That Girl Montana Part 51

"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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.e 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 a.s.sented. "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.