That Girl Montana
perceived that some important thought was stirring in the old man's mind,
and that it would develop into speech all the sooner if not hurried.
"Of all the men of the white camps it is you Akkomi is gladdest to talk to
this day," continued the chief, after another season of silence; "for you,
Dan, talk with a tongue that is straight, and you go many times where the
great towns are built."
"The words of Akkomi are true words," assented Overton, "and my ears
listen to hear what he will say."
"Where the white men live is where this young white squaw should live,"
said Akkomi, and the listening squaw of Akkomi grunted assent. It was easy
to read that she looked with little favor on the strange white girl within
their lodge. To be sure, Akkomi was growing old; but the wife of Akkomi
had memories of his lusty youth and of various wars she had been forced to
wage on ambitious squaws who fancied it would be well to dwell in the
lodge of the head chief.
And remembering those days, though so long past, the old squaw was sorely
averse to the adoption dance for the white girl who lay on their blankets,
and thought it good, indeed, that she go to live in the villages of the
white people.
Overton nodded gravely.
"You speak wisely, Akkomi," he said.
Glancing at the girl, Dan noted that she was leaning forward and gazing at
him intently. Her face gave him the uncomfortable feeling that she perhaps
knew what they were talking of, but she dropped back into the shadows
again, and he dismissed the idea as improbable, for white girls were
seldom versed in the lore of Indian jargon.
He waited a bit for Akkomi to continue, but as that dignitary evidently
thought he had said enough, if Overton chose to interpret it correctly,
the white man asked:
"Would it please Akkomi that I, Dan, should lead the young squaw where
white families are?"
"Yes. It is that I thought of when I heard your name. I am old. I cannot
take her. She has come a long way on a trail for that which has not been
found, and her heart is so heavy she does not care where the next trail
leads her. So it seems to Akkomi. But she saved the son of my daughter,
and I would wish good to her. So, if she is willing, I would have her go
to your people."
"If she is willing!" Overton doubted it, and thought of the scowl with
which she had answered him before. After a little hesitation, he said: "It
shall be as you wish. I am very busy now, but to serve one who is your
friend I will take time for a few days. Do you know the girl?"
"I know her, and her father before her. It was long ago, but my eyes are
good. I remember. She is good--girl not afraid."
"Father! Where is her father?"
"In the grave blankets--so she tells me."
"And her name--what is she called?"
But Akkomi was not to be stripped of all his knowledge by questions. He
puffed at the pipe in silence and then, as Overton was as persistently
quiet as himself, he finally said:
"The white girl will tell to you the things she wants you to know, if she
goes with your people. If she stays here, the lodge of Akkomi has a
blanket for her."
The girl was now face downward on the couch of skins, and when Overton
wished to speak to her he crossed over and gently touched her shoulder. He
was almost afraid she was weeping, because of the position; but when she
raised her head he saw no signs of tears.
"Why do you come to me?" she demanded. "I ain't troubling the white folks
any. Huh! I didn't even stop at their camp across the river."
The grunt of disdain she launched at him made him smile. It was so much
more like that of an Indian than a white person, yet she was white,
despite all the red manners she chose to adopt.
"No, I reckon you didn't stop at the white camp, else I'd have heard of
it. But as you're alone in this country, don't you think you'd be better
off where other white women live?"
He spoke in the kindliest tone, and she only bit her lip and shrugged her
angular shoulders.
"I will see that you are left with good people," he continued; "so don't
be afraid about that. I'm Dan Overton. Akkomi will tell you I'm square. I
know where there's a good sort of white woman who would be glad to have
you around, I guess."
"Is it your wife?" she demanded, with the same sullen, suspicious wrinkle
between her brows.
His face paled ever so little and he took a step backward, as he looked at
her through narrowing eyes.
"No, miss, it is not my wife," he said, curtly, and then walked back and
sat down beside the old chief. "In fact, she isn't any relation to me, but
she's the nearest white woman I know to leave you with. If you want to go
farther, I reckon I can help you. Anyway, you come along across the line
to Sinna Ferry, and I feel sure you'll find friends there."
She looked at him unbelievingly. "She's used to being deceived," decided
Overton, as she watched him; but he stood her gaze without flinching and
smiled back at her.
"Do you live there?" she asked again, in that abrupt, uncivil way, and
turned her eyes to Akkomi, as though to read his countenance as well as
that of the white man,--a difficult thing, however, for the head of the
old man was again shrouded in his blanket, from which only the tip of his
nose and his pipe protruded.
In a far corner the squaw of Akkomi was crouched, her bead-like eyes
glittering with a watchful interest, as they turned from one to the other
of the speakers, and missed no tone or gesture of the two so strangely met
within her tepee. Overton noticed her once, and thought what a subject
for a picture Lyster would think the whole thing--at long range. He would
want to view it from the door of the tepee, and not from the interior.
But the questioning eyes of the girl were turned to him, and remembering
them, he said:
"Live there? Well, as much--a little more than I do anywhere else of late.
I am to go there in two days; and if you are ready to go, I will take you
and be glad to do it."
"You don't know anything about me," she protested.
He smiled, for her tone told him she was yielding.
"Oh, no--not much," he confessed, "but you can tell me, you know."
"I know I can, but I won't," she said, doggedly. "So I guess you'll just
move on down to the ferry without me. He knows, and he says I can live
here if I want to. I'm tired of the white people. A girl alone is as well
with the Indians. I think so, anyway, and I guess I'll try camping with
them. They don't ask a word--only what I tell myself. They don't even care
whether I have a name; they would give me one if I hadn't."
"A suitable name--and a nice Indian one--for you would be, 'The Water Rat'
or 'The Girl Who Swims.' Maybe," he added, "they will hunt you up one more
like poetry in books (the only place one finds poetry in Indians),
'Laughing Eyes,' or 'The One Who Smiles.' Oh, yes, they'll find you a name
fast enough. So will I, if you have none. But you have, haven't you?"
"Yes, I have, and it's 'Tana," said the girl, piqued into telling by the
humorous twinkle in the man's eyes.
"'Tana? Why, that itself is an Indian name, is it not? And you are not
Indian."
"It's 'Tana, for short. Montana is my name."
"It is? Well, you've got a big name, little girl, and as it is proof that
you belong to the States, don't you think you'd better let me take you
back there?"
"I ain't going down among white folks who will turn up their noses at me,
just because you found me among these redskins," she answered, scowling at
him and speaking very deliberately. "I know how proud decent women are,
and I ain't going among any other sort and that's settled."
"Why, you poor little one, what sort of folks have you been among?" he
asked, compassionately. Her stubborn antagonism filled him with more of
pity than tears could have done; it showed so much suspicion, that spoke
of horrible associations, and she was so young!
"See here! No one need know I found you among the Indians. I can make up
some story--say you're the daughter of an old partner of mine. It'll be a
lie, of course, and I don't approve of lies. But if it makes you feel
better, it goes just the same! Partner dies, you know, and I fall heir to
you. See? Then, of course, I pack you back to civilization, where you
can--well, go to school or something. How's that?"
She did not answer, only looked at him strangely, from under those
straight brows. He felt an angry impatience with her that she did not take
the proposal differently, when it was so plainly for her good he was
making schemes.
"As to your father being dead--that part of it would be true enough, I
suppose," he continued; "for Akkomi told me he was dead."
"Yes--yes, he is dead," she said coldly, and her tones were so even no one
would imagine it was her father she spoke of.
"Your mother, too?"
"My mother, too," she assented. "But I told you I wasn't going to talk any
more about myself, and I ain't. If I can't go to your Sunday-school
without a pedigree, I'll stop where I am--that's all."
She spoke with the independence of a boy, and it was, perhaps, her
independence that induced the man to be persistent.
"All right, 'Tana," he said cheerfully. "You come along on your own terms,
so long as you get out of these quarters. I'll tell the dead partner
story--only the partner must have a name, you know. Montana is a good
name, but it is only a half one, after all. You can give me another, I
reckon."
She hesitated a little and stared at the glowing embers of the lodge fire.
He wondered if she was deciding to tell him a true one, or if she was
trying to think of a fictitious one.
"Well?" he said at last.
Then she looked up, and the sullen, troubled, unchildlike eyes made him
troubled for her sake.
"Rivers is a good name--Rivers?" she asked, and he nodded his head,
grimly.
"That will do," he agreed. "But you give it just because you were baptized
in the river this evening, don't you?"
"I guess I give it because I haven't any other I intend to be called by,"
she answered.
"And you will cut loose from this outfit?" he asked. "You will come with
me, little girl, across there into God's country, where you must belong."
"You won't let them look down on me?"
"If any one looks down on you, it will be because of something you will
do in the future, 'Tana," he said, looking at her very steadily.
"Understand that, for I will settle it that no one knows how I came across
you. And you will go?"
"I--will go."
"Come, now! that's a good decision--the best you could have made, little
girl; and I'll take care of you as though you were a cargo of gold. Shake
hands on the agreement, won't you?"
She held out her hand, and the old squaw in the corner grunted at the
symbol of friendship. Akkomi watched them with his glittering eyes, but
made no sign.
It surely was a strange beginning to a strange friendship.
"You poor little thing!" said Overton, compassionately, as she half shrank
from the clasp of his fingers. The tender tone broke through whatever wall
of indifference she had built about her, for she flung herself face
downward on the couch, and sobbed passionately, refusing to speak again,
though Overton tried in vain to calm her.
CHAPTER III.
THE IMAGE-MAKER.
The world was a night older ere Dan Overton informed Lyster that they
would have an addition of one to their party when they continued their
journey into the States.
On leaving the village of Akkomi but little conversation was to be had
from Dan. In vain did his friend endeavor to learn something of the white
squaw who swam so well. He simply kept silence, and looked with provoking
disregard on all attempts to surprise him into disclosures.
But when the camp breakfast was over, and he had evidently thought out his