil it by giving me a bad name when my back is turned. I’ll wait at the canoes.”
With a wave of his hat, he passed out of sight around the clump of bushes, and down along the shore, singing cheerily, and the words floated back to them:
“Come, love! come, love!
My boat lies low;
She lies high and dry
On the Ohio.”
Overton stood looking at the girl for a little time after Lyster disappeared. His eyes were very steady and searching, as though he began to realize the care a ward might be, especially when the antecedents and past life of the ward were so much of stubborn mystery to him.
“I wonder,” he said, at last, “if there is any chance of your being my friend, too, in so short a time as a half-hour? Oh, well, never mind,” he added, as he saw the red mouth tremble, and tears show in her eyes as she looked at him. “Only don’t commence by disliking, that’s all; for unfriendliness is a bad thing in a household, let alone in a canoe, and I can be of more downright use to you, if you give me all the confidence you can.”
“I know what you mean—that I must tell you about—about how I came here, and all; but I won’t!” she burst out. “I’ll die here before I do! I hated the people they said were my people. I was glad when they were dead—glad—glad! Oh, you’ll say it’s wicked to think that way about relatives. Maybe it is, but it’s natural if they’ve always been wicked to you. I’ll go to the bad place, I reckon, for feeling this way, and I’ll just have to go, for I can’t feel any other way.”
“’Tana—’Tana!” and his hand fell on her shoulder, as though to shake her away from so wild a mood. “You are only a girl yet. When you are older, you will be ashamed to say you ever hated your parents—whoever they were—your mother!”
“I ain’t saying anything about her,” she answered bitterly. “She died before I can mind. I’ve been told she was a lady. But I won’t ever use the name again she used. I—I want to start square with the world, if I leave these Indians, and I can’t do it unless I change my name and try to forget the old one. It has a curse on it—it has.”
She was trembling with nervousness, and her eyes, though tearless, were stormy and rebellious.
“You’ll think I’m bad,
because I talk this way,” she continued, “but I ain’t—I ain’t. I’ve fought when I had to, and—and I’d swear—sometimes; but that’s all the bad I ever did do. I won’t any more if you take me with you. I—I can cook and keep house for you, if you hain’t got folks of your own, and—I do want to go with you.”
“Come, love! come!
Won’t you go along with me?
And I’ll take you back
To old Tennessee!”
The words of the handsome singer came clearly back to them. Overton, about to speak, heard the words of the song, and a little smile, half-bitter, half-sad, touched his lips as he looked at her.
“I see,” he said, quietly, “you care more about going to-day, than you did when I talked to you last night. Well, that’s all right. And I reckon you can make coffee for me as long as you like. That mayn’t be long, though, for some of the young fellows will be wanting you to keep house for them before many years, and you’ll naturally do it. How old are you?”
“I’m—past sixteen,” she said, in a deprecating way, as though ashamed of her years and her helplessness. “I’m old enough to work, and I will work if I get where it’s any use trying. But I won’t keep house for any one but you.”
“Won’t you?” he asked, doubtfully. “Well, I’ve an idea you may. But we’ll talk about that when the time comes. This morning I wanted to talk of something else before we start—you and Max and I—down into Idaho. I’m not asking the name of the man you hate so; but if I am to acknowledge him as an old acquaintance of mine, you had better tell me what business he was in. You see, it might save complications if any one should run across us some day and know.”
“No one will know me,” she said, decidedly. “If I didn’t know that, I’d stay right here, I think. And as to him, my fond parent,” and she made a grimace—“I guess you can call him a prospector and speculator—either of those would be correct. I think they called him Jim, when he was christened.”
“Akkomi said last night you had been on the trail hunting for some one. Was it a friend, or—or any one I could help you look for?”
“No, it wasn’t a friend, and I’m done with the search and glad of it. Did you,” she added, looking at him darkly, “ever put in time hunting for any one you didn’t want to find?”
Without knowing it, Miss Rivers must have touched on a subject rather sensitive to her guardian, for his face flushed, and he gazed at her with a curious expression in his eyes.
“Maybe I have, little girl,” he said at last. “I reckon I know how to let your troubles alone, anyway, if I can’t help them. But I must tell you, Max—Max Lyster, you know—will be the only one very curious about your presence here—as to the route you came, etc. You had better be prepared for that.”
“It won’t be very hard,” she answered, “for I came over from Sproats’ Landing, up to Karlo, and back down here.”
“Over from Sproats—you?” he asked, looking at her nervously. “I heard nothing of a white girl making that trip. When, and how did you do it?”
“Two weeks ago, and on foot,” was the laconic reply. “As I had only a paper of salt and some matches, I couldn’t afford to travel in high style, so I footed it. I had a ring and a blanket, and I traded them up at Karlo for an old tub of a dugout, and got here in that.”
“You had some one with you?”
“I was alone.”
Overton looked at her with more of amazement than she had yet inspired in him. He thought of that indescribably wild portage trail from the Columbia to the Kootenai. When men crossed it, they preferred to go in company, and this slip of a girl had dared its loneliness, its dangers alone. He thought of the stories of death, by which the trail was haunted; of prospectors who had verged from that dim path and had been lost in the wilderness, where their bones were found by Indians or white hunters long after; of strange stories of wild beasts; of all the weird sounds of the jungles; of places where a misstep would send one lifeless to the jagged feet of huge precipices. And through that trail of terror she had walked—alone!
“I have nothing more to ask,” he said briefly. “But it is not necessary to tell any of the white people you meet that you made the trip alone.”
“I know,” she said, humbly, “they’d think it either wasn’t true—or—or else that it oughtn’t to be true. I know how they’d look at me and whisper things. But if—if you believe me—”
She paused uncertainly, and looked up at him. All the rebellion and passion had faded out of her eyes now: they were only appealing. What a wild, changeable creature she was with those quick contrasts of temper! wild as the name she bore—Montana—the mountains. Something like that thought came into his mind as he looked at her.
He had gathered other wild things from his trips into the wilderness; young bears with which to enliven camp life; young fawns that he had loved and cared for, because of the beauty of eyes and form; even a pair of kittens had been carried by him across into the States, and developed into healthy, marauding panthers. One of these had set its teeth through the flesh of his hand one day ere he could conquer and kill it, and his fawns, cubs and smaller pets had drifted from him back to their forests, or else into the charge of some other prospector who had won their affections.
He remembered them, and the remembrance lent a curious character to the smile in his eyes, as he held out his hand to her.
“I do believe you, for it is only cowards who tell lies; and I don’t believe you’d make a good coward—would you?”
She did not answer, but her face flushed with pleasure, and she looked up at him gratefully. He seemed to like that better than words.
“Akkomi called you ‘Girl-not-Afraid,’” he continued. “And if I were a redskin, too, I would look up an eagle feather for you to wear in your hair. I reckon you’ve heard that only the braves dare wear eagle feathers.”
“I know, but I—”
“But you have earned them by your own confession,” he said, kindly, “and some day I may run across them for you. In the meantime, I have only this.”
He held out a beaded belt of Indian manufacture, a pretty thing, and she opened her eyes in glad surprise, as he offered it to her.
“For me? Oh, Dan!—Mr. Overton—I—”
She paused, confused at having called him as the Indians called him; but he smiled understandingly.
“We’ll settle that name business right here,” he suggested. “You call me Dan, if it comes easier to you. Just as I call you ’Tana. I don’t know ’Mr. Overton’ very well myself in this country, and you needn’t trouble yourself to remember him. Dan is shorter. If I had a sister, she’d call me Dan, I suppose; so I give you license to do so. As to the belt, I got it, with some other plunder, from some Columbia River reds, and you use it. There is some other stuff in Akkomi’s tepee you’d better put on, too; it’s new stuff—a whole dress—and I think the moccasins will about fit you. I brought over two pairs, to make sure. Now, don’t get any independent notions in your head,” he advised, as she looked at him as though about to protest. “If you go to the States as my ward, you must let me take the management of the outfit. I got the dress for an army friend of mine, who wanted it for his daughter; but I guess it will about fit you, and she will have to wait until next trip. Now, as I’ve settled our business, I’ll be getting back across the river, so until to-morrow, klahowya.”
She stood, awkward and embarrassed, before him. No words would come to her lips to thank him. She had felt desolate and friendless for so long, and now when his kindness was so great, she felt as if she should cry if she spoke at all. Just as she had cried the night before at his compassionate tones and touch.
Suddenly she bent forward for the belt, and with some muttered words he could not distinguish, she grasped his big hand in her little brown fingers, and touching it with her lips, twice—thrice—turned and ran away as swiftly as the little Indians who had run on the shore.
The warm color flushed all over Dan’s face, as he looked a
fter her. Of course, she was only a little girl, but he was devoutly glad Max was not in sight. Max would not have understood aright. Then his eyes traveled back to his hand, where her mouth had touched it. Her kiss had fallen where the scar of the panther’s teeth was.
And this, also, was a wild thing he was taking from the forests!
* * *
CHAPTER V.
AT SINNA FERRY.
“It has been young wolves, an’ bears, an’ other vicious pets—every formed thing, but snakes or redskins, and at last it’s that!”
“Tush, tush, captain! Now, it’s not so bad. Why, I declare, now, I was kind of pleased when I got sight of her. She’s white, anyway, and she’s right smart.”
“Smart!” The captain sniffed, dubiously. “We’ll get a chance to see about that later on, Mrs. Huzzard. But it’s like your—hem! tender heart to have a good word for all comers, and this is only another proof of it.”
“Pshaw! Now, you’re making game, I guess. That’s what you’re up to, captain,” and Mrs. Huzzard attempted a chaste blush and smile, and succeeded in a smirk. “I’m sure, now, that to hem a few neckties an’ sich like for you is no good reason for thinking I’m doing the same for every one that comes around. No, indeed; my heart ain’t so tender as all that.”
The captain, from under his sandy brows, looked with a certain air of satisfaction at the well rounded personality of Mrs. Huzzard. His vanity was gently pleased—she was a fine woman!
“Well, I mightn’t like it so well myself if I thought you’d do as much for any man,” he acknowledged. “There’s too many men at the Ferry who ain’t fit even to eat one of the pies you make.”
Mrs. Huzzard was fluting the edge of a pie at that moment, and looked across the table at the captain, with arch meaning.
“Maybe so; but there’s a right smart lot of fine-looking fellows among them, too; there’s no getting around that.”
The unintelligible mutter of disdain that greeted her words seemed to bring a certain comfort to her widowed heart, for she smiled brightly and flipped the completed pie aside, with an airy grace.
That Girl Montana Page 6
