That Girl Montana
upward at her.
The people were getting aboard the train again--the time was so short--so
short! and how can one speak through a double glass? The fingers were all
unequal to the fastening of the window, and she turned an imploring,
flushed face to the helpful stranger.
"Can you--oh, will you, please?" she asked, breathlessly. "Thank you, I'm
very much obliged."
Then the window was raised, and her hand thrust out to the man, who was
bareheaded now, and who looked very much as though he held the wealth of
the world when he clasped only 'Tana's fingers.
"Oh, it is you, is it?" she asked, with a rather lame attempt at careless
speech. "I thought you had forgotten to say good-by to me."
"You knew better," he contradicted. "You knew--you know now it wasn't
because I forgot."
He looked at her moodily from under his dark brows, and noticed the color
flutter over her cheek and throat in an adorable way. She had drawn her
hand from him, and it rested on the window--a slim brown hand, with a
curious ring on one finger--two tiny snakes whose jeweled heads formed the
central point of attraction.
"You said you would not wear that again. If it's a hoodoo, as you thought,
why not throw it away?" he asked.
"Oh--I've changed my mind. I need to wear it so that I will be reminded of
something--something important as a hoodoo," she said, with a strange,
bitter smile.
"Give it back to me, 'Tana," he urged. "I will--No--Max will have
something much prettier for you. And listen, my girl. You are going away;
don't ever come back; forget everything here but the money that will be
yours for the claim. Do you understand me? Forget all I said to you
when--you know. I had no right to say it; I must have been drunk. I--I
lied, anyway."
"Oh, you lied, did you?" she asked, cynically, and her hands were clasped
closely, so close the ring must have hurt her. He noticed it, and kept his
eyes on her hand as he continued, doggedly:
"Yes. You see, little girl, I thought I'd own up before you left, so you
wouldn't be wasting any good time in being sorry about the folks back
here. It wasn't square for me to trouble you as I did. And--I lied. I came
down to say that."
"You needn't have troubled yourself," she said, curtly. "But I see you can
tell lies. I never would have believed it if I hadn't heard you. But I
guess, after all, I will give you the ring. You might want it to give to
some one else--perhaps your wife."
The bell was ringing and the wheels began slowly to revolve. She pulled
the circlet from her finger and almost flung it at him.
"'Tana!" and all of keen appeal was in his voice and his eyes, "little
girl--good-by!"
But she turned away her head. Her hand, however, reached out and the spray
of autumn leaves fluttered to his feet where the ring lay.
Then the rumble of the moving train sounded through the valley, and the
girl turned to find Max, Mr. Haydon and a porter approaching, to convey
her to the car ahead. Mr. Haydon's face was a study of dismay at the sight
of Mr. Harvey closing the window and showing evident interest in 'Tana's
comfort.
"So Dan did get down to see you off, 'Tana?" observed Max, as he led her
along the aisle. "Dear old fellow! how I did try to coax him into coming
East later; but it was of no use. He gave me some flowers for you--wild
beauties. He never seemed to say much, 'Tana, but I've an idea you'll
never have a better friend in your life than that same old Dan."
Mr. Harvey watched their exit, and smiled a little concerning Mr. Haydon's
evident annoyance. He watched, also, the flaxen-haired bundle in the
corner, and saw the curious, malignant look with which she followed 'Tana,
and to his friend he laughed over his triumph in exchanging speech with
the pretty, peculiar girl in brown.
"And the old party looked terribly fussy over it. In fact, I've about
sifted out the reason. He imagines me a newspaper reporter on the alert
for sensations. He's afraid his stupidly respectable self may be mentioned
in a newspaper article concerning this local tragedy they all talk about.
Why, bless his pocket-book! if I ever use pen and ink on that girl's
story, it will not be for a newspaper article."
"Then you intend to tell it?" asked his friend. "How will you learn it?"
"I do not know yet. The 'how' does not matter; I'll tell you on paper some
day."
"And write up that handsome Lyster as the hero?"
"Perhaps."
Then a bend of the road brought them again in sight of the river of the
Kootenais. Here and there the canoes of the Indians were speeding across
at the ferry. But one canoe alone was moving north; not very swiftly, but
almost as though drifting with the current.
Using his field-glass, Harvey found it was as he had thought. The occupant
of the solitary canoe was the tall man whose dark face had impressed the
theatrical lady so strongly. He was not using the paddle, and his chin was
resting on one clenched hand, while in the other he held something to
which he was giving earnest attention.
It was a spray of bright-colored leaves, and the watcher dropped his glass
with a guilty feeling.
"He brings her flowers, and gets in return only dead leaves," Harvey
thought, grimly. "I didn't hear a word he said to her; but his eyes spoke
strongly enough, poor devil! I wonder if she sees him, too."
And all through the evening, and for many a day, the picture remained in
his mind. Even when he wrote the story that is told in these pages, he
could never find words to express the utter loneliness of that life, as it
seemed to drift away past the sun-touched ripples of water into that vast,
shadowy wilderness to the north.
CHAPTER I.
A STRANGE GIRL.
"Well, by the help of either her red gods or devils, she can swim,
anyway!"
This explosive statement was made one June morning on the banks of the
Kootenai, and the speaker, after a steady gaze, relinquished his
field-glass to the man beside him.
"Can she make it?" he asked.
A grunt was the only reply given him. The silent watcher was too much
interested in the scene across the water.
Shouts came to them--the yells of frightened Indian children; and from the
cone-shaped dwellings, up from the water, the Indian women were hurrying.
One, reaching the shore first, sent up a shrill cry, as she perceived
that, from the canoe where the children played, one had fallen over, and
was being swept away by that swift-rushing, chill water, far out from the
reaching hands of the others.
Then a figure lolling on the shore farther down stream than the canoe
sprang erect at the frightened scream.
One quick glance showed the helplessness of those above, and another the
struggling little form there in the water--the little one who turned such
wild eyes toward the shore, and was the only one of them all who was not
making some outcry.
The white men, who were watching from the opposite side, could see shoes
flung aside quickly; a jacket dropped on the shore; and then down into the
water a slight figure darted with the swiftness of a kingfisher, and swam
out to the little fellow who had struggled to keep his head above water,
but was fast growing helpless in the chill of the mountain river.
Then it was that Mr. Maxwell Lyster commented on the physical help lent by
the gods of the red people, as the ability of any female to swim thus
lustily in spite of that icy current seemed to his civilized understanding
a thing superhuman. Of course, bears and other animals of the woods swam
it at all seasons, when it was open; but to see a woman dash into it like
that! Well, it sent a shiver over him to think of it.
"They'll both get chilled and drop to the bottom!" he remarked, with
irritated concern. "Of course there are enough of the red vagabonds in
this new El Dorado of yours, without that particular squaw. But it would
be a pity that so plucky a one should be translated."
Then a yell of triumph came from the other shore. A canoe had been
loosened, and was fairly flying over the water to where the child had been
dragged to the surface, and the rescuer was holding herself up by the slow
efforts of one arm, but could make no progress with her burden.
"That's no squaw!" commented the other man, who had been looking through
the glass.
"Why, Dan!"
"It's no squaw, I tell you," insisted the other, with the superior
knowledge of a native. "Thought so the minute I saw her drop the shoes and
jacket that way. She didn't make a single Indian move. It's a white
woman!"
"Queer place for a white woman, isn't it?"
The man called Dan did not answer. The canoe had reached that figure in
the water and the squaw in it lifted the now senseless child and laid him
in the bottom of the light craft.
A slight altercation seemed going on between the woman in the water and
the one in the boat. The former was protesting against being helped on
board--the men could see that by their gestures. She finally gained her
point, for the squaw seized the paddle and sent the boat shoreward with
all the strength of her brown arms, while the one in the water held on to
the canoe and was thus towed back, where half the Indian village had now
swarmed to receive them.
"She's got sand and sense," and Dan nodded his appreciation of the towing
process; "for, chilled as she must be, the canoe would more than likely
have turned over if she had tried to climb into it. Look at the pow-wow
they are kicking up! That little red devil must count for big stakes with
them."
"But the woman who swam after him. See! they try to stand her on her feet,
but she can't walk. There! she's on the ground again. I'd give half my
supper to know if she has killed herself with that ice-bath."
"Maybe you can eat all your supper and find out, too," observed the other,
with a shrug of his shoulders, and a quizzical glance at his companion,
"unless even the glimpse of a petticoat has chased away your appetite. You
had better take some advice from an old man, Max, and swear off
approaching females in this country, for the specimens you'll find here
aren't things to make you proud they're human."
"An old man!" repeated Mr. Lyster with a smile of derision. "You must be
pretty near twenty-eight years old--aren't you, Dan? and just about five
years older than myself. And what airs you do assume in consequence! With
all the weight of those years," he added, slowly, "I doubt, Mr. Dan
Overton, if you have really _lived_ as much as I have."
One glance of the dark eyes was turned on the speaker for an instant, and
then the old felt hat again shaded them as he continued watching the group
on the far shore. The swimmer had been picked up by a stalwart Indian
woman, and was carried bodily up to one of the lodges, while another
squaw--evidently the mother--carried the little redskin who had caused all
the commotion.
"I suppose, by living, you mean the life of settlements--or, to condense
the question still more, the life of cities," continued Overton,
stretching himself lazily on the bank. "You mean the life of a certain set
in one certain city--New York, for instance," and he grinned at the
expression of impatience on the face of the other. "Yes, I reckon New York
is about the one, and a certain part of the town to live in. A certain
gang of partners, who have a certain man to make their clothes and boots
and hats, and stamp his name on the inside of them, so that other folks
can see, when you take off your coat, or your hat, or your gloves, that
they were made at just the right place. This makes you a man worth
knowing--isn't that about the idea? And in the afternoon, at just about
the right hour, you rig yourself out in a certain cut of coat, and stroll
for an hour or so on a certain street! In the evening--if a man wants to