That Girl Montana
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 after 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.
"Now--now, Captain Leek, you can't be expecting common grubbers of men to
have all the advantages of manners that you've got. No, sir; you can't.
They hain't had the bringing up. They hain't had the schooling, and they
hain't had the soldier drills to teach them to carry themselves like
gentlemen. Now, you've had all that, and it's a sight of profit to you.
But don't be too hard on the folks that ain't jest so finished like as
you. There's that new Rivers girl, now--she ain't a bad sort, though it is
queer to see your boy Dan toting such a stranger into camp, for he never
did seem to take to girls much--did he?"
"It's not so easy to tell what he's taken to in his time," returned the
captain, darkly. "You know he isn't my own boy, as I told you before. He
was eight years old when I married his mother, and after her death he took
the bit in his own teeth, and left home. No great grief to me, for he
wasn't a tender boy to manage!" And Captain Leek heaved a sigh for the
martyrdom he had lived through.
"Oh, well, but see what a fine man he's turned out, and I'm sure no own
son could be better to you," for Mrs. Huzzard was one of the large,
comfortable bodies, who never see any but the brightest side of affairs,
and a good deal of a peacemaker in the little circle where she had taken
up her abode. "Indeed, now, captain, you'll not meet many such fine
fellows in a day's tramp."
"If she'd even been a real Indian," he continued, discontentedly, "it
would have been easier to manage her--to--to put her in some position
where she could earn her own living; for by Dan's words (few enough, too!)
I gather that she has no money back of her. She'll be a dead weight on his
hands, that's what she'll be, and an expensive savage he'll find her, I'll
prophesy."
"Like enough. Young ones of any sort do take a heap of looking after. But
she's smart, as I said before, and I do think it's a sight better to make
room for a likely young girl than to be scared most to death with young
wolves and bears tied around for pets. I was all of a shiver at night on
account of them. I'll take the girl every time. She won't scratch an' claw
at folks, anyway."
"Maybe not," added the captain, who was too contented with his discontent
to let go of it at once. "But no telling what a young animal like that may
develop into. She has no idea whatever of duty, Mrs. Huzzard, or of--of
veneration. She contradicted me squarely this morning when I made some
comment about those beastly redskins; actually set up her ignorance
against my years of service under the American flag, Mrs. Huzzard. Yes,
madame! she did that," and Captain Leek arose in his wrath and tramped
twice across the room, halting again near her table and staring at her as
though defying her to justify that.
When he arose, one could see by the slight unsteadiness in his gait that
the cane in his hand was for practical use. His limp was not a
deformity--in fact, it made him rather more interesting because of it;
people would notice or remember him when nothing else in his personality
would cause them to do so.
For Captain Alphonso Leek was not a striking-looking personage. His blue
eyes had a washed-out, querulous expression. His sandy whiskers had the
appearance of having been blown back from his chin, and lodged just in
front of his ears. An endeavor had been made to train the outlying
portions of his mustache in line with the lengthy, undulating "mutton
chops;" but they had, for well-grounded reasons, failed to connect, and
the effect was somewhat spoiled by those straggling skirmishers, bristling
with importance but waiting in vain for recruits. The top of his head had
got above timber line and glistened in the sun of early summer that
streamed through the clear windows of Mrs. Huzzard's back room.
But as that head was generally covered by a hat that sported a cord and
tassel, and as his bulging breastbone was covered by a dark-blue coat and
vest, on which the brass buttons shone in real military fashion--well, all
those things had their weight in a community where few men wore a coat at
all in warm weather.
Mrs. Huzzard, in the depths of her being, thought it would be a fine thing
to go back to Pennsylvania as "Mrs. Captain," even if the captain wasn't
as forehanded as she'd seen men.
Even the elegant way in which he could do nothing and yet diffuse an air
of importance, was impressive to her admiring soul. The clerical whiskers
and the military dress completed the conquest.
But Mrs. Huzzard, having a bit of native wisdom still left, knew he was
a man who would need managing, and that the best way was not to let his
opinion rule her in all things; therefore, she only laughed cheerily at
his indignation.
"Well, captain, I can't say but she did flare up about the Indians, when
you said they were all thieves and paupers, stealing from the Government,
and all that. But then, by what she says, she has knowed some decent ones
in her time--friends of hers; an' you know any one must say a good word
for a friend. You'd do that yourself."
"Maybe; I don't say I wouldn't," he agreed. "But I do say, the friends
would not be redskins. No, madame! They're no fit friends for a gentleman
to cultivate; and so I have told Dan. And if this girl owns such friends,
it shows plainly enough that the class she belongs to is not a high one.
Dan's mother was a lady, Mrs. Huzzard! She was my wife, madame! And it is
a distress for me to see any one received into our family who does not
come up to that same level. That is just the state of the case, and I
maintain my position in the matter; let Dan take on all the temper he
likes about it."
The lady of the pies did not respond to his remarks at once. She had an
idea that she herself might fall under the ban of Captain Leek's
discriminating eyes, and be excluded from that upper circle of chosen
humanity to which he was born and bred. He liked her pies, her flap-jacks,
and even the many kinds of boiled dinners she was in the habit of
preparing and garnishing with "dumplings." So far as his stomach was
concerned, she could rule supreme, for his digestion was of the best and
her "filling" dishes just suited him. But Lorena Jane Huzzard had read in
the papers some romances of the "gentle folk" he was fond of speaking of
in an intimate way. The gentle folk in her kind of stories always had
titles, military or civil, and were generally English lords and ladies;
the villains, as generally, were French or Italian. But think as she might
over the whole list, she could remember none in which the highbred scion
of blue blood had married either a cook or a milliner. One might marry the
milliner if she was very young and madly beautiful, but Lorena Jane was
neither. She remembered also that beautiful though the milliner or
bailiff's daughter, or housekeeper's niece might be, it was only the
villain in high life who married her. Then the marriage always turned out
at last to be a sham, and the milliner generally died of a broken heart.
So Mrs. Huzzard sighed and, with a thoughtful face, stirred up the batter
pudding.
Captain Leek had given her food for reflection of which he was little
aware, and it was quite a little while before she remembered to answer his
remarks.
"So Mr. Dan is showing temper, too, is he? Well--well--that's a pity. He's
a good boy, captain. I wouldn't waste my time to go against him, if I was
you, and there he is now. Good-morning, Mr. Dan! Come right in! Breakfast
over, but I'll get you up a bite at any time, and welcome. It does seem
right nice for you to be back in town again."
Overton entered at her bidding, and smiled down from his tall stature to
the broad, good-natured face she turned to him.
"Breakfast! Why, I'm thinking more about dinner, Mrs. Huzzard. I was up in
the hills last night, and had a camp breakfast before you city folks were
stirring. Where's 'Tana?"
A dubious sniff from Captain Leek embarrassed Mrs. Huzzard for a moment.
She thought he meant to answer and hesitated to give him a chance. But the
sniff seemed to express all he wanted to say, and she flushed a little at
its evident significance.
"Well, what's the matter now?" demanded the younger man, impatiently,
"where is she--do you know?"
"Oh--why, yes--of course we do," said Mrs. Huzzard hurriedly. "I didn't
mean to leave you without an answer--no, indeed. But the fact is, the
captain is set against something I did this morning, but I do hope you
won't be. Whatever they know or don't know in sussiety, the girl was
ignorant of it as could be when she asked to go, and so was I when I let
her. That's the gospel truth, and I do hope you won't have hard feeling
against me for it."