That Girl Montana
card in a disturbed, uncertain way. "Do you travel East, Mr.--Mr. Harvey?
Yes? Well, let me introduce Mr. Seldon's nephew--he's a New Yorker--Max
Lyster. Wait a minute and I'll get him away from those beastly Indians. I
never can understand the attraction they have for the average tourist."
But when he reached Lyster he said not a word of the despised reds; he had
other matters more important.
"Here, Max! A most annoying thing has happened," he said, hurriedly.
"Those two men are newspaper fellows, and one is going East on our train.
Worse still--the one knows people I know. Gad! I'd rather lose a thousand
dollars than meet them now! And you must come over and get acquainted.
They've been here a month, and are to write accounts of the life and
country. That means they have been here long enough to hear all about
'Tana and that Holly. Do you understand? You'll have to treat them
well,--the best possible--pull wires even if it costs money, and fix it so
that a record of this does not get into the Eastern papers. And, above and
beyond everything else, so long as we are in this depraved corner of the
country, you must keep them from noticing that girl Montana."
The young man looked across at the girl, and smiled doubtfully.
"I'm willing to undertake any possible thing for you," he said; "but, my
dear sir, to keep people from noticing 'Tana is one of the things beyond
my power. And if she gives notice to all the men who will notice her, I've
an idea jealousy will turn my hair gray early. But come on and introduce
your man, and don't get in a fever over the meeting. I am so fortunate
as to know more of the journalistic fraternity than you, and I happen to
be aware that they are generally gentlemen. Therefore, you'd better not
drop any hints to them of monetary advantages in exchange for silence
unless you want to be beautifully roasted by a process only possible in
printer's ink."
The older man uttered an exclamation of impatience, as he led his young
companion over to the sportsmen, who had joined each other again; and as
he effected the introduction, his mind was sorely upset by dread of the
two gentlemanly strangers and 'Tana.
'Tana was most shamelessly continuing her confidences with the tall
Indian, despite the fact that she knew it was a decided annoyance to her
principal escort. Altogether the evening was a trying one to Mr. T. J.
Haydon.
The sun had passed far to the west, and the shadows were growing longer
under the hills there by the river. Clear, red glints fell across the cool
ripples of the water, and slight chill breaths drifted down the ravines
and told that the death of summer was approaching.
Some sense of the beauty of the dying October day seemed to touch the
girl, for she walked a little apart and picked a spray of scarlet maple
leaves and looked from them to the hills and the beautiful valley, where
the red and the yellow were beginning to crowd out the greens. Yes, the
summer was dying--dying! Other summers would come in their turn, but none
quite the same. The girl showed all the feeling of its loss in her face.
In her eyes the quick tears came, as she looked at the mountains. The
summer was dying; it was autumn's colors she held in her hand, and she
shivered, though she stood in the sunshine.
As she turned toward the group again, she met the eyes of the stranger to
whom Max was talking. He seemed to have been watching her with a great
deal of interest, and her hand was raised to her eyes, lest a trace of
tears should prove food for curiosity.
"It was to one of Akkomi's relations I was talking," she remarked to Mr.
Haydon, when he questioned her. "His little grandson is sick, and I would
like to send him something. I haven't money enough in my pocket, and wish
you would get me some."
After taking some money out of his purse for her, he eyed the tall savage
with disfavor.
"He'll buy bad whisky with it," he grumbled.
"No, he will not," contradicted the girl. "If a person treats these
Indians square, he can trust them. But if a lie is told them, or a promise
broken--well, they get even by tricking you if they can, and I can't say
that I blame them. But they won't trick me, so don't worry; and I'm as
sure the things will go to that little fellow safely as though I took
them."
She was giving the money and some directions to the Indian, when a word
from a squaw drew her attention to the river.
A canoe had just turned the bend not a quarter of a mile away, and was
skimming the water with the swiftness of a swallow's dart. Only one man
was in it, and he was coming straight for the landing.
"Some miner rushing down to see the train go by," remarked Mr. Haydon; but
the girl did not answer. Her face grew even more pale, and her hands
clasped each other nervously.
"Yes," said the Indian beside her, and nodded to her assuringly. Then the
color swept upward over her face as she met his kindly glance, and
drawing herself a little straighter, she walked indifferently away.
The stolid red man did not look at all snubbed; he only pocketed the money
she had given him, and looked after her with a slight smile, accented more
by the deepening wrinkles around his black eyes than by any change about
the lips.
Then there was a low rumbling sound borne on the air, and as the muffled
whistle of the unseen train came to them from the wilderness to the west,
with one accord the Indians turned their attention to their wares, and the
white people to their baggage. When the train slowed up Mr. Haydon, barely
waiting for the last revolution of the wheels, energetically hastened the
young girl up the steps of the car nearest them.
"What's the hurry?" she asked, with a slight impatience.
"I think," he replied quickly, "there is but a short stop made at this
station, and as there are several vacant seats in this car, please occupy
one of them until I have seen the conductor. There may be some changes
made as to the compartments engaged for us. Until that is decided, will
you be so kind as to remain in this coach?"
She nodded rather indifferently, and looked around for Max. He was
gathering up some robes and satchels when the older man joined him.
"We are not going to make the trip to Chicago in the car with those
fellows if it can be helped, Max," he insisted, fussily; "we'll wait and
see what car they are booked for, and I'll arrange for another. Sorry I
did not get a special, as I first intended."
"But see here; they are first-class fellows--worth one's while to meet,"
protested Max; but the other shook his head.
"Look after the baggage while I see the conductor. 'Tana is in one of the
cars--don't know which. We'll go for her when we get settled. Now, don't
argue. Time is too precious."
And 'Tana! She seated herself rather sulkily, as she was told, and looked
at once toward the river.
The canoe was landing, and the man jumped to the shore. With quick,
determined strides, he came across the land to the train. She tried to
follow him with her eyes, but he crossed to the other side of the track.
There was rather a boisterous party in the car--two men and two women. One
of the latter, a flaxen-haired, petite creature, was flitting from one
side of the car to the other, making remarks about the Indians, admiring
particularly one boy's beaded dress, and garnishing her remarks with a
good deal of slang.
"Say, Chub! that boy's suit would be a great 'make-up' for me in that new
turn--the jig, you know; new, too. There isn't a song-and-dance on the
boards done with Indian make-up. Knock them silly in the East, where they
don't see reds. Now sing out, and tell me if it wouldn't make a hit."
"Aw, Goldie, give us a rest on shop talk," growled the gentleman called
Chub. "If you'd put a little more ginger into the good specialty you have,
instead of depending on wardrobe, you'd hit 'em hard enough. It ain't
plans that count, girlie--it's work."
The "girlie" addressed accepted the criticism with easy indifference, and
her fair, dissipated face was only twisted in a grimace, while she held
one hand aloft and jingled the bangles on her bracelets as though
poising a tambourine.
"Better hustle yourself into the smoker again, Chubby dear. It will take a
half-dozen more cigars to put you in your usual sweet frame of mind. Run
along now. Ta-ta!"
The other woman seemed to think their remarks very witty, especially when
Chub really did arise and make his way toward the smoker. Goldie then went
back to the window, where the Indians were to be seen. The quartet were,
to judge by their own frank remarks, a party of variety singers and
dancers who had been doing the Pacific circuit, and were now booked for
some Eastern houses, of which they spoke as "solid."
Some of the passengers had got out and were buying little things from the
Indians, as souvenirs of the country. 'Tana saw Mr. Haydon among them, in
earnest conversation with the conductor; saw Max, with his hand full of
satchels, suddenly reach out the other hand with a great deal of
heartiness and meet the man of the canoe.
He was not so handsome a man as Max, yet would have been noticeable
anywhere--tall, olive-skinned, and dark-haired. His dress had not the
fashionable cut of the young fellow he spoke to. But he wore his buckskin
jacket with a grace that bespoke physical strength and independence; and
when he pushed his broad-brimmed gray hat back from his face, he showed a
pair of dark eyes that had a very direct glance. They were serious,
contemplative eyes, that to some might look even moody.
"There is a fellow with a great figure," remarked the other woman of the
quartet; "that fellow with the sombrero; built right up from the ground,
and looks like a picture; don't he, Charlie?"
"I can't see him," complained Goldie, "but suppose it's one of the
ranchmen who live about here." Then she turned and donated a brief survey
to 'Tana. "Do you live in this region?" she asked.
After a deliberate, contemptuous glance from the questioner's frizzed head
to her little feet, 'Tana answered:
"No; do you?"
With this curt reply, she turned her shoulder very coolly on the searcher
for information.
Vexation sent the angry blood up into the little woman's face. She looked
as though about to retort, when a gentleman who had just taken possession
of a compartment, and noted all that had passed, came forward and
addressed our heroine.
"Until your friends come in, will you not take my seat?" he asked,
courteously. "I will gladly make the exchange, or go for Mr. Lyster or Mr.
Haydon, if you desire it."
"Thank you; I will take your seat," she agreed. "It is good of you to
offer it."
"Say, folks, I'm going outside to take in this free Wild West show,"
called the variety actress to her companions. "Come along?"
But they declined. She had reached the platform alone, when, coming toward
the car, she saw the man of the sombrero, and shrank back with a gasp of
utter dismay.
"Oh, good Heaven!" she muttered, and all the color and bravado were gone
from her face, as she shrank back out of his range of vision and almost
into the arms of the man Harvey, who had given the other girl his seat.
"What's up?" he asked, bluntly.
She only gave a muttered, unintelligible reply, pushed past him to her own
seat, where her feather-laden hat was donned with astonishing rapidity, a
great cloak was thrown around her, and she sank into a corner, a huddled
mass of wraps and feathers. Any one could have walked along the aisle
without catching even a glimpse of her flaxen hair.
'Tana and the stranger exchanged looks of utter wonder at the lightning
change effected before their eyes.
At that moment a tap-tap sounded on the window beside 'Tana, and, looking
around, she met the dark eyes of the man with the sombrero gazing kindly