“You mean you think me the sort of fellow to break our engagement just because these fools have mixed you up with this horror?” he asked, angrily. “You’ve no right to think that of me; neither have you the right—in justice to me as well as yourself—to maintain this very suggestive manner about all things connected with the murder. Why can you not tell more clearly where your time was spent last evening? Why will you not tell where the ring came from? Why will you see me half-frantic over the whole miserable affair, when you could, I am sure, easily change it?”
“Oh, Max, I don’t want to worry you—indeed I don’t! But—” and she smiled mirthlessly. “I told you once I was a ’hoodoo.’ The people who like me are always sure to have trouble brewing for them. That is why I say you had better give me up, Max; for this is only the beginning.”
“Don’t talk like that; it is folly,” he said, in a sharp tone. “‘Hoodoo!’ Nonsense! When Overton and the others arrive, they will find a means of changing the ideas of these people, in spite of your reticence; and then maybe old Akkomi may find words, too. He sits outside the door as impassive as the clay image you gave me and bewitched me with.”
She smiled faintly, thinking of those days—how very long ago they seemed, yet it was this same summer.
“I feel as if I had lived a long time since I played with that clay,” she said, wistfully; “so many things have been made different for me.”
Then she arose and walked about the little room restlessly, while the eyes of Harris never left her. Into the other room she had not gone at all, for in it was the dead stranger.
“When do you look for your uncle and Mr. Haydon?” she asked, at last, for the silences were hardest to endure.
She would laugh, or argue, or ridicule—do anything rather than sit silent with questioning eyes upon her. She even grew to fancy that Harris must accuse her—he watched her so!
“When do we look for them? Well, I don’t dare let myself decide. I only hope they may have made a start back, and will meet the captain on his way. As to Dan—he had not so very much the start, and they ought to catch up with him, for there were the two Indian canoeists—the two best ones; and when they are racing over the water, with an object, they surely ought to make better time than he. I can’t see that he had any very pressing reason for going at all.”
“He doesn’t talk much about his reasons,” she answered.
“No; that’s a fact,” he agreed, “and less of late than when I knew him first. But he’ll make Akkomi talk, maybe, when he arrives—and I hope you, too.”
“When he arrives!”
She thought the words, but did not say them aloud. She sat long after Max had left her, and thought how many hours must elapse before they discovered that Dan had not followed the other men to the lake works. She felt sure that he was somewhere in the wilderness, avoiding the known paths, alone, and perhaps hating her as the cause of his isolation, because she would not confess what the man was to her, but left him blindly to keep his threat, and kill him when found in her room.
Ah! why not have trusted him with the whole truth? She asked herself the question as she sat there, but the mere thought of it made her face grow hot, and her jaws set defiantly.
She would not—she could not! so she told herself. Better—better far be suspected of a murder—live all her life under the blame of it for him—than to tell him of a past that was dead to her now, a past she hated, and from which she had determined to bar herself as far as silence could build the wall. And to tell him—him—she could not.
But even as she sat, with her burning face in her hands, quick, heavy steps came to the door, halted, and looking up she found Dan before her.
“Oh! you should not,” she whispered, hurriedly. “Why did you come back? They do not suspect; they think I did it—and so—”
“What does this all mean?—what do you mean?” he asked. “Can’t you speak?”
It seemed she could not find any more words, she stared at him so helplessly.
“Max, come here!” he called, to hasten steps already approaching. “Come, all of you; I had only a moment to listen to the captain when he caught up with me. But he told me she is suspected of murder—that a ring she wore last night helped the suspicion on. I didn’t wait to hear any more, for I gave the little girl that snake ring—gave it to her weeks ago. I bought it from a miner, and he told me he got it from an Indian near Karlo. Now are you ready to suspect me, too, because I had it first?”
“The ring wasn’t just the most important bit of circumstantial evidence, Mr. Overton,” answered the man named Saunders; “and we are all mighty glad you’ve got here. It was in her room the man was found, and a knife she borrowed from you was what killed him; and of where she was just about the time the thing happened she won’t say anything.”
His face paled slightly as he looked at her and heard the brief summing up of the case.
“My knife?” he said, blankly.
“Yes, sir. When some one said it was your knife, she spoke up and said it was, but that you had not had it since noon, for she borrowed it then to cut a stick; but beyond that she don’t tell a thing.”
“Who is the man?”
“The renegade—Lee Holly.”
“Lee Holly!” He turned a piercing glance on Harris, remembering the deep interest he had shown in that man Lee Holly and his partner, “Monte.”
Harris met his gaze without flinching, and nodded his head as if in assent.
And that was the man found dead in her room!
The faces of the people seemed for a moment an indistinct blur before his eyes; then he rallied and turned to her.
“’Tana, you never did it,” he said, reassuringly; “or if you did, it has been justifiable, and I know it. If it was necessary to do it in any self-defense, don’t be afraid to tell it all plainly. No one would blame you. It is only this mystery that makes them want to hear the truth.”
She only looked at him. Was he acting? Did he himself know nothing? The hope that it was so—that she had deceived herself—made her tremble as she had not at danger to herself. She had risen to her feet as he entered, but she swayed as if to fall, and he caught her, not knowing it was hope instead of despair that took the color from her face and left her helpless.
“Courage, ’Tana! Tell us what you can. I left you just as the moon came up. I saw you go to Mrs. Huzzard’s tent. Now, where did you go after that?”
“What?” almost shouted Lyster. “You were with her when the moon rose. Are you sure?”
“Sure? Of course I am. Why?”
“And how long before that, Mr. Overton?” asked Saunders; “for that is a very important point.”
“About a half-hour, I should say—maybe a little more,” he answered, staring at them. “Now, what important thing does that prove?”
One of the men gave a cheer; three or four had come up to the door when they saw Overton, and they took the yell up with a will. Mrs. Huzzard started to run from the tent, but grew so nervous that she had to wait until Miss Slocum came to her aid.
“What in the world does it mean?” she gasped.
Saunders turned around with an honestly pleased look.
“It means that Mr. Overton here has brought word that clears Miss Rivers of being at the cabin when the murder was done—that’s what it means; and we are all too glad over it to keep quiet. But why in the world didn’t you tell us that, miss?”
But she did not say a word. All about Dan were exclamations and disjointed sentences, from which he could gain little actual knowledge, and he turned to Lyster, impatiently:
“Can’t you tell me—can’t some of you tell me, what I have cleared up for her? When was this killing supposed to be done?”
“At or a little before moonrise,” said Max, his face radiant once more. “’Tana—don’t you know what he has done for you? taken away all of that horribly mistaken suspicion you let rest on you. Where was she, Dan?”
“Last night? Oh, up above the
bluff there—went up when the pretty red lights were in the sky, and staid until the moon rose. I came across her up there, and advised her not to range away alone; so, when she got good and ready, she walked back again, and went to the tent where you folks were. Then I struck the creek, decided I would take a run up the lake, and left without seeing any of you again. And all this time ’Tana has had a guard over her. Some of you must have been crazy.”
“Well, then, I guess I was the worst lunatic of the lot,” confessed Saunders. “But to tell the truth, Mr. Overton, it looks to me now as if she encouraged suspicion—yes, it does. ‘Overton’s knife,’ said some one; but, quick as could be, she spoke up and said it was she who had it, and she didn’t mind just where she left it. And as to where she was at that time, well, she just wouldn’t give us a bit of satisfaction. Blest if I don’t think she wanted us to suspect her.”
“Oh!” he breathed, as if in understanding, and her first words swept back to him, her nervous—“Why did you come back? They suspect me!” Surely that cry was as a plea for his own safety; it spoke through eyes and voice as well as words. Some glimmer of the truth came to him.
“Come, ’Tana!” he said, and reached his hand to her. “Where is the man—Holly? I should like to go in. Will you come, too?”
She rose without a word, and no one attempted to follow them.
Mrs. Huzzard heaved a prodigious sigh of content.
“Oh, that girl Montana!” she exclaimed. “I declare she ain’t like any girl I ever did see! This morning, when she was a suspected criminal, she was talky, and even laughed, and now that she’s cleared, she won’t lift her head to look at any one. I do wonder if that sort of queerness is catching in these woods. I declare I feel most scared enough to leave.”
But Lyster reassured her.
“Remember how sick she has been; and think what a shock this whole affair has been to weak nerves,” he said, for with Dan’s revelations he had grown blissfully content once more, “and as for that fellow hearing voices in her cabin—nonsense! She had been reading some poem or play aloud. She is fond of reading so, and does it remarkably well. He heard her spouting in there for the benefit of Harris, and imagined she was making threats to some one. Poor little girl! I’m determined she sha’n’t remain here any longer.”
“Are you?” asked Mrs. Huzzard, dryly. “Well, Mr. Max, so long as I’ve known her, I’ve always found ’Tana makes her own determinations—and sticks to them, too.”
“I’m glad to be reminded of that,” he retorted, “for she promised me yesterday to marry me some time.”
“Bless my soul!”
“If she didn’t change her mind,” he added, laughingly.
“To marry you! Well, well, well!” and she stared at him so queerly, that a shade of irritation crossed his face.
“Why not?” he asked. “Don’t you think that a plain, ordinary man is good enough for your wild-flower of the Kootenai hills?”
“Oh, you’re not plain at all, Mr. Max Lyster,” she returned, “and I’ll go bail many a woman who is smarter than either ’Tana or me has let you know it! It ain’t the plainness—it’s the difference. And—well, well! you know you’ve been quarreling ever since you met.”
“But that is all over now,” he promised; “and haven’t you a good wish for us?”
“Indeed I have, then—a many of them, but you have surprised me. I used to think that’s how it would end; and then—well, then, a different notion got in my head. Now that it’s settled, I do hope you will be happy. Bless the child! I’ll go and tell her so this minute.”
“No,” he said, quickly, “let her and Dan have their talk out—if she will talk to him. That fever left her queer in some things, and one of them is her avoidance of Dan. She hasn’t been free and friendly with him as she used to be, and it is too bad; for he is such a good fellow, and would do anything for her.”
“Yes, he would,” assented Mrs. Huzzard.
“And she will be her own spirited self in a few weeks—when she gets away from here—and gets stronger. She’ll appreciate Dan more after a while, for there are few like him. And so—as she is to go away so soon, I hope something will put them on their former confidential footing. Maybe this murder will be the something.”
“You are a good friend, Mr. Max,” said the woman, slowly, “and you deserve to be a lucky lover. I’m sure I hope so.”
Within the cabin, those two of whom they spoke stood together beside the dead outlaw, and their words were low—so low that the paralyzed man in the next room listened in vain.
“And you believed that of me—of me?” he asked, and she answered, falteringly:
“How did I know? You said—you threatened—you would kill him—any man you found in here. So, when he was here dead, I—did not know.”
“And you thought I had stuck that knife in him and left?”
She nodded her head.
“And you thought,” he continued, in a voice slightly tremulous, “that you were giving me a chance to escape just so long as you let them suspect—you?”
She did not answer, but turned toward the door. He held his arm out and barred her way.
“Only a moment!” he said, pleadingly. “It never can be that—that I would be anything to you, little girl—never, never! But—just once—let me tell you a truth that shall never hurt you, I swear! I love you! No other word but that will tell your dearness to me. I—I never would have said it, but—but what you risked for me has broken me down. It has told me more than your words would tell me, and I—Oh, God! my God!”
She shrank from the passion in his words and tone, but the movement only made him catch her arm and hold her there. Tears were in his eyes as he looked at her, and his jaws were set firmly.
“You are afraid of me—of me?” he asked. “Don’t be. Life will be hard enough now without leaving me that to remember. I’m not asking a word in return from you; I have no right. You will be happy somewhere else—and with some one else—and that is right.”
He still held her wrist, and they stood in silence. She could utter no word; but her mouth trembled and she tried to smother a sob that arose in her throat.
But he heard it.
“Don’t!” he said, almost in a whisper—“for God’s sake, don’t cry. I can’t stand that—not your tears. Here! be brave! Look up at me, won’t you? See! I don’t ask you for a word or a kiss or a thought when you leave me—only let me see your eyes! Look at me!”
What he read in her trembling lips and her shrinking, shamed eyes made him draw his breath hard through his shut teeth.
“My brave little girl!” he said softly. “You will think harshly of me for this some day—if you ever know—know all. But what you did this morning made a coward of me—that and my longing for you. Try to forgive me. Or, no—you had better not. And when you are his wife—Oh, it’s no use—I can’t think or speak of that—yet. Good-by, little girl—good-by!”
* * *
CHAPTER XXIV.
LEAVING CAMP.
Afterward, ’Tana never could remember clearly the incidents of the few days that followed. Only once more she entered the cabin of death, and that was when Mr. Haydon and Mr. Seldon returned with all haste to the camp, after meeting with Captain Leek and the Indian boatman.
Then, as some of the men offered to go with them to view the remains of the outlaw, she came forward.
“No. I will take them,” she said.
When Mr. Haydon demurred, feeling that a young girl should be kept as much as possible from such scenes, she had laid her hand on Seldon’s arm.
“Come!” she said, and they went with her.
But when inside the door, she did not approach the blanket-covered form stretched on the couch; only pointed toward it, and stood herself like a guard at the entrance.
When Seldon lifted the Indian blanket from the face, he uttered a startled exclamation, and looked strangely at her. She never turned around.
“What is it?” asked Mr. Haydo
n.
No one replied, and as he looked with anxiety toward the form there, his face grew ashen in its horror.
“Lord in heaven!” he gasped; “first her on that bed and now him! I—I feel as if I was haunted in this camp. Seldon, is it—is it—”
“No mistake possible,” answered the other man, decidedly. “I could swear to the identity. It is George Rankin!”
“And Holly, the renegade!” added Haydon, in consternation; “and Lord only knows how many other aliases he has worn. Oh, what a sensation the papers would make over this if they got hold of it all. My! my! it would be awful! And that girl, Montana, as she calls herself, she has been clever to keep it quiet as she has, for—Oh, Lord!”
“What is the matter now? You look fairly sick,” said the other, impatiently. “I didn’t fancy you’d grieve much over his death.”
“No, it isn’t that,” said Haydon, huskily. “But that girl—don’t you see she was accused of this? And—well seeing who he is, how do we know—”
He stopped awkwardly, unable to continue with the girl herself so near and with Seldon’s warning glance directed to him.
She leaned against the wall, and apparently had not heard their words. Seldon’s face softened as he looked at her; and, going over, he put his hand kindly on her hair.
“I am going to be your uncle, now,” he said in a caressing tone. “You have kept up like a soldier under some terrible things here; but we will try to make things brighter for you now.”
She smiled in a dreary way without looking at him. His knowledge of the terrible things she had endured seemed to her very limited.
“And you will go now with us—with Mr. Haydon—back to your mother’s old home, won’t you?” he said, in a persuasive way. “It is not good, you know, for a little girl not to know any of her relations, or to bear such shocking grudges,” he added, in a lower tone.
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