That Girl Montana
Joe I feel as if I was only waking up."
"So I see; that is the reason I am asking an audience. I will do the
talking, and it need not be a very long talk, if you are too tired."
"I believe I will go," she said, at last. "I was thinking it would be nice
to float in a canoe again--just to float lazy on the current. Can't we do
that?"
"Nothing easier," he answered, entirely delighted that she was again more
like the 'Tana of two months before. She seemed to him a little paler and
a little taller, but as they walked together to the canoe, he felt that
they would again come to the old chummy days of Sinna Ferry, when they
quarreled and made up as regularly as the sun rose and set.
"Well, why don't you talk?" she asked, as their little craft drifted away
from the tents and the man who washed the soil by the spring run. "What
did you do with the women folks?"
"Gave them to Overton. They concluded not to risk their precious selves
with me, when they discovered that he, for a wonder, was disengaged.
Really and truly, that angular schoolmistress will make herself Mrs.
Overton if he is not careful. She flatters him enough to spoil an average
man; looks at him with so much respectful awe, you know, though she never
does say much to him."
"Saves her breath to drill Mrs. Huzzard with," observed the girl, dryly.
"That poor, dear woman has a bee in her muddled old head, and the bee is
Captain Leek and his fine manners. I can see it, plain as day. Bless her
heart! I hear her go over and over words that she always used to say
wrong, and she does eat nicer than she used to. Humph! I wonder if Dan
Overton will take as kindly to being taught, when the school-teacher
begins with him."
There was a mirthless, unlovely smile about her lips, and Lyster reached
over and clasped her hand coaxingly.
"'Tana, what has changed you so?" he asked. "Is it your sickness--is it
the gold--or what, that makes you turn from your old friends? Dan never
says a word, but I notice it. You never talk to him, and he has almost
quit going to your cabin at all, though he would do anything for you, I
know. My dear, you will find few friends like him in the world."
"Oh, don't--don't bother me about him," she answered, irritably. "He is
all right, of course. But I--"
Then she stopped, and with a determined air turned the subject.
"You said you had something to talk to me about. What was it?"
"You don't know how glad I am to hear you speak as you used to," he said,
looking at her kindly. "I would be rejoiced even to get a scolding from
you these days. But that was not exactly what I brought you out to tell
you, either," and he drew from his pocket the letter he had carried for
three weeks, waiting until she appeared strong enough to accept surprises.
"I suppose, of course, you have heard us talk a good deal about the
Eastern capitalist who was here when you were so sick, and who,
unhesitatingly, made purchase of the Twin Spring Mines, as it is called
now."
"You mean the very fine Mr. Haydon, who had curly hair and looked like
me?" she asked, ironically. "Yes, I've heard the women folks talking about
him a good deal, when they thought me asleep. Old Akkomi scared him a
little, too, didn't he?"
"So, you _have_ heard?" he asked, in surprise. "Well, yes, he does look a
little like you; it's the hair, I think. But I don't see why you utter his
name with so much contempt, 'Tana."
"Maybe not; but I've heard the name of Haydon before to-day, and I have a
grudge against it."
"But not this Haydon."
"I don't know which Haydon. I never saw any of them--don't know as I
want to. I guess this one is almost too fine for Kootenai country people,
anyway."
"But that is where you are wrong, entirely wrong, 'Tana," he hastened to
explain. "He was very much interested in you--very much, indeed; asked
lots of questions about you, and--and here is what I wanted to speak of.
When he went away, he gave me this letter for you. I imagine he wants to
help make arrangements for you when you go East, have you know nice people
and all that. You see, 'Tana, his daughter is about your age, and looks
just a little as you do sometimes; and I think he wants to do something
for you. It's an odd thing for him to take so strong an interest in any
stranger; but they are the very best people you could possibly know if you
go to Philadelphia."
"Maybe if you would let me see the letter myself, I could tell better
whether I wanted to know them or not," she said, and Lyster handed it to
her without another word.
It was a rather long letter, two closely-written sheets, and he could not
understand the little contemptuous smile with which she opened it. Haydon,
the great financier, had seemed to him a very wonderful personage when he
was 'Tana's age.
The girl was not so indifferent as she tried to appear. Her fingers
trembled a little, though her mouth grew set and angry as she read the
carefully kind words of Mr. Haydon.
"It is rather late in the day for them to come with offers to help me,"
she said, bitterly. "I can help myself now; but if they had looked for me
a year ago--two or three years ago--"
"Looked for you!" he exclaimed, with a sort of impatient wonder. "Why,
my dear girl, who would even think of hunting for little white girls in
these forests? Don't be foolishly resentful now that people want to be
nice to you. You could not expect attention from people before they were
aware of your existence."
"But they did know of my existence!" she answered, curtly. "Oh! you
needn't stare at me like that, Mr. Max Lyster! I know what I'm talking
about. I have the very shaky honor of being a relation of your fine
gentleman from the East. I thought it when I heard the name, but did not
suppose he would know it. And I'm not too proud of it, either, as you seem
to think I ought to be."
"But they are one of our best families--"
"Then your worst must be pretty bad," she interrupted. "I know just about
what they are."
"But 'Tana--how does it come--"
"I won't answer any questions about it, Max, so don't ask," and she folded
up the letter and tore it into very little pieces, which she let fall into
the water. "I am not going to claim the relationship or their hospitality,
and I would just as soon you forgot that I acknowledged it. I didn't mean
to tell, but that letter vexed me."
"Look here, 'Tana," and Lyster caught her hand again. "I can't let you act
like this. They can be of much more help to you socially than all your
money. If the family are related to you, and offer you attention, you
can't afford to ignore it. You do not realize now how much their attention
will mean; but when you are older, you will regret losing it. Let me
advise you--let me--"
"Oh, hush!" she said, closing her eyes, wearily. "I am tired--tired! What
difference does it make to you--why need you care?"
"May I tell you?" and he looked at her so strangely, so gravely, that her
eyes opened in expectation of--she knew not what.
"I did not mean to let you know so soon, 'Tana," and his clasp of her hand
grew closer; "but, it is true--I love you. Everything that concerns you
makes a difference to me. Now do you understand?"
"You!--Max--"
"Don't draw your hand away. Surely you guessed--a little? I did not know
myself how much I cared till you came so near dying. Then I knew I could
not bear to let you go. And--and you care a little too, don't you! Speak
to me!"
"Let us go home," she answered in a low voice, and tried to draw her
fingers away. She liked him--yes; but--
"Tana, won't you speak? Oh, my dear, dear one, when you were so ill, so
very ill, you knew no one else, but you turned to me. You went asleep with
your cheek against my hand, and more than once, 'Tana, with your hand
clasping mine. Surely that was enough to make me hope--for you did like me
a little, then."
"Yes, I--liked you," but she turned her head away, that he could not see
her flushed face. "You were good to me, but I did not know--I could not
guess--" and she broke down as though about to cry, and his own eyes were
full of tenderness. She appealed to him now as she had never done in her
days of brightness and laughter.
"Listen to me," he said, pleadingly. "I won't worry you. I know you are
too weak and ill to decide yet about your future. I don't ask you to
answer me now. Wait. Go to school, as I know you intend to do; but don't
forget me. After the school is over you can decide. I will wait with all
patience. I would not have told you now, but I wanted you to know I was
interested in the answer you would give Haydon. I wanted you to know that
I would not for the world advise you, but for your best interests. Won't
you believe--"
"I believe you; but I don't know what to say to you. You are different
from me--your people are different. And of my people you know nothing,
nothing at all, and--"
"And it makes no difference," he interrupted. "I know you have had a lot
of trouble for a little girl, or your family have had trouble you are
sensitive about. I don't know what it is, but it makes no difference--not
a bit. I will never question about it, unless you prefer to tell of your
own accord. Oh, my dear! if some day you could be my wife, I would help
you forget all your childish troubles and your unpleasant life."
"Let us go home," she said, "you are good to me, but I am so tired."
He obediently turned the canoe, and at that moment voices came to them
from toward the river--ringing voices of men.
"It is possibly Mr. Haydon and others," he exclaimed, after listening a
moment. "We have been expecting them for days. That was why I could no
longer put off giving you the letter."
"I know," she said, and her face flushed and paled a little, as the voices
came closer. He could see she nervously dreaded the meeting.
"Shall I get the canoe back to camp before they come?" he asked kindly;
but she shook her head.
"You can't, for they move fast," she answered, as she listened. "They
would see us; and, if he is with them, he--would think I was afraid."
He let the canoe drift again, and watched her moody face, which seemed to
grow more cold with each moment that the strangers came closer. He was
filled with surprise at all she had said of Haydon and of the letter. Who
would have dreamed that she--the little Indian-dressed guest of Akkomi's
camp--would be connected with the most exclusive family he knew in the
East? The Haydon family was one he had been especially interested in only
a year ago, because of Mr. Haydon's very charming daughter. Miss Haydon,
however, had a clever and ambitious mamma, who persisted in keeping him at
a safe distance.
Max Lyster, with his handsome face and unsettled prospects, was not the
brilliant match her hopes aspired to. Pretty Margaret Haydon had, in all
obedience, refused him dances and affected not to see his efforts to be
near her. But he knew she did see; and one little bit of comfort he had
taken West with him was the fancy that her refusals were never voluntary
affairs, and that she had looked at him as he had never known her to look
at another man.
Well, that was a year ago, and he had just asked another girl to marry
him--a girl who did not look at him at all, but whose eyes were on the
swift-flowing current--troubled eyes, that made him long to take care of
her.
"Won't you speak to me at all?" he asked. "I will do anything to help you,
'Tana--anything at all."
She nodded her head slowly.
"Yes--now," she answered. "So would Mr. Haydon, Max."
"'Tana! do you mean--" His face flushed hotly, and he looked at her for
the first time with anger in his face.
She put out her hand in a tired, pleading way.
"I only mean that now, when I have been lucky enough to help myself, it