That Girl Montana Part 12

The captain watched Overton gulp down the "fire-water," while he himself sipped his with the appreciation of a gentleman of leisure.

"You didn't use to drink so early in the day," the captain remarked, with a certain watchful malice in his face. "Are your cares as a guardian wearing on your nerves, and bringing a need of stimulants?"

Overton wheeled about as though to fling the whisky-gla.s.s across at the speaker; but the gallant captain, perceiving that he had overreached his stepson's patience, promptly dodged around the end of the bar, squatting close to the floor. Overton, leaning over to look at him, only laughed contemptuously, and set the gla.s.s down again.

"You're not worth the price of the gla.s.s," he decided, amused in spite of himself at the fear in the pale-blue eyes. Even the flowing side-whiskers betrayed a sort of alarm in their bristling alertness. "And if it wasn't that one good woman fancied you were true metal instead of slag, I'd--"

He did not complete the sentence, leaving the captain in doubt as to his half-expressed threat.

"Get up there!" Dan suddenly exclaimed. "Now, you think you will annoy me about that guardians.h.i.+p until I'll give it up, don't you?" he said, more quietly, as the captain once more stood erect, but in a wavering, uncertain way. "Well, you're mightily mistaken, and you might as well end your childish interference right here. The girl is as much ent.i.tled to my consideration as you are--more! So if any one is dropped out of the family circle, it will not be her. Do you understand? And if I hear another word of your insinuations about her amus.e.m.e.nts, I'll break your neck! Two, Jim."

This last was to the barkeeper, and had reference to a half-dollar he tossed on the counter as payment for his own drink and that of the captain; and again he stalked into the street with his temper even more rumpled than when he left Mrs. Huzzard's.

a.s.suredly it was not a good morning for Mr. Overton's peace of mind.

Down along the river he came in sight of the cause of his discontent, the most innocent-looking cause in the world. She was teaching Lyster to paddle the canoe with but one paddle, as the Indians do, and was laughing derisively at his ineffectual attempts to navigate in a straight line.

"You--promised--Mrs. Huzzard--you'd--take--care--of--me," she said, slowly and emphatically, "and a pretty way you're doing it. Suppose I depended on you getting me in to sh.o.r.e for my dinner, how many hours do you think I'd have to go without eating? Just about sixteen. Give me that paddle, and don't upset the canoe when you move."

These commands Mr. Lyster obeyed with alacrity.

"What a clever little girl you are!" he said, admiringly, as she sent the canoe skimming straight as a swallow for the sh.o.r.e. "Now, Overton would appreciate your skill at this sort of work"--and then he laughed a little--"much more than he would your modeling in clay."

A dark flush crept over her face, and her lips straightened.

"Why shouldn't he look down on that sort of pottering around?" she demanded. "_He_ isn't the sort of man who has time to waste on trifles."

"Why that emphasis on the _he_?" asked her tormentor. "Do you mean to insinuate that I do waste time on trifles? Well, well! is that the way I get snubbed, because I grow enthusiastic over your artistic modeling and your most charming voice, Miss 'Tana?"

She flashed one sulky, suspicious look at him, and paddled on in silence.

"What a stormy shadow lurks somewhere back of your eyes," he continued, lazily. "One moment you are all sugar and cream to a fellow, and the next you are an incipient tornado. I think you might distribute your frowns a little among the people you know, and not give them all to me. Now, there's Overton--"

"Don't you talk about him," she commanded, sharply. "You do a lot of making fun about folks, but don't you go on making fun of him, if that's what you're trying to do. If it's _me_--pooh!" and she looked at him, saucily. "I don't care much what you think about me; but Dan--"

"Oh! Dan, then, happens to-day to be one of the saints in your calendar, and plain mortals like myself must not take his name in vain--is that it? What a change from this time yesterday!--for I don't think you sent him to the hills in a very angelic mood. And you!--well, I found you with a clay Indian crumbled to pieces in your destroying hands; so I don't imagine Dan's talk to you left a very peaceful impression."

He laughed at her teasingly, expecting to see her show temper again, but she did not. She only bent her head a little lower, and when she lifted it, she looked at him with a certain daring.

"He was right, and I was silly, I guess. He was good--so good, and I'm mostly bad. I was bad to him, anyway, but I ain't too much of a baby to say so. And if he's mad at me when he comes back, I'll just pack my traps and take another trail."

"Back to Akkomi?" he asked, gaily. "Now, you know we would not hear to that."

"It ain't your affair, only Dan's."

"Oh, excuse me for living on the same earth with you and Dan! It is not my fault, you know. I suppose now, if you did desert us, it would be to act as a sort of guardian angel to the tribes along the river, turn into a whole life-saving service yourself, and pick up the superfluous reds who tumble into the rivers. I wondered for a whole day why you made so strong a swim for so unimportant an article."

"His mother thought he was important," she answered. "But I didn't know he had a mother just then; all I thought as I started for him was that he was so plucky. He tried his little best to save himself, and he never said one word; that was what I liked about him. It would have been a pity to let that sort of a boy be lost."

"You think a heap of that--of personal bravery--don't you? I notice you gauge every one by that."

"Maybe I do. I know I hate a coward," she said, indifferently.

Then, as the canoe ran in to the sh.o.r.e, she for the first time saw Overton, who was standing there waiting for them. She looked at him with startled alertness as his eyes met hers. He looked like a statue--a frontier sentinel standing tall and muscular with folded arms and gazing with curious intentness from one to the other of the canoeists.

In the bottom of the boat a string of fish lay, fine speckled fellows, to delight the palate of an epicure. She stooped and picking up the fish, walked across the sands to him.

"Look, Dan!" she said, with unwonted humility. "They're the best I could find, and--and I'm sorry enough for being ugly yesterday. I'll try not to be any more. I'll do anything you want--yes, I will!" she added, snappishly, as he smiled dubiously, she thought unbelievingly. "I'd--dress like a boy, and go on the trails with you, paddle your canoe, or feed your horse--I would, if you like."

Lyster, who was following, heard her words, and glanced at Overton with curious meaning. Overton met the look with something like a threat in his own eyes--a sort of "laugh if you dare!"

"But I don't like," Dan said, briefly, to poor 'Tana, who had made such a great effort to atone for ugly words spoken to him the day before.

She said no more; and Lyster, walking beside her, pulled one of her unruly curls teasingly, to make her look at him.

"Didn't I tell you it was better to give your smiles to me instead of to Overton?" he asked, in a bantering way, as he took the string of fish. "I care a great deal more about your good opinion than he does."

"Oh--you--" she began, and shrugged her shoulders for a silent finish to her thought, as though words were useless.

"Oh, _me_! Of course, me. Now, if you had offered to paddle a canoe for me, I'd--"

"You'd loll in the bottom of the boat and let me," she flashed out. "Of course you would; you're made just that way."

"Sh--h, 'Tana," said Overton, while to himself he smiled in an indulgent way, and thought: "That is like youth; they only quarrel when there is a listener." Then turning to the girl, he said aloud:

"You know, 'Tana, I want you to learn other things besides paddling a canoe. Such things are all right for a boy; but--"

"I know," she agreed; but there was a resentful tone in her voice. "And I guess I'll never trouble you to do squaw's work for you again."

She looked squaw-like, but for her brown, curly hair, for she still wore the dress Overton had presented to her at the Kootenai village; and very becoming it was with its fancy fringes and dots of yellow, green, and black beads. Only the hat was a civilized affair--the work of Mrs.

Huzzard, and was a wide, pretty "flat" of brown straw, while from its crown some bunches of yellow rosebuds nodded--the very last "artificial"

blossoms left of Sinna Ferry's first millinery store. The young face looked very piquant above the beaded collar; not so pinched or worn a face as when the men had first seen her. The one week of sheltered content had given her cheeks a fullness and color remarkable. She was prettier than either man had imagined she would be. But it was not a joyous, girlish face even yet. There was too much of something like suspicion in it, a certain watchful attention given to the people with whom she came in contact; and this did not seem to abate in the least. Overton had noticed it, and decided that first night that she must have been treated badly by people to have distrust come so readily to her. He noticed, also, that any honest show of kindness soon won her over; and that to Lyster, with his graceful little attentions and his amused interest, she turned from the first hour of their acquaintance as to some chum who was in the very inner circle of those to whom her favor was extended. Overton, hearing their wordy wars and noting their many remarks of friends.h.i.+p, felt old, as though their light enjoyment of little things made him realize the weight of his own years, for he could no longer laugh with them.

Looking down now at the clouded young face under the hat, he felt remorsefully like a "kill-joy;" for she had been cheery enough until she caught sight of him.

"And you will never do squaw work for me again, little squaw?" Dan questioned, banteringly. "Not even if I asked you?"

"You never will ask me," she answered, promptly.

"Well, then, not even if I should get sick and need a nurse?"

"You!" and she surveyed him from head to foot with p.r.o.nounced unbelief.

"_You'll_ never be sick. You're strong as a mountain lion, or an old king buffalo."

"Maybe," he agreed, and smiled slightly at the dubious compliment. "But you know even the old king buffaloes die sometime."

"Die? Oh, yes, in a fight, or something of that sort; but they don't need much medicine!"