That Girl Montana

by Ryan, Marah Ellis

  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.”