That Girl Montana Part 9

"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 pa.s.sion 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 protest. "If you go to the States as my ward, you must let me take the management of the outfit. I got the dress for an army friend of mine, who wanted it for his daughter; but I guess it will about fit you, and she will have to wait until next trip. Now, as I've settled our business, I'll be getting back across the river, so until to-morrow, _klahowya_."

She stood, awkward and embarra.s.sed, before him. No words would come to her lips to thank him. She had felt desolate and friendless for so long, and now when his kindness was so great, she felt as if she should cry if she spoke at all. Just as she had cried the night before at his compa.s.sionate tones and touch.

Suddenly she bent forward for the belt, and with some muttered words he could not distinguish, she grasped his big hand in her little brown fingers, and touching it with her lips, twice--thrice--turned and ran away as swiftly as the little Indians who had run on the sh.o.r.e.

The warm color flushed all over Dan's face, as he looked after her. Of course, she was only a little girl, but he was devoutly glad Max was not in sight. Max would not have understood aright. Then his eyes traveled back to his hand, where her mouth had touched it. Her kiss had fallen where the scar of the panther's teeth was.

And this, also, was a wild thing he was taking from the forests!

CHAPTER V.

AT SINNA FERRY.

"It has been young wolves, an' bears, an' other vicious pets--every formed thing, but snakes or redskins, and at last it's that!"