That Girl Montana
Max would read to her a good deal, and several times she asked to be
carried into the cabin of Harris, where she would sit for hours talking to
him, sometimes in a low voice and then again sitting close beside him in
long silences, which, strangely enough, seemed more of companionship to
her than the presence of people who laughed and talked. They wearied her
at times. When she was able to walk out, she liked to go alone; even Max
she had sent back when he followed her.
But she never went far. Sometimes she would sit for an hour by the stream,
watching the water slip past the pebbles and the grasses, and on to its
turbulent journey toward a far-off rest in the Pacific. And again, she
would watch some strange miner dig and wash the soil in his search for the
precious "yellow." But her walks were ever within the limits of the busy
diggings; all her old fondness for the wild places seemed sleeping--like
her ambitions.
"She needs change now. Get her away from here," advised the doctor, who no
longer felt that she needed medicines, but who could not, with all his
skill, build her up again into the daring, saucy 'Tana, who had won the
game of cards from the captain that night at the select party at Sinna
Ferry.
But when Overton, after much hesitation, broached the subject of her going
away, she did look at him with a touch of the old defiance in her face,
and after a bit said:
"I guess the camp will have to be big enough for you and me, too, a few
days longer. I haven't made up my mind as to when I want to go."
"But the summer will not last long, now. You must commence to think of
where you want to go; for when the cold weather comes, 'Tana, you can't
remain here."
"I can if I want to," she answered.
After one troubled, helpless look at her pale face, he walked out of the
cabin; and Lyster, who had wanted to ask the result of the interview,
could not find him all that evening. He had gone somewhere alone, up on
the mountain.
She had answered him with a great deal of cool indifference; but when the
two cousins entered her room, she was on the bed with her face buried in
the pillows, weeping in an uncontrollable manner that filled them with
dismay. The doctor decided that while Dan was a good fellow in most ways,
he evidently had not a soothing influence on 'Tana, possibly not realizing
the changed mental condition laid on her by her sickness. The doctor
further made up his mind that, without hurting Dan's feelings, he must
find some other mouthpiece for his ideas concerning her or reason with her
himself.
But, so far, she would only say she was not ready to go yet. Dan, wishing
to make her stay comfortable as possible, went quietly to all the
settlements within reach for luxuries in the way of house-furnishing, and
had Mrs. Huzzard use them in 'Tana's cabin. But when he had done all
this, she never asked a question as to where the comforts came from--she,
who, a short month before, had valued each kind glance received from him.
Mrs. Huzzard was sorely afraid that it was pride, the pride of newly
acquired wealth, that changed her from the gay, saucy girl into a moody,
dreamy being, who would lie all alone for hours and not notice any of them
coming and going. The good soul had many a heartache over it all, never
guessing that it was an ache and a shame in the heart of the girl that
made the new life that was given her seem a thing of little value.
'Tana had watched the squaw wistfully at times, as if expecting her to say
something to her when the others were not around, but she never did. When
'Tana heard the ladies ask Lyster to go with them to a certain place where
beautiful mosses were to be found, she waited with impatience until their
voices left the door.
The squaw shook her head when asked in that whispering way of their
departure; but when she had carried out the parasol and watched the party
disappear beyond the numerous tents now dotting the spaces where the grass
grew rank only a month before, then she slipped back and stood watchful
and silent inside the door.
"Come close," said the girl, motioning with a certain nervousness to her.
She was not the brave, indifferent little girl she had been of old. "Come
close--some one might listen, somewhere. I've been so sick--I've dreamed
so many things that I can't tell some days what is dream and what is true.
I lie here and think and think, but it will not come clear. Listen! I
think sometimes you and I hunted for tracks--a white man's tracks--across
there where the high ferns are. You showed them to me, and then we came
back when the moon shone, and it was light like day, and I picked white
flowers. Some days I think of it--of the tracks, long, slim tracks, with
the boot heel. Then my head hurts, and I think maybe we never found the
tracks, maybe it is only a dream, like--like other things!"
She did not ask if it were so, but she leaned forward with all of eager
question in her eyes. It was the first time she had shown strong interest
in anything. But, having aroused from her listlessness to speak of the
ghosts of fancy haunting her, she seemed quickened to anxiety by the
picture her own words conjured up.
"Ah! those tracks in the black mud and that face above the ledge!"
"It is true," said the squaw, "and not a dream. The track of the white man
was there, and the moon was in the sky, as you say."
"Ah!" and the evidently unwelcome truth made her clench her fingers
together despairingly; she had hoped so that it was a dream. The truth of
it banished her lethargy, made her think as nothing else had. "Ah! it was
so, then; and the face--the face was real, was--"
"I saw no face," said the squaw.
"But I did--yes, I did," she muttered. "I saw it like the face of a white
devil!"
Then she checked herself and glanced at the Indian woman, whose dark,
heavy face appeared so stupid. Still, one never could tell by the looks of
an Indian how much or how little he knows of the thing you want to know;
and after a moment's scrutiny, the girl asked:
"Did you learn more of the tracks?--learn who the white man was that made
them?"
The woman shook her head.
"You sick--much sick," she explained. "All time Dan he say: 'Stay here by
white girl's bed. Never leave.' So I not get out again, and the rain come
wash all track away."
"Does Dan know?--did you tell him?"
"No, Dan never ask--never talk to me, only say, 'Take care 'Tana,' that
all."
The girl asked no more, but lay there on her couch, filled with dry moss
and covered with skins of the mountain wolf. Her eyes closed as though she
were asleep; but the squaw knew better, and after a little, she said
doubtfully:
"Maybe Akkomi know."
"Akkomi!" and the eyes opened wide and slant. "That is so. I should have
remembered. But oh, all the thoughts in my brain have been so muddled. You
have heard something, then? Tell me."
"Not much--only little," answered the squaw. "That night--late that night,
a white stranger reached Akkomi's tent, to sleep. No one else of the tribe
got to see him, so the word is. Kawaka heard on the river, and it was that
night."
"And then? Where did the stranger go?"
The squaw shook her head.
"Me not know. Kawaka not hear. But I thought of the track. Now many white
men make tracks, and one no matter."
"Akkomi," and the thoughts of the girl went back to the very first she
could remember of her recovery; and always, each day, the face of Akkomi
had been near her. He had not talked, but would look at her a little while
with his sharp, bead-like eyes, and then betake himself to the sunshine
outside her door, where he would smoke placidly for hours and watch the
restless Anglo-Saxon in his struggle to make the earth yield up its
riches.
Each day Akkomi had been there, and she had not once aroused herself to
question why; but she would.
Rising, she passed out and looked right and left; but no blanketed brave
met her gaze. Only Kawaka, the husband of Flap-Jacks, worked about the
canoes by the water. Then she entered Harris' cabin, where the sight of
his helpless form, and his welcoming smile, made her halt, and drop down
on the rug beside him. She had forgotten him so much of late, and she
touched his hand remorsefully.
"I feel as if I had just got awake, Joe," she said, and stretched out her
arms, as though to drive away the last vestige of sleep. "Do you know how
that feels? To lie for days, stupid as a chilled snake, and then, all at
once, to feel the sun creeping around where you are and warming you until
you begin to wonder how you could have slept so many days away. Well, just
now I feel almost well again. I did not think I would get well; I did not
care. All the days I lay in there I wished they would just let me be, and
throw their medicines in the creek. I think, Joe, that there are times
when people should be allowed to die, when they grow tired--tired away
down in their hearts; so tired that they don't want to take up the old
tussle of living again. It is so much easier to die then than when a
person is happy, and--and has some one to like them, and--"
She left the sentence unfinished, but he nodded a perfect understanding of
her thoughts.
"Yes, you have felt like that, too, I suppose," she continued, after a
little. "But now, Joe, they tell me we are rich--you and Dan and I--so
rich we ought to be happy, all of us. Are we?"
He only smiled at her, and glanced at the cozy furnishing of his rude
cabin. Like 'Tana's, it had been given a complete going over by Overton,
and rugs and robes did much to soften its crude wood-work. It had all the
luxury obtainable in that district, though even yet the doors were but
heavy skins.
She noticed the look but shook her head.
"Thick rugs and soft pillows don't make troubles lighter," she said, with
conviction; and then: "Maybe Dan is happy. He--he must be. All he thinks
of now is the gold ore."
She spoke so wistfully, and her own eyes looked so far, far from happy,
that the face of the man was filled with longing to comfort her--the
little girl who had tramped so long on a lone trail--how lonely none knew
so well as he. His fingers closed and unclosed, as if with the desire to
clasp her hand,--to make some visible show of friendship.
She saw the slight movement, and looked up at him with a new interest.
"Oh, I forgot, Joe! I never once have asked how you have got along while I
have been so sick. Can you use your hands any at all? You could once, a
little bit that day--the day we found the gold."
But he shook his head, and just then a step was heard outside, and Lyster
looked in.
A shade of surprise touched his face, as he saw 'Tana there, with so
bright an expression in her eyes.
"What has Harris been telling you that has aroused you to interest, Tana?"
he asked, jestingly. "He has more influence than I, for I have scarcely
been able to get you to talk at all."
"You don't need me; you have Miss Slocum," she answered. "Have you dropped
her in the creek and run back to camp? And have you seen Akkomi lately? I
want him."
"Of course you do. The moment I make my appearance, you want to get rid of
me by sending me for some other man. No, I am happy to say I have not seen
that royal loafer for the past hour. And I am more happy still to find
that you really want some one--any one--once more. Do you realize, my dear
girl, how very many days it is since you have condescended to want
anything on this earth of ours? Won't you accept me as a substitute for
Akkomi?"
"I don't want you."
But her eyes smiled on him kindly, and he did not believe her.
"Perhaps not; but won't you pretend you do for a little while, long enough
to come with me for a little walk--or else to talk to me in your cabin?"
"To talk to you? I don't think I can talk much to any one yet. I just told