That Girl Montana
the sort of friends who have to be baited with money, anyway."
He stared at her helplessly. She was saying to him the things he had
called himself a fool for thinking. But he could not call her a fool. He
could only stifle an impatient groan, and wonder how he was to reason her
into thinking as other girls would think of wealth and its advantages.
"Why were you so wild about finding the gold, if you care so little for
the things it brings?" he demanded, and she pointed toward the tents.
"It was for him I thought at first--of how the money would, maybe, help to
make him well--get him great doctors, and all that. The world had been
rough on him--people had brought him trouble, and--and I thought, maybe, I
could help clear it away. That was what I had in my mind at first."
"You need things, too, don't you?--not doctors, but education--books,
beautiful things. You want pictures, statues, fine music, theaters--all
such things. Well, the money will help you get them, and get people to
enjoy them with you. I've heard you talk to Max about how you would like
to live, and what you would like to see; and I think you can soon. But,
'Tana, you will live then where people will be more critical than we are
here--"
"More like Captain Leek?" she asked, with a deep wrinkle between her
brows; "for if they are, I'll stay here."
"N--no; not like him; and yet they will think considerable of his sort of
ideas, too," he answered, blunderingly. "One thing sure is this: When your
actual work here is over, you must go at once back to Mrs. Huzzard. It was
necessary for you to come, else I wouldn't have allowed it. But, little
girl, when you get among those fine friends you are going to have, I don't
want them to think you had a guardian up here who didn't take the first
bit of civilized care of you. And that's what they would think if I let
you stay here, just as though you were a boy. So you see, 'Tana, I just
felt I'd have to tell you plain that you would have to try and fit
yourself to city ways of living. And when you are a millionairess, as you
count on being, we three partners can't keep on living in tents in the
Kootenai woods."
She pulled handfuls of the plumy grasses beside her, and stared sulkily
ahead of her. Evidently it was a great deal for her to understand at
once.
"Would they blame you--_you_ for it, if they knew?" she asked at last.
"Yes, they would--if they knew," he said, savagely; and turning away, he
walked across the little grassy level to where the abrupt little wall or
ledge commenced--the one from under which the springs flowed.
She thought he was simply out of patience with her. He was going to the
woods--anywhere to be rid of her and her stupid ideas; and swift as a
bird, she slipped after him.
"Then I'll go, Dan," she said reassuringly, catching his arm. "So don't be
vexed at me for being stubborn. Come! let me look for the gold with you,
and then--then I'll go when you say."
"It's a bargain," he said, briefly, and drew his arm away. "And if we are
going to do any more prospecting this evening, we had better begin."
He stood facing her, with his back to the bank that was the first tiny
step toward the mountain that rose dark and shadowy far above. He had
walked along there before, looking with a miner's attention to the lay of
the land. Suddenly he uttered an exclamation, and a light of comprehension
brightened his eyes.
"I've got a clew to it, sure, 'Tana!" he said, eagerly. "Do you know where
we are standing? Well, if I don't make a big mistake, a good-sized river
once rolled along just where we are now. The little creek is all that's
left of it. This soil is all a comparatively recent deposit, and it and
the gold dust in it have been washed down from the mountain. Which means
that this little valley is only a gateway, and the dust we found is only a
trail we are to follow up to the mine from which it came. Do you
understand?"
"Yes, I think so," she answered, looking at the green-covered banks, and
trying to realize how they looked when a mountain river had cut its way
through and covered all the pretty level where the spring stream slipped
now. "But doesn't that make the gold seem farther away--much farther? Will
we have to move up higher in the mountains?"
"That is a question I need time to answer, but if I am right--if there is
a backing of gold ore somewhere above this old river bed, it means a much
surer thing than an occasional bit of dust washed out of the mud here. But
we won't ignore our little placer digging either. There is an advantage to
a poor prospector in having a claim he can work without any machinery but
a pick, shovel, and pan; while the gold ore needs a fortune to develop it.
Let us go back and talk to Harris, to see if his evidence substantiates my
theory. If not, we will just stake out our claims on the level, and be
thankful. Later we will investigate the hills."
The girl walked slowly beside him back to their camp. The shadows were
commencing to lengthen. It was nearing supper time, and their day had been
a busy, tiring one, for they had moved their camp many miles since dawn.
"You are very nearly worn out, aren't you?" he asked, as he noticed her
tired eyes and her listless step. "You see, you would tramp along the
shore this morning when I wanted you to stay in the boat."
"Yes, I know," she answered; "but I don't think that made me tired. Maybe
it's the gold we are to find. How queer it is, Dan, that a person will
want and want some one thing all his life, and he thinks it will make him
so happy; and yet, when at last he gets in sight of it, he isn't happy at
all. That is the way I feel about our gold. I suppose I ought to be
singing and laughing and dancing for joy. I said I would, too. Yet here
I am feeling as stupid as can be, and almost afraid of the fine life you
say I must go to. Oh, bother! I won't think over it any more. I am going
to get supper."
For while 'Tana would accept the squaw as an assistant and a gatherer of
fuel, she decidedly declined to have her installed as head cook. She
herself filled that office with a good deal of girlish conceit, encouraged
by the praise of Overton and the approving nods of Harris.
There had been a fifth member of their party, Flap-Jacks' husband. 'Tana
had bestowed that name on the squaw in the very beginning of their
acquaintance. But Overton had sent him on an errand back to Sinna Ferry,
not wishing to have his watchful eyes prying into their plans in the very
beginning of their prospecting. And it was not until he had started on his
journey that the pick and pan had disclosed the golden secret of the old
river bed.
Harris watched the two approach, and his keen gray eyes turned with a
certain fondness from one to the other. They were as guardian angels to
him, and their mutual care of him had brought them closer to each other
there in the wilderness than they ever had been in the little settlement
farther down the river.
"Squaw not here yet?" asked 'Tana, and at once set to work preparing
things for the supper.
Harris shook his head, but at that moment their hand-maiden did return,
carrying a great load of sticks for fire, and then brought to the girl a
number of fine trout she had caught almost at their door. She built the
fire outside, where two forked sticks had been driven into the ground, and
across them a pole lay, from which kettles could be hung. As 'Tana set the
coffee pot on the hot coals, the Indian woman spoke to her in that low
voice which is characteristic of the red people.
"More white men to come into camp?" she asked.
"White men? No. Why do you ask?"
"I see tracks--not Dan's tracks--not yours."
"Made when?"
"Now--little while back--only little."
Overton heard their voices, though not their words; and as 'Tana
re-entered the wigwam, he glanced around at her with a dubious smile.
"That is the first time I ever heard you actually talking Chinook," he
observed; "though I've had an idea you could, ever since the evening in
Akkomi's village. It is like your poker playing, though you have been very
modest about it."
"I was not the night I played the captain," she answered; "and I think you
might let me alone about that, after I gave him back his money."
"That is just the part I can not forgive you for," he said. "He will never
get over the idea, now, that you cheated him, and that your conscience got
the better of you to such an extent that you tried to wipe a sin away by
giving the money back."
"Perhaps I did," she answered, quietly. "I had to settle his conceit some
way, for he did bother me a heap sometimes. But I'm done with that."
She seemed rather thoughtful during the frying of the fish and the slicing
down of Mrs. Huzzard's last contribution--a brown loaf.
She was disturbed over the footprints seen by the Indian woman--the track
of a white man so close to their camp that day, yet who had kept himself
from their sight! Such actions have a meaning in the wild countries, and
the meaning troubled her. While it would have been the most simple thing
in the world to tell Overton and have him make a search, something made
her want to do the searching herself--but how?
"I was right in my theory about the old river bed," he said to her, as she
poured his coffee. "Harris backs me up in it, and it was ore he found, and
not the loose dirt in the soil. So the thing I am going to strike out for
is the headquarters where that loose dust comes from."
"Oh! then it was ore you found?" she asked.
Harris nodded his head.
"Ore on the surface--and near here."
That news made her even more anxious about that stranger who had prowled
around. Perhaps he, too, was searching for the hidden wealth.
When the supper was over, and the sun had slipped back of the mountain,
she beckoned to the squaw, and with the water bucket as a visible errand,
they started toward the spring.
But they did not stop there. She wanted to see with her own eyes those
footprints, and she followed the Indian down into the woods already
growing dusky in the dying day.
The birds were singing their good-night songs, and all the land seemed
steeped in repose. Only those two figures, gliding between the trees,
carried with them the spirit of unrest.
They reached an open space where no trees grew very close--a bit of marsh
land, where the soil was black and tall ferns grew. The squaw led her
straight to a place where two of the fern fronds were bent and broken. She
parted the green lances, and there beside it was a scraping away of the
earth, as though some one walking there had slipped, and in the black
sandy loam a shoe had sunk deep. The Indian was right; it was the mark of
a white man, for the reds of that country had not yet adopted the footgear
of their more advanced neighbors.
"It turn to camp," said the squaw. "Maybe some white thief, so I tell you.
Me tell Dan?"
"Wait," answered the girl; and, kneeling down, she studied the slender
outline of the foot attentively. "Any more tracks?"
"No more--only leaves stirred nearer to camp; he go that way."
The full moon rose clear and warm in the east, while yet the sun's light
lingered over the wilderness. Beautiful flowers shone white and pink and
yellow in the opaline light of the evening; and 'Tana mechanically plucked
a few that touched her as she passed, but she gave little notice to their
beauty. All her thought was on the slender footprint of the man in the
woods, and her face looked troubled.
They walked on, looking to right and left in any nook where deep shadows
lay, but never a sign could they see of aught that was human besides
themselves, until they neared the springs again, when the squaw laid her
hand on the arm of the girl.
"Dan," she said, in her low, abrupt way.