That Girl Montana
"I've just been getting an idea of the direction your fancies are taking,"
he said mockingly, "and they're very pretty, but I reckon you'll change
them to oblige me; what I'm doing for her is what I'd do for any other
child left alone. But as this child doesn't happen to be a boy, I can't
take it on the trail, and a ranger like me is not fit to look after her,
anyway. I think I told you before, I'm not a marrying man, and she, of
course, would not look at me if I was; so what does it matter about her
thinking of me? Of course, she won't--it ain't my intention. Even if she
leaves these diggings some day and forgets all about me, just as the young
wolves or wildcats do--well, what difference? I've helped old bums all
over the country, and never heard or wanted to hear of them again, and I'm
sure it's more worth one's while to help a young girl. Now, you're a nice
little woman, Mrs. Huzzard, and I like you. But if you and I are to keep
on being good friends, don't you speak like that about the child and me.
It's very foolish. If she should hear it, she'd leave us some fine night,
and we'd never learn her address."
Then he put on his hat, nodded to her, and walked out of the door as
though averse to any further discussion of the subject.
"Bums all over the country!" repeated Mrs. Huzzard, looking after him
darkly. "Well, Mr. Dan Overton, it's well for you that ward of yours, as
you call her, wasn't near enough to hear that speech. And you're not a
marrying man, are you? Well, well, I guess there's many a man and woman,
too, goes through life and don't know what they might be, just because
they never meet with the right person who could help them to learn, and
you're just of that sort. Not a marrying man! Humph! When there's not a
better favored one along this valley--that there ain't."
She fidgeted about the dinner preparations, filled with a puzzled
impatience as to why Dan Overton should thus decidedly state that he was
not one of the men to marry, though all the rest of the world might fall
into the popular habit if they chose.
"It's the natural ambition of creation," she declared in confidence to the
dried peach-pie she was slipping from the oven. "Of course, being as I'm a
widow myself, I can't just make that statement to men folks promiscuous
like. But it's true, and every man ought to know it's true, and why Dan
Overton--"
She paused in the midst of her soliloquy, and dropped into the nearest
chair, while a light of comprehension illuminated her broad face.
"To think it never came in my mind before," she ejaculated. "That's it!
Poor boy! he's had a girl somewhere and she's died, I suppose, or married
some other fellow; and that's why he's a bachelor at nearly thirty, I
guess," she added, thoughtfully. "She must have died, and that's why he
never looks as gay or goes on larks with the other boys. He just goes on a
lone trail mostly, Dan does. Even his own stepfather don't seem to have
much knowledge about him. Well, well! I always did feel that he had some
sort of trouble lookin' out of them dark eyes of his, and his words to-day
makes it plain to me all at once. Well, well!"
The pensive expression of her face, as it rested on her fat hand, was
evidence that Lorena Jane Huzzard had, after all, found a romance in real
life suited to her fancy, and the unconscious hero was Dan Overton. Poor
Dan!
The grieving hero to whom her thoughts went out was at that moment walking
in a most prosaic, lazy fashion down the main thoroughfare of the
settlement. The road led down to the Ferry from seemingly nowhere in
particular, for from the Ferry on both sides of the river the road
dwindled into mere trails that slipped away into the wildernesses--trails
traveled by few of the white race until a few short years ago, and then
only by the most daring of hunters, or the most persevering of the
gold-seekers.
In the paths where gold is found the dwellings of man soon follow, and the
quickly erected shanties and more pretentious buildings of Sinna Ferry had
grown there as evidence that the precious metals in that region were no
longer visionary things of the enthusiasts, but veritable facts. The men
who came to it along the water, or over the inland trails, were all in
some way connected with the opening up of the new mining fields.
Overton himself had drifted up there as an independent prospector, two
years before. Then, when works were got under way all along that river and
lake region, when a reliable man was needed by the transfer company to
get specie to their men for pay-days, it was Overton to whom was given the
responsibility.
Various responsible duties he had little by little shouldered, until, as
Lyster said, he seemed a necessity to a large area, yet he had not quite
abandoned the dreams with which he had entered those cool Northern lands.
Some day, when the country was more settled and transportation easier, it
was his intention to slip again up into the mountains, along some little
streams he knew, and work out there in quietness his theories as to where
the gold was to be found.
Meantime, he was contented enough with his lot. No vaulting ambition
touched him. He was merely a ranger of the Kootenai country, and was as
welcome in the scattered lodges of the Indians as he was in the camps of
the miners. He even wore clothes of Indian make, perhaps for the novelty
of them, or perhaps because the buckskin was better suited than cloth to
the wild trails over which he rode. And if, at times, he drifted into talk
of existence beyond the frontier, and gave one an idea that he had drunk
of worldly life deep enough to be tired of it, those times were rare; even
Lyster had but once known him to make reference to it--that one evening
after their ride along the falls of the Kootenai.
But however tired he might at some time have grown of the life of cities,
he was not at all too _blase_ to accommodate himself to Sinna Ferry. If
poor Mrs. Huzzard had seen the very hearty drink of whisky with which he
refreshed himself after his talk with her, she would not have been so apt
to think of him with such pensive sympathy.
The largest and most popular saloon was next door to the postoffice, the
care of which Dan had secured for his stepfather, as the duties of it were
just about as arduous as any that gentleman would deign to accept. The
mail came every two weeks, and its magnitude was of the fourth-class
order. No one else wanted it, for a man would have to possess some other
means of livelihood before he could undertake it, but the captain accepted
it with the attitude of a veteran who was a martyr to his country. As to
the other means of livelihood, that did not cause him much troubled
thought, since he had chanced to fall in Dan's way just as Dan was
starting up to the Kootenai country, and Dan had been the "other means"
ever since.
The captain watched Overton gulp down the "fire-water," while he himself
sipped his with the appreciation of a gentleman of leisure.
"You didn't use to drink so early in the day," the captain remarked, with
a certain watchful malice in his face. "Are your cares as a guardian
wearing on your nerves, and bringing a need of stimulants?"
Overton wheeled about as though to fling the whisky-glass across at the
speaker; but the gallant captain, perceiving that he had overreached his
stepson's patience, promptly dodged around the end of the bar, squatting
close to the floor. Overton, leaning over to look at him, only laughed
contemptuously, and set the glass down again.
"You're not worth the price of the glass," he decided, amused in spite of
himself at the fear in the pale-blue eyes. Even the flowing side-whiskers
betrayed a sort of alarm in their bristling alertness. "And if it wasn't
that one good woman fancied you were true metal instead of slag, I'd--"
He did not complete the sentence, leaving the captain in doubt as to his
half-expressed threat.
"Get up there!" Dan suddenly exclaimed. "Now, you think you will annoy me
about that guardianship until I'll give it up, don't you?" he said, more
quietly, as the captain once more stood erect, but in a wavering,
uncertain way. "Well, you're mightily mistaken, and you might as well end
your childish interference right here. The girl is as much entitled to my
consideration as you are--more! So if any one is dropped out of the family
circle, it will not be her. Do you understand? And if I hear another word
of your insinuations about her amusements, I'll break your neck! Two,
Jim."
This last was to the barkeeper, and had reference to a half-dollar he
tossed on the counter as payment for his own drink and that of the
captain; and again he stalked into the street with his temper even more
rumpled than when he left Mrs. Huzzard's.
Assuredly it was not a good morning for Mr. Overton's peace of mind.
Down along the river he came in sight of the cause of his discontent, the
most innocent-looking cause in the world. She was teaching Lyster to
paddle the canoe with but one paddle, as the Indians do, and was laughing
derisively at his ineffectual attempts to navigate in a straight line.
"You--promised--Mrs. Huzzard--you'd--take--care--of--me," she said, slowly
and emphatically, "and a pretty way you're doing it. Suppose I depended on
you getting me in to shore for my dinner, how many hours do you think I'd
have to go without eating? Just about sixteen. Give me that paddle, and
don't upset the canoe when you move."
These commands Mr. Lyster obeyed with alacrity.
"What a clever little girl you are!" he said, admiringly, as she sent the
canoe skimming straight as a swallow for the shore. "Now, Overton would
appreciate your skill at this sort of work"--and then he laughed a
little--"much more than he would your modeling in clay."
A dark flush crept over her face, and her lips straightened.
"Why shouldn't he look down on that sort of pottering around?" she
demanded. "_He_ isn't the sort of man who has time to waste on trifles."
"Why that emphasis on the _he_?" asked her tormentor. "Do you mean to
insinuate that I do waste time on trifles? Well, well! is that the way I
get snubbed, because I grow enthusiastic over your artistic modeling and
your most charming voice, Miss 'Tana?"
She flashed one sulky, suspicious look at him, and paddled on in silence.
"What a stormy shadow lurks somewhere back of your eyes," he continued,
lazily. "One moment you are all sugar and cream to a fellow, and the next
you are an incipient tornado. I think you might distribute your frowns a
little among the people you know, and not give them all to me. Now,
there's Overton--"
"Don't you talk about him," she commanded, sharply. "You do a lot of
making fun about folks, but don't you go on making fun of him, if that's
what you're trying to do. If it's _me_--pooh!" and she looked at him,
saucily. "I don't care much what you think about me; but Dan--"
"Oh! Dan, then, happens to-day to be one of the saints in your calendar,
and plain mortals like myself must not take his name in vain--is that
it? What a change from this time yesterday!--for I don't think you sent
him to the hills in a very angelic mood. And you!--well, I found you with
a clay Indian crumbled to pieces in your destroying hands; so I don't
imagine Dan's talk to you left a very peaceful impression."
He laughed at her teasingly, expecting to see her show temper again, but
she did not. She only bent her head a little lower, and when she lifted
it, she looked at him with a certain daring.
"He was right, and I was silly, I guess. He was good--so good, and I'm
mostly bad. I was bad to him, anyway, but I ain't too much of a baby to
say so. And if he's mad at me when he comes back, I'll just pack my traps
and take another trail."