That Girl Montana
"We will not stop over--let us go on," she said, when he spoke of Sinna
Ferry. "I can paddle while you rest at times, or we can float there on the
current if we both grow tired; but let us keep going."
But ere they reached the little settlement, a canoe swept into sight ahead
of them and when it came near, Captain Leek very nearly fell over the side
of it in his anxiety to make himself known to Miss Rivers.
"Strangest thing in the world!" he declared. "Here I am, sent down to
telegraph you and wait a week if need be until an answer comes; and
half-way on my journey I meet you just as if the message had reached you
in some way before it was even put on paper. Extraordinary thing--very!"
"You were going to telegraph me? What for?" and the lightness of her heart
was chased away by fear. "Is--is any one hurt?"
"Hurt? Not a bit of it. But Harris thinks he is worse and wanted you,
until Dan concluded to ask you to come. I have the message here
somewhere," and he drew out a pocket-book.
"Dan asked me to come? Let me see it, please," and she unfolded the paper
and read the words he had written--the only time she had ever seen his
writing in a message to her.
A lighted match threw a flickering light over the page, on which he said:
"Joe is worse. He wants you. Will you come back?
"DAN OVERTON."
She folded it up and held it tight in her hand under the cloak she wore.
He had sent for her! Ah! how long the night would be, for not until dawn
could she answer his message.
"We will go on," she said. "Can't you spare us a boatman? Mr. McCoy has
outstripped our Indian extras who have our outfit, and he needs a little
rest, though he won't own up."
"Why, of course! Our errand is over, too, so we'll turn back with you. I
just passed Akkomi a few miles back. He is coming North with the season,
as usual. I thought the old fellow would freeze out with the winter; but
there he was drifting North to a camping-place he wanted to reach before
stopping. I suppose we'll have him for a neighbor all summer again."
The girl, remembering his antipathy to all of the red race, laughed and
raised in her arms the child, that had awakened.
"All I needed to perfect my return to the Kootenai country was the
presence of Akkomi," she confessed. "I should have missed him, for he was
my first friend in the valley. And it may be, Mr. McCoy, that if he is
inclined to be friendly to-night, I may ask him to take me the rest of the
way. I want to talk to him. He is an old friend."
"Certainly," agreed McCoy; but he evidently thought her desire was a very
peculiar one.
"But you will have a friend at court just the same--whether I go all the
way with you or not," she said and smiled across at him knowingly.
Captain Leek heard the words, too, and must have understood them, for he
stared stonily at the big, good-looking miner. Their greeting had been
very brief; evidently they were not congenial spirits.
"Is that a--a child?" asked the captain, as the little creature drooped
drowsily with its face against 'Tana's neck; "really a child?"
"Really a child," returned the girl, "and the sweetest, prettiest little
thing in the world when her eyes are open." As he continued to stare at
her in astonishment while their boats kept opposite each other, she added:
"You would have sooner expected to see me with a pet bear, or wolf,
wouldn't you?"
"Yes; I think I would," he confessed, and she drew the child closer and
kissed it and laughed happily.
"That is because you only know one side of me," she said.
The stars were thick overhead, and their clear light made the night
beautiful. When they reached the boats of Akkomi, only a short parley was
held, and then an Indian canoe darted out ahead of the others. Two dark
experts bent to the paddles and old Akkomi sat near the girl and the
child. Looking in their dusky faces, 'Tana realized more fully that she
was again in the land of the Kootenais.
It was just as she would have chosen to come back, and close against her
heart was pressed the message by which he had called her.
The child slept, but she and the old Indian talked now and then in low
tones all through the night. She felt no weariness. The air she breathed
was as a tonic against fatigue, and when the canoe veered to the left
and entered the creek leading to camp, she knew her journey was almost
over.
The dusk was yet over the land, a faint whiteness touched the eastern edge
of the night and told of the dawn to come, but it had not arrived.
The camp was wrapped in silence. Only the watch-man of the ore-sheds was
awake, and came tramping down to the shore when their paddles dipped in
the water and told him a boat was near. It was the man Saunders.
"Miss Rivers!" he exclaimed, incredulously. "Well, if this isn't luck!
Harris will about drop dead with joy when he sees you. He took worse just
after dark last night. He says he is worse, though he can talk yet. I was
with him a little while, and how he did worry because you wouldn't get
here before he was done for! Overton has been with him all night; went to
bed only an hour ago. I'll call the folks up for you."
"No," said the girl, hastily; "call no one yet. I will go to Joe if you
will take me. If he is so bad, that will be best. Let the rest sleep."
"Can I carry the--the baby?" he asked, doubtfully, and took the child in
his arms with a sort of fear lest it should break. He was not the sort of
man to be needlessly curious, so he showed no surprise at the rather
strange adjunct to her outfit, but carried the little sleeper into the
pretty sitting room, where he deposited it on a couch, and the girl
arranged it comfortably, that it might at last have undisturbed rest.
A man in an adjoining room heard their voices and came to the door.
"You can come out for a while, Kelly," said Saunders. "This is Miss
Rivers. She will want to see him."
A minute later the man in charge had left 'Tana alone beside Harris.
All the life in him seemed to gather in his eyes as he looked at her.
"You have come! I told him you would--I told Dan," he whispered,
excitedly. "Come close; turn up the light; I want to see you plain. Just
the same girl; but happier--a heap happier, ain't you?"
"A heap happier," she agreed.
"And I helped you about it some--about the mine, I mean. I like to think
of that, to think I made some return for the harm I done you."
"But you never did me any harm, Joe."
"Yes, I did--lots. You didn't know--but I did. That's why I wanted you to
come so bad. I wanted to square things--before I had to go."
"But you are all right, Joe. You are not going to die. You are much better
than when I saw you last."
"Because I can talk, you think so," he answered. "But I am cold to my
waist--I know what that means; and I ain't grumbling. It's all right, now
that you have come. Queer that all the time we've known each other, this
is the first time I've talked to you! 'Tana, you must let me tell Dan
Overton all--"
"All! All what?"
"Where I saw you first, and--"
"No--no, I can't do that," she said, shrinking back. "Joe, I've tried
often to think of it--of telling him, but I never could. He will have to
trust or distrust me, but I can't tell him."
"I know how you feel; but you wrong yourself. Any one would give you
credit instead of blaming you--don't you ever think of that? And
then--then, 'Tana, I tried to tell him down at the Ferry, because I
thought you were in some game against him. I managed to tell him you were
Holly's partner, but hadn't got any farther when the paralysis caught me.
I hadn't time to tell him that Holly was your father, and that he made you
go where he said; or that you dressed as a boy and was called 'Monte,'
because that disguise was the only safety possible for you in the gambling
dens where he took you. Part of it I didn't understand clearly at that
time. I didn't know you really thought he was dead, and that you tramped
alone into this region in your boy's clothes, so you could get a new start
where no white folks knew you. I told him just enough to wrong you in his
eyes, and then could not tell him enough to right you again. Now do you
know why I want you to let me tell him all--while I can?"
It had taken him a long time to say the words; his articulation had grown
indistinct at times, and the excitement was wearing on him.
Once the door into the room where the child lay swung open noiselessly,
and he had turned his eyes in that direction; but the girl's head was
bowed on the arm of his chair, and she did not notice it.
"And then--there are other things," he continued. "He don't know you were
the boy Fannie spoke of in that letter; or that she gave you the plot of
this land; or, more--far more to me!--that you took care of her till she
died. All that must give him many a worried thought, 'Tana, that you never
counted on, for he liked you--and yet all along he has been made to think
wrong of you."
"I know," she assented. "He blamed me for--for a man being in my cabin
that night, and I--I wanted him to--think well of me; but I could not tell
him the truth, I was ashamed of it all my life. And the shame has got in
my blood till I can't change it. I want him to know, but I can't tell
him."
"You don't need to," said a voice back of her, and she arose to see
Overton standing in the door. "I did not mean to listen; but I stopped to
look at the child, and I heard. I hope you are not sorry," and he came
over to her with outstretched hand.
She could not speak at first. She had dreamed of so many ways in which she
would meet him--of what she would say to him; and now she stood before him
without a word.
"Don't be sorry, 'Tana," he said, and tightened his hand over her own. "I
honor you for what I heard just now. You were wrong not to tell me; I
might have saved you some troubles."
"I was ashamed--ashamed!" she said, and turned away.
"But it is not to me all this should be told," he said, more coldly. "Max
is the one to know; or, maybe, he does know."
"He knows a little--not much. Seldon and Haydon recognized--Holly. So the
family knew that, but no more."
It was so hard for her to talk to him there, where Harris looked from one
to the other expectantly.
And then the child slipped from the couch and came toddling into the light
and to the girl.
"Tana--bek-fas!" she lisped, imperatively. "Bek-fas."
"Yes, you shall have your breakfast very soon," promised the girl. "But
come and shake hands with these gentlemen."
She surveyed them each with baby scrutiny, and refused. "Bek-fas" was all
the world contained that she would give attention to just then.
"You with a baby, 'Tana?" said Harris. "Have you adopted one?"
"Not quite," and she wished--how she wished it was all over! "Her mother,
who is dead, gave her to me. But she has a father. I have come up here to
see what he will say."
"Up here!"
"Yes. But I must go and find some one to get her breakfast. Then--Dan--I
would like to see you."
He bowed and started to follow her, but Harris called him back.
"This spurt of strength has about done for me," he said. "The cold is
creeping up fast. I want to tell you something else. Don't tell her till I
am gone, for she wouldn't touch my hand if she knew it. I killed Lee
Holly!"
"You didn't--you couldn't!"
"I did. I was able to walk long before you knew it, but I lay low. I knew
if he was living, he would come where she was, sooner or later, and I knew
the gold would fetch him, so I waited. I could hardly keep from killing
him as he left her cabin that first night, but she had told him to come
back, and I knew that would be my time. She thought once it might be me,
but changed her mind. Don't tell her till I am gone, Dan. And--listen! You