That Girl Montana
But she did not. Even when they reached the level by the springs, she only
looked her farewell to him, but did not speak.
"Good-by," he said, in a voice that was not like Dan's voice.
She merely bowed her head, and walked away toward the tent where she heard
Mrs. Huzzard laughing.
She halted near the cabin, and then hurried on, dreading to enter it yet,
lest she should meet the man she was trying to avoid.
Overton watched her until she reached the tent. The moon had just escaped
the horizon, and threw its soft misty light over all the place. He pulled
his hat low over his eyes, and, turning, took the opposite direction.
Only a few minutes elapsed when Lyster remembered he had promised Dan to
look after Harris, and rose to go to the cabin.
"I will go, too," said 'Tana, filled with nervous dread lest he encounter
some one on her threshold, though she had all reason to expect that her
disguised visitor had come and gone ere that.
"Well, well, 'Tana, you are a restless mortal," said Mrs. Huzzard. "You've
only just come, and now you must be off again. What did you do that you
wanted to be all alone for this evening? Read verses, I'll go bail."
"No, I didn't read verses," answered 'Tana. "But you needn't go along to
the cabin."
"Well, I will then. You are not fit to sleep alone. And, if it wasn't for
the beastly snakes!--"
"We will go and see Harris," said the girl, and so they entered his cabin,
where he sat alone with a bright light burning.
Some newspapers, brought by the captain, were spread before him on a rough
reading stand rigged up by one of the miners.
He looked pale and tired, as though the effort of perusing them had been
rather too much for him.
Listen as she might, the girl could hear never a sound from her own cabin.
She stood by the blanket door, connecting the two rooms, but not a
breath came to her. She sighed with relief at the certainty that he had
come and gone. She would never see him again.
"Shall I light your lamp?" asked Lyster; and, scarce waiting for a reply,
he drew back the blanket and entered the darkness of the other cabin.
Two of the miners came to the door just then, detailed to look after
Harris for the night. One was the good-natured, talkative Emmons.
"Glad to see you are so much better, miss," he said, with an expansive
smile. "But you scared the wits nearly out of me this morning."
Then they heard the sputter of a match in the next room, and a sharp,
startled cry from Lyster, as the blaze gave a feeble light to the
interior.
He staggered back among the rest, with the dying match in his fingers, and
his face ashen gray.
"Snakes!" half screamed Mrs. Huzzard. "Oh, my! oh, my!"
'Tana, after one look at Lyster, tried to enter the room, but he caught
and held her.
"Don't, dear!--don't go in there! It's awful--awful!"
"What's wrong?" demanded one of the miners, and picked up a lamp from
beside Harris.
"Look! It is Akkomi!" answered Lyster.
At the name 'Tana broke from him and ran into the room, even before the
light reached it.
But she did not take many steps. Her foot struck against something on the
floor, an immovable body and a silent one.
"Akkomi--sure enough," said the miner, as he saw the Indian's blanket.
"Drunk, I suppose--Indian fashion."
But as he held the light closer, he took hold of the girl's arm, and tried
to lead her from the scene.
"You'd better leave this to us, miss," he added, in a grave tone. "The man
ain't drunk. He's been murdered!"
'Tana, white as death itself, shook off his grasp and stood with tightly
clasped hands, unheeding the words of horror around her, scarce hearing
the shriek of Mrs. Huzzard, as that lady, forgetful even of the snakes,
sank to the floor, a very picture of terror.
'Tana saw the roll of money scattered over the couch; the little bag of
free gold drawn from under the pillow. He had evidently been stooping to
secure it when the assassin crept behind him and left him dead there, with
a knife sticking between his shoulders.
"The very knife you had to-day!" said Lyster, horror-stricken at the
sight.
The miner with the lamp turned and looked at her strangely, and his eyes
dropped from her face to her clasped hands, on which the ring of the
snakes glittered.
"Your knife?" he asked, and others, attracted by Mrs. Huzzard's scream,
stood around the doors and looked at her too.
She nodded her head, scarce understanding the significance of it, and
never taking her eyes from the dead man, whose face was yet hidden.
"He may not be dead," she said, at last. "Look!"
"Oh, he's dead, safe enough," and Emmons lifted his hand. "Was he trying
to rob you?"
"I--no--I don't know," she answered, vaguely.
Then another man turned the body over, and utter surprise was on every
face; for, though it was Akkomi's blanket, it was a much younger man who
lay there.
"A white man, by Heavens!" said the miner who had first entered. "A white
man, with brown paint on his face and hands! But, look here!" and he
pulled down the collar of the dead man's shirt, and showed a skin fair as
a child's.
"Something terribly crooked here," he continued. "Where is Overton?"
Overton! At the name her very heart grew cold within her. Had he not
threatened he would kill the man who visited her at night? Had he come
straight to the cabin after leaving her? Had he kept his word? Had he--
"I think Overton left camp after supper--started for the lake," answered
some one.
"Well, we'll do our best to get it straight without him, then. Some of you
see what time it is. This man has been dead about a half hour. Mr. Lyster,
you had better write down all about it; and, if any one here has any
information to give, let him have it."
His eyes were on the girl's face, but she said nothing, and he bent to
wipe off the stain from the dead man's face. Some one brought water, and
in a little while was revealed the decidedly handsome face of a man about
forty-five years old.
"Do any of you know him?" asked the miner, who, by circumstance, appeared
to have been given the office of speaker--"look--all of you."
One after another the men approached, but shook their heads; until an old
miner, gray-haired and weather-beaten, gave vent to a half-smothered oath
at sight of him.
"Know him?" he exclaimed. "Well, I do, though it's five years since I saw
him. Heavens! I'd rather have found him alive than dead, though, for there
is a standing reward offered for him by two States. Why, it's the
card-sharper, horse-thief and renegade--Lee Holly!"
"But who could have killed him?"
"That is Overton's knife," said one of the men.
"But Overton had not had it since noon," said 'Tana, speaking for the
first time in explanation. "I borrowed it then."
"You borrowed it? For what?"
"Oh--I forget. To cut a stick with, I think."
"You think. I'm sorry to speak rough to a lady, miss but this is a time
for knowing--not thinking."
"What do you mean by that?" demanded Lyster.
The man looked at him squarely.
"Nothing to offend innocent folks," he answered. "A murder has been done
in this lady's room, with a knife she acknowledges she has had possession
of. It's natural enough to question her first of all."
The color had crept into her face once more. She knew what the man meant,
and knew that the longer they looked on her with suspicion, the more time
Overton would have to escape. Then, when they learned they were on a false
scent, it would be late--too late to start after him. She wished he had
taken the money and the gold. She shuddered as she thought him a
murderer--the murderer of that man; but, with what skill she could, she
would keep them off his track.
Her thoughts ran fast, and a half smile touched her lips. Even with that
dead body at her feet, she was almost happy at the hope of saving him. The
others noticed it, and looked at her in wonder. Lyster said:
"You are right. But Miss Rivers could know nothing of this. She has been
with us since the moon rose, and that is more than a half-hour."
"No, only fifteen minutes," said one of the men.
"Well, where were you for the half-hour before the moon rose?" asked the
man who seemed examiner. "That is really the time most interesting to this
case."
"Why, good heavens, man!" cried Lyster, but 'Tana interrupted:
"I was walking up on the hill about that time."
"Alone?"
"Alone."
Mrs. Huzzard groaned dismally, and Lyster caught 'Tana by the hand.
"'Tana! think what you are saying. You don't realize how serious this
is."
"One more question," and the man looked at her very steadily. "Were you
not expecting this man to-night?"
"I sha'n't answer any more of your questions," she answered, coldly.
Lyster turned on the man with clenched hands and a face white with anger.
"How dare you insult her with such a question?" he asked, hoarsely. "How
could it be possible for Miss Rivers to know this renegade horse-thief?"
"Well, I'll tell you," said the man, drawing a long breath and looking at
the girl. "It ain't a pleasant thing to do; but as we have no courts up
here, we have to straighten out crimes in a camp the best way we can. My
name is Saunders. That man over there is right--this is Lee Holly; and I
am sure now that I saw him leave this cabin last night. I passed the cabin
and heard voices--hers and a man's. I heard her say: 'While I can't quite
decide to kill you myself, I hope some one else will.' The rest of their
words were not so clear. I told Overton when he came back, but the man
was gone then. You ask me how I dare think she could tell something of
this if she chose. Well, I can't help it. She is wearing a ring I'll swear
I saw Lee Holly wear three years ago, at a card table in Seattle. I'll
swear it! And he is lying here dead in her room, with a knife sticking in
him that she had possession of to-day. Now, gentlemen, what do you think
of it yourselves?"
CHAPTER XXIII.
GOOD-BY.
"Oh, 'Tana, it is awful--awful!" and poor Mrs. Huzzard rocked herself in a
spasm of woe. "And to think that you won't say a word--not a single word!
It just breaks my heart."
"Now, now! I'll say lots of things if you will talk of something besides
murders. And I'll mend your broken heart when this trouble is all over,
you will see!"
"Over! I'm mightily afraid it is only commencing. And you that cool and
indifferent you are enough to put one crazy! Oh, if Dan Overton was only
here."
The girl smiled. All the hours of the night had gone by. He had at least
twelve hours' start, and the men of the camp had not yet suspected him for
even a moment. They had questioned Harris, and he told them, by signs,
that no man had gone through his cabin, no one had been in since dark; but
he had heard a movement in the other room. The knife he had seen 'Tana
take into the other room long before dark.
"And some one quarreling with this Holly--or following him--may have
chanced on it and used it," contested Lyster, who was angered, dismayed,
and puzzled at 'Tana, quite as much as at the finding of the body. Her
answers to all questions were so persistently detrimental to her own
cause.
"Don't be uneasy--they won't hang me," she assured him. "Think of them
hanging any one for killing Lee Holly! The man who did it--if he knows
whom he was settling for--was a fool not to face the camp and get credit
for it. Every man would have shaken hands with him. But just because there
is a little mystery about it, they try to make it out a crime. Pooh!"
"Oh, child!" exclaimed Mrs. Huzzard, totally scandalized. "A murder! Of
course it is a crime--the greatest."
"I don't think so. It is a greater crime to bring a soul into the world
and then neglect it--let it drift into any hell on earth that nets