That Girl Montana
on the girl's half smiling, drooped face, on Lyster, who held the model
and his hat in one hand and, with his handsome blonde head bared, held out
his other hand to her, saying something in those low, deferential tones
Dan knew so well.
Her hand was given after a little hesitation. When they beheld Dan so near
them, the hands were unclasped and each looked confused.
Mr. Lyster was the first to recover, and adjusting his head covering once
more, he held up the clay model to view.
"Thought you'd be around before long," he remarked, with a provoking gleam
in his eyes. "I really had no hope of meeting Miss Rivers before you this
morning; but fortune favors the brave, you know, and fortune sent me
right along these sands for my morning walk--a most indulgent fortune,
for, look at this! Did you know your ward is an embryo sculptress?"
The older man looked indifferently enough at the exalted bit of clay.
"I leave discoveries of that sort to you. They seem to run in your line
more than mine," he answered, briefly. Then he turned to the girl. "Akkomi
told me you were here with the children, 'Tana. If you had other company,
Akkomi would have made him welcome."
He did not speak unkindly, yet she felt that in some way he was not
pleased; and perhaps--perhaps he would change his mind and leave her where
he found her! And if so, she might never see--either of their faces again!
As the thought came to her, she looked up at Dan in a startled way, and
half put out her hand.
"I--I did not know. I don't like the lodges. It is better here by the
river. It is _your_ friend that came, and I--"
"Certainly. You need not explain. And as you seem to know each other, I
need not do any introducing," he answered, as she seemed to grow confused.
"But I have a little time to talk to you this morning and so came early."
"Which means that I can set sail for the far shore," added Lyster,
amiably. "All right; I'm gone. Good-by till to-morrow, Miss Rivers. I'm
grateful for the clay Indian, and more grateful that you have agreed to be
friends with me again. Will you believe, Dan, that in our short
acquaintance of half an hour, we have had time for one quarrel and 'make
up'? It is true. And now that she is disposed to accept me as a traveling
companion, don't you spoil it by giving me a bad name when my back is
turned. I'll wait at the canoes."
With a wave of his hat, he passed out of sight around the clump of bushes,
and down along the shore, singing cheerily, and the words floated back to
them:
"Come, love! come, love!
My boat lies low;
She lies high and dry
On the Ohio."
Overton stood looking at the girl for a little time after Lyster
disappeared. His eyes were very steady and searching, as though he began
to realize the care a ward might be, especially when the antecedents and
past life of the ward were so much of stubborn mystery to him.
"I wonder," he said, at last, "if there is any chance of your being my
friend, too, in so short a time as a half-hour? Oh, well, never mind," he
added, as he saw the red mouth tremble, and tears show in her eyes as she
looked at him. "Only don't commence by disliking, that's all; for
unfriendliness is a bad thing in a household, let alone in a canoe, and I
can be of more downright use to you, if you give me all the confidence you
can."
"I know what you mean--that I must tell you about--about how I came here,
and all; but I won't!" she burst out. "I'll die here before I do! I hated
the people they said were my people. I was glad when they were
dead--glad--glad! Oh, you'll say it's wicked to think that way about
relatives. Maybe it is, but it's natural if they've always been wicked to
you. I'll go to the bad place, I reckon, for feeling this way, and I'll
just have to go, for I can't feel any other way."
"'Tana--_'Tana!_" and his hand fell on her shoulder, as though to shake
her away from so wild a mood. "You are only a girl yet. When you are
older, you will be ashamed to say you ever hated your parents--whoever
they were--your mother!"
"I ain't saying anything about her," she answered bitterly. "She died
before I can mind. I've been told she was a lady. But I won't ever use the
name again she used. I--I want to start square with the world, if I leave
these Indians, and I can't do it unless I change my name and try to forget
the old one. It has a curse on it--it has."
She was trembling with nervousness, and her eyes, though tearless, were
stormy and rebellious.
"You'll think I'm bad, because I talk this way," she continued, "but I
ain't--I ain't. I've fought when I had to, and--and I'd swear--sometimes;
but that's all the bad I ever did do. I won't any more if you take me with
you. I--I can cook and keep house for you, if you hain't got folks of your
own, and--I do want to go with you."
"Come, love! come!
Won't you go along with me?
And I'll take you back
To old Tennessee!"
The words of the handsome singer came clearly back to them. Overton, about
to speak, heard the words of the song, and a little smile, half-bitter,
half-sad, touched his lips as he looked at her.
"I see," he said, quietly, "you care more about going to-day, than you did
when I talked to you last night. Well, that's all right. And I reckon you
can make coffee for me as long as you like. That mayn't be long, though,
for some of the young fellows will be wanting you to keep house for them
before many years, and you'll naturally do it. How old are you?"
"I'm--past sixteen," she said, in a deprecating way, as though ashamed of
her years and her helplessness. "I'm old enough to work, and I will work
if I get where it's any use trying. But I won't keep house for any one but
you."
"Won't you?" he asked, doubtfully. "Well, I've an idea you may. But we'll
talk about that when the time comes. This morning I wanted to talk of
something else before we start--you and Max and I--down into Idaho. I'm
not asking the name of the man you hate so; but if I am to acknowledge him
as an old acquaintance of mine, you had better tell me what business he
was in. You see, it might save complications if any one should run across
us some day and know."
"No one will know me," she said, decidedly. "If I didn't know that, I'd
stay right here, I think. And as to him, my fond parent," and she made a
grimace--"I guess you can call him a prospector and speculator--either of
those would be correct. I think they called him Jim, when he was
christened."
"Akkomi said last night you had been on the trail hunting for some one.
Was it a friend, or--or any one I could help you look for?"
"No, it wasn't a friend, and I'm done with the search and glad of it. Did
you," she added, looking at him darkly, "ever put in time hunting for any
one you didn't want to find?"
Without knowing it, Miss Rivers must have touched on a subject rather
sensitive to her guardian, for his face flushed, and he gazed at her
with a curious expression in his eyes.
"Maybe I have, little girl," he said at last. "I reckon I know how to let
your troubles alone, anyway, if I can't help them. But I must tell you,
Max--Max Lyster, you know--will be the only one very curious about your
presence here--as to the route you came, etc. You had better be prepared
for that."
"It won't be very hard," she answered, "for I came over from Sproats'
Landing, up to Karlo, and back down here."
"Over from Sproats--you?" he asked, looking at her nervously. "I heard
nothing of a white girl making that trip. When, and how did you do it?"
"Two weeks ago, and on foot," was the laconic reply. "As I had only a
paper of salt and some matches, I couldn't afford to travel in high style,
so I footed it. I had a ring and a blanket, and I traded them up at Karlo
for an old tub of a dugout, and got here in that."
"You had some one with you?"
"I was alone."
Overton looked at her with more of amazement than she had yet inspired in
him. He thought of that indescribably wild portage trail from the Columbia
to the Kootenai. When men crossed it, they preferred to go in company, and
this slip of a girl had dared its loneliness, its dangers alone. He
thought of the stories of death, by which the trail was haunted; of
prospectors who had verged from that dim path and had been lost in the
wilderness, where their bones were found by Indians or white hunters long
after; of strange stories of wild beasts; of all the weird sounds of the
jungles; of places where a misstep would send one lifeless to the jagged
feet of huge precipices. And through that trail of terror she had
walked--alone!
"I have nothing more to ask," he said briefly. "But it is not necessary to
tell any of the white people you meet that you made the trip alone."
"I know," she said, humbly, "they'd think it either wasn't true--or--or
else that it oughtn't to be true. I know how they'd look at me and whisper
things. But if--if you believe me--"
She paused uncertainly, and looked up at him. All the rebellion and
passion had faded out of her eyes now: they were only appealing. What a
wild, changeable creature she was with those quick contrasts of temper!
wild as the name she bore--Montana--the mountains. Something like that
thought came into his mind as he looked at her.
He had gathered other wild things from his trips into the wilderness;
young bears with which to enliven camp life; young fawns that he had loved
and cared for, because of the beauty of eyes and form; even a pair of
kittens had been carried by him across into the States, and developed into
healthy, marauding panthers. One of these had set its teeth through the
flesh of his hand one day ere he could conquer and kill it, and his fawns,
cubs and smaller pets had drifted from him back to their forests, or else
into the charge of some other prospector who had won their affections.
He remembered them, and the remembrance lent a curious character to the
smile in his eyes, as he held out his hand to her.
"I do believe you, for it is only cowards who tell lies; and I don't
believe you'd make a good coward--would you?"
She did not answer, but her face flushed with pleasure, and she looked up
at him gratefully. He seemed to like that better than words.
"Akkomi called you 'Girl-not-Afraid,'" he continued. "And if I were a
redskin, too, I would look up an eagle feather for you to wear in your
hair. I reckon you've heard that only the braves dare wear eagle
feathers."
"I know, but I--"
"But you have earned them by your own confession," he said, kindly, "and
some day I may run across them for you. In the meantime, I have only
this."
He held out a beaded belt of Indian manufacture, a pretty thing, and she
opened her eyes in glad surprise, as he offered it to her.
"For me? Oh, Dan!--Mr. Overton--I--"
She paused, confused at having called him as the Indians called him; but
he smiled understandingly.
"We'll settle that name business right here," he suggested. "You call me
Dan, if it comes easier to you. Just as I call you 'Tana. I don't know
'Mr. Overton' very well myself in this country, and you needn't trouble
yourself to remember him. Dan is shorter. If I had a sister, she'd call me
Dan, I suppose; so I give you license to do so. As to the belt, I got it,
with some other plunder, from some Columbia River reds, and you use it.
There is some other stuff in Akkomi's tepee you'd better put on, too; it's
new stuff--a whole dress--and I think the moccasins will about fit you. I
brought over two pairs, to make sure. Now, don't get any independent
notions in your head," he advised, as she looked at him as though about to