130CHAPTER X.THE STRANGER’S LOVE STORY.
’Tana sat alone in her room a few hours later, and from the window watched the form of Ora Harrison disappear along the street. The latter had been sent by her father with some medicine for the paralyzed stranger, and the girls had chatted of the school ’Tana was to attend, and of the schools Ora had gone to and all the friends she remembered there, who now sent her such kind letters. Ora told ’Tana of the lovely time she expected to have when the steamers would come up from Bonner’s Ferry to the Kootenai Lake region, for then her friends were to come in the summers, and the warm months were to be like holidays.
All this girlish frankness, all the cheery friendship of the doctor’s family filled ’Tana with a wild unrest against herself—against the world.
“It would be easy to be good if a person lived like that always,” she thought, “in a nice home, with a mother to kiss me and a father I was not ashamed of. I felt stupid when they talked to me. I could only think how happy they were, and that they did not seem to know it. And Ora was sweet and sorry for me because my parents were dead. Huh!” she grunted, disdainfully, in the Indian fashion peculiar to her at times. “If she knew how I felt about it she’d hate me, I suppose. They’d all think I was bad clear through. They wouldn’t understand the reason—no131nice women like them could. Oh, if the school would only make me nice like that! But I suppose it’s got to be born in people, and I was born different.”
Even this reason did not render her more resigned; and, to add to her disquiet, there came to her the memory of eyes whose gaze made her shiver—the eyes of the stranger whom Overton had carried into the house for dead, but whose brain was yet alive. He had looked at her with a strange, wild stare, and Overton himself had turned his eyes toward her in moody questioning when she came forward to help. He had accepted the help, but each time she raised her eyes she saw that Dan was looking at her with a new watchfulness; all his interest in the stricken stranger did not keep him from that.
“If any one is accountable for this, I guess I’m the man,” he confessed, ruefully. “He told me he was afraid of this, yet I was fool enough to lose my temper and turn him around rough. It might have struck him, anyway; but my conscience doesn’t let me down easy. He’ll be my care till some one comes along with a stronger claim.”
“Maybe there is some one somewhere,” said ’Tana. “There might be letters, if it would be right to look.”
“If there are relatives anywhere in the settlements, I guess they’d be glad enough if I’d look,” decided Overton. “There is no way to get permission from him, though,” and he looked in the helpless man’s eyes. “I don’t know what you’d say to this if you could speak, stranger,” he said; “but to go through your pockets seems the only way to locate you or your friends; so I’ll have to do it.”
It was not easy to do, with those eyes staring at him in that horrible way. But he tried to avoid the eyes, and132thrust his hand into the inner pocket, drawing out an ordinary notebook, some scraps of newspaper folded up in it, and two letters addressed to Joe Hammond; one to Little Dalles, and the other had evidently been delivered by a messenger, for no destination was marked on it. It was an old letter and the envelope was worn through all around the edges. Another paper was wrapped around it, and the writing was of a light feminine character. Overton touched it with a certain reverence and looked embarrassed.
“I think, Mrs. Huzzard, I will ask you to read this, as it seems a lady’s letter, and if there is any information in it, you can give it to us; if not, I’ll just put it back in his pocket and hope luck will tell us what the letter doesn’t.”
But Mrs. Huzzard demurred: “And me that short-sighted that even specs won’t cure it! No, indeed. I’m no one to read important papers. But here’s ’Tana, with eyes like a hawk for sighting things. She’ll read it fast enough.”
Overton looked undecided, remembering those strange insinuations of the now helpless man, and feeling that the man himself might not be willing.
“I—well—I guess not,” he said, at last. “It ain’t just square to send a little girl blindfold like that into a stranger’s claim. We’ll let some one over twenty-one read the letters. You’ll do, Max, and if it ain’t all right, you can stop up short.”
So Lyster read the treasured message, all in the same feminine writing. His sensitive face grew grave, and he turned compassionate glances toward the helpless man as he read the letters, according to their dates. The133oldest one was the only one not sad. Its postmark was a little town many miles to the south.
“Dear Old Joe: It’s awful to be this near you, and know you are sick, without being able to get to you. I just arrived, and your partner has met me, and told me all about it. But I’ll go up with him, just the same; and when you are able to travel we can come down to a town and be married, instead of to-day, as we had set on. So that’s all right, and don’t you worry. Your partner, John Ingalls, is as nice as he can be to me. Why did you not tell me how good looking he was? Maybe you never discovered it—you slow, prosy old Joe! When you wrote to me of that rich find you stumbled on, I was sorry you had picked up a partner; for you always did trust folks too much, and I was afraid you’d be cheated by the stranger you picked up. But I guess that I was wrong, Joe; for he is a very nice gentleman—the nicest I ever met, I think. And he talks about you just as if he was your brother, and thought a heap of you. He tried to tease me some, too—asked how you ever came to catch such a pretty girl as me! Then I told him, Joe, that you never had to catch me—that I was little, and hadn’t any folks, and how you got your folks to give me a home when you was only a boy; and that you was always like a big brother to me till you made some money in the mines. Then you wrote and asked me to come out and marry you. He just laughed, Joe, and said it was not a brother’s love that a wife wanted; but I don’t think he knows anything about that—do you? And, Joe, I came pretty near telling him all about that richest find you made—the one you said you wanted me to be the first to see. I thought, of course, you had told your partner, just as you told me when you sent me the plan of it—what for, I don’t know, Joe, for I never could find it in the wide world, even if there was any chance of my hunting for it alone. Your partner asked me point blank if you had written to me of any late find of yours, or of any special location where you found good signs. I tried to134look innocent, and said maybe you had, but I couldn’t remember. I didn’t like to tell a story. I wanted to tell him all the truth, and how rich you said we would be. I knew you would want to tell him yourself, so I managed to keep quiet in time. But whenever he looks at me I feel guilty. And he looks at me so kindly, and he is so good. He says we can’t begin our journey to you right away, because he has provisions and things to get first; but we will set out in three days. So I send this letter that you will know I am on the road; maybe we’ll reach you first. He is going to take me riding around this camp this evening—I mean Mr. Ingalls. He says I must get some enjoyment before I go up there to the mountains, where no one lives. He is the nicest stranger I ever met. But, of course, I never was away from home much to meet folks; I guess, though, I might travel a long ways and not meet any one so nice. He just brought me a pretty purse made by the Indians. I hope you wear a big hat like he does, and big, high boots. I never saw folks wear them back home; but they do look nice. Now, good-by, Joe, for a few days.“Yours affectionately,“Fannie.”
“Dear Old Joe: It’s awful to be this near you, and know you are sick, without being able to get to you. I just arrived, and your partner has met me, and told me all about it. But I’ll go up with him, just the same; and when you are able to travel we can come down to a town and be married, instead of to-day, as we had set on. So that’s all right, and don’t you worry. Your partner, John Ingalls, is as nice as he can be to me. Why did you not tell me how good looking he was? Maybe you never discovered it—you slow, prosy old Joe! When you wrote to me of that rich find you stumbled on, I was sorry you had picked up a partner; for you always did trust folks too much, and I was afraid you’d be cheated by the stranger you picked up. But I guess that I was wrong, Joe; for he is a very nice gentleman—the nicest I ever met, I think. And he talks about you just as if he was your brother, and thought a heap of you. He tried to tease me some, too—asked how you ever came to catch such a pretty girl as me! Then I told him, Joe, that you never had to catch me—that I was little, and hadn’t any folks, and how you got your folks to give me a home when you was only a boy; and that you was always like a big brother to me till you made some money in the mines. Then you wrote and asked me to come out and marry you. He just laughed, Joe, and said it was not a brother’s love that a wife wanted; but I don’t think he knows anything about that—do you? And, Joe, I came pretty near telling him all about that richest find you made—the one you said you wanted me to be the first to see. I thought, of course, you had told your partner, just as you told me when you sent me the plan of it—what for, I don’t know, Joe, for I never could find it in the wide world, even if there was any chance of my hunting for it alone. Your partner asked me point blank if you had written to me of any late find of yours, or of any special location where you found good signs. I tried to134look innocent, and said maybe you had, but I couldn’t remember. I didn’t like to tell a story. I wanted to tell him all the truth, and how rich you said we would be. I knew you would want to tell him yourself, so I managed to keep quiet in time. But whenever he looks at me I feel guilty. And he looks at me so kindly, and he is so good. He says we can’t begin our journey to you right away, because he has provisions and things to get first; but we will set out in three days. So I send this letter that you will know I am on the road; maybe we’ll reach you first. He is going to take me riding around this camp this evening—I mean Mr. Ingalls. He says I must get some enjoyment before I go up there to the mountains, where no one lives. He is the nicest stranger I ever met. But, of course, I never was away from home much to meet folks; I guess, though, I might travel a long ways and not meet any one so nice. He just brought me a pretty purse made by the Indians. I hope you wear a big hat like he does, and big, high boots. I never saw folks wear them back home; but they do look nice. Now, good-by, Joe, for a few days.
“Yours affectionately,“Fannie.”
“Yours affectionately,
“Fannie.”
“Well, that letter is plain sailing,” remarked Overton, “but there is only one name in it we could follow up—the partner, John Ingalls. But I don’t think I’ve heard of him.”
“Wait! there is another letter—two more,” said Lyster; and the others were silent as he read:
“Joe: I hope you’ll hate me now. I can stand that better than to know you still like me. I can’t help it. I am going with him—your partner. He loves me, too, Joe—not in the brotherly way you did, but in a way that makes me think of him and no one else. So I can’t marry any one but him. Maybe it’s a sin to be false to you, Joe; but I never could go to you now. And I can’t help going where he wants me to go. Don’t be mad at him; he can’t help it either, I suppose. He says he will always be good to me, and I am going. But my heart is heavy135as I write to you. I am not happy—maybe because I love him too much. But I am going. Try and forget me.“Fannie.”
“Joe: I hope you’ll hate me now. I can stand that better than to know you still like me. I can’t help it. I am going with him—your partner. He loves me, too, Joe—not in the brotherly way you did, but in a way that makes me think of him and no one else. So I can’t marry any one but him. Maybe it’s a sin to be false to you, Joe; but I never could go to you now. And I can’t help going where he wants me to go. Don’t be mad at him; he can’t help it either, I suppose. He says he will always be good to me, and I am going. But my heart is heavy135as I write to you. I am not happy—maybe because I love him too much. But I am going. Try and forget me.
“Fannie.”
“Fannie.”
In dead silence Lyster unfolded the third paper. The drama of this stranger’s life was a pathetic thing to the listeners, who looked at him with pity in their eyes, but could utter no words of sympathy to the man who sat there helpless and looked at them. Then the last, a penciled sheet, was read.
“Joe: I am dying, I think. The Indian woman with me says so; and I hope it is true. He came to me to-day—the first time in weeks. He never married me, as he promised. He cursed me to-day because my baby face led him away from a fortune he knows you found. I never told him, though it is a wonder. All he knows of it he heard you say in your sleep when you were sick that time. To-day he told me you were paralyzed, Joe—that you are helpless still—that he has taken Indians with him there to your old claim, and searched every foot of ground for the gold vein he thinks you know of. But it is of no use, and he is furious over it, and so taunts me of your helplessness alone in the wilderness.“Joe, I still have the plan you made of the river and the two little streams and the marked tree. Can’t I make amends some way for the wrong I did you? Is there anywhere a friend you could trust to work the find and take care of you? For if you are too helpless to write yourself, and can get only the name of the person to me, I will send the plan some way to him. I know I am not to live long. I am in a perfect fever to hear from you, and tell you that my sin against you weighs me down to despair.“I can’t tell you of my life with him; it is too horrible. I do not even know who he is, for Ingalls is not his name. We are with Indians and they call him ’Medicine,’ and seem to know him well. He has left me here, to-day, and I feel I will never see him again. He tells me he136has sent for a young white boy who is to be brought to camp, and who will help care for me. Anything would be better than the sly red faces about me; they fill me with terror. My one hope is that the boy may get this letter sent to you, and that some word may come to me from you before my life ends. It has taken me all this day to write to you.“Good-by. I am dying miserably, and I deserve it. I can’t even tell you where to write me; only we are with Indians camped by a big river. Not far away is a wall of rock, like a hill, beside the river, and Indian writing is cut on the wall, and holes and things are cut all along it.”
“Joe: I am dying, I think. The Indian woman with me says so; and I hope it is true. He came to me to-day—the first time in weeks. He never married me, as he promised. He cursed me to-day because my baby face led him away from a fortune he knows you found. I never told him, though it is a wonder. All he knows of it he heard you say in your sleep when you were sick that time. To-day he told me you were paralyzed, Joe—that you are helpless still—that he has taken Indians with him there to your old claim, and searched every foot of ground for the gold vein he thinks you know of. But it is of no use, and he is furious over it, and so taunts me of your helplessness alone in the wilderness.
“Joe, I still have the plan you made of the river and the two little streams and the marked tree. Can’t I make amends some way for the wrong I did you? Is there anywhere a friend you could trust to work the find and take care of you? For if you are too helpless to write yourself, and can get only the name of the person to me, I will send the plan some way to him. I know I am not to live long. I am in a perfect fever to hear from you, and tell you that my sin against you weighs me down to despair.
“I can’t tell you of my life with him; it is too horrible. I do not even know who he is, for Ingalls is not his name. We are with Indians and they call him ’Medicine,’ and seem to know him well. He has left me here, to-day, and I feel I will never see him again. He tells me he136has sent for a young white boy who is to be brought to camp, and who will help care for me. Anything would be better than the sly red faces about me; they fill me with terror. My one hope is that the boy may get this letter sent to you, and that some word may come to me from you before my life ends. It has taken me all this day to write to you.
“Good-by. I am dying miserably, and I deserve it. I can’t even tell you where to write me; only we are with Indians camped by a big river. Not far away is a wall of rock, like a hill, beside the river, and Indian writing is cut on the wall, and holes and things are cut all along it.”
“The Arrow lakes of the Columbia!” interrupted Overton—
“If the boy comes, and is to be trusted at all, he may tell me more; that is my only hope of this reaching you. If you are not able to make another plan (and he says your hands are powerless) remember, I have the one you did make. If you can send me one word—one name of a friend—I will try—try so hard. He would kill me if he knew, and I would be glad of it, if I could only help you first. I feel that I will never see you again.“Fannie.”
“If the boy comes, and is to be trusted at all, he may tell me more; that is my only hope of this reaching you. If you are not able to make another plan (and he says your hands are powerless) remember, I have the one you did make. If you can send me one word—one name of a friend—I will try—try so hard. He would kill me if he knew, and I would be glad of it, if I could only help you first. I feel that I will never see you again.
“Fannie.”
“Fannie.”
Mrs. Huzzard was crying and whispering, “Poor dear!—poor child!” and even the voice of Lyster was not quite steady as he read. Those straggling, weak pencil marks had a pathos of their own to him. The letter, crossed and recrossed by the lines, was on two pages, evidently torn from the back of a book.
“It seems a sacrilege to dive into a man’s feelings and secrets like this,” he said, ruefully. “Itis! My only consolation is that I did it with good intent.”
“And, after all, not a plain trail found that will help us locate this man or his friends,” decided Overton—“not a name we can really fasten to but the name on the137envelope—Joe Hammond. It is too bad. Why, ’Tana! Good God!’Tana!”
For the girl, who had uttered no word, but had listened to that last letter with whitened face and staring eyes, leaned against the wall at its close, and a little gasp from her drew their attention.
She fell forward on her face ere Overton could reach her.
“Tana, my girl, what is it? Speak!” he entreated.
But the girl only whispered: “I know now! Joe—Joe Hammond!” and fainted dead away at the feet of the paralyzed man.
138CHAPTER XI.’TANA AND JOE.
“Just like a part in a play, captain—that’s just the way it struck me,” said Mrs. Huzzard, recounting the affair for the benefit of the postmaster of Sinna Ferry. “The man a-sitting there like a statue, with only his eyes looking alive, and that poor, scared dear a-falling down on the floor beside him, and looking as white as milk! I never had a notion she was so easy touched by people’s troubles. It surely was a sorry story read from them three letters. I tell you, sir, men leave women with aching hearts many’s the time,” and she glanced sentimentally toward her listener; “though if there is one place more heart-rending to be deserted in than another, I think an Indian village would be the very worst. Just to think of that poor dear dying there in a place she didn’t even know the name of.”
“Humph! I’ve an idea you are giving your sympathy to the wrong individual,” decided the captain. “It must be easier even to die in some unknown corner than for a living soul to be shut up in a dead body, after the manner of this Harris, or Hammond, or whatever his name is. I guess, from the looks of things, he must have collapsed when that second letter reached him; had a bad stroke, and was just recovering somewhat when he strayed into this camp. Yes, madame, I’ve an idea he’s139had a harder row to hoe than the girl; and, then, it doesn’t look as though he’d deserved it so much.”
“Mr. Dan is mightily upset over it, ain’t he?”
“Mr. Dan is just as likely to get upset over any other vagabond who strays in his direction,” grumbled the captain. “Folks are always falling in his way to be looked after. He has the worst luck! He never did a bit of harm to this stranger—nothing but drop a hand on his shoulder; and all at once the man falls down helpless. And Dan feels in duty bound to take care of him. Then the girl ’Tana has to flop over in the same way, just when I thought we were to get rid of her. And she’s another charge to look after. He’ll be wanting to hire your house for a hospital next thing, Mrs. Huzzard.”
“And welcome he’d be to it for ’Tana,” declared Mrs. Huzzard, valiantly. “She’s been a bit saucy to you at times, and I know it; but, indeed, it’s only because she fancies you don’t like her.”
“Like her, madame! A girl who plays poker, and—and—”
“And wins,” added Mrs. Huzzard, with a twinkle in her eyes. “Ah, now, didn’t Mr. Max tell me the whole story! She is a clip, and I know it; but I think she only meant that game as a bit of a joke.”
“A twenty-dollar joke, Mrs. Huzzard, is too expensive to be funny,” growled the captain, with natural discontent. “But if I could only convince myself that the money was honestly won, I would not feel so annoyed over it; but I can’t—no, madame. I am confident there was a trick in that game—some gambler’s trick she has picked up among her promiscuous acquaintances. And I am annoyed—more than ever annoyed now that there is a140chance of her remaining longer under Dan’s care. She’s a dangerousprotégéefor a boy of his age, that’s all.”
“Dangerous! Oh, now, I’ve my doubts of that,” said Mrs. Huzzard, shaking her head, emphatically. “You take my word for it, if she’s dangerous as a girl to any one in this camp, it’s not Mr. Dan’s peace of mind she’s disturbing, but that of his new friend.”
“You mean Lyster? Ridiculous! A gentleman of culture, used to the best society, give a thought to such an unclassed individual? No, madame!—don’t you believe it. His interest about the school affair was doubtless to get her away from camp, and to keep her from being a responsibility on Dan’s hands.”
“Hum! maybe. But, from all the dances he danced with her, and the way he waited on her, I’d a notion that he did not think her a great responsibility at all.”
This conversation occurred the morning after those letters had been read. The owner of them was installed in the best room Mrs. Huzzard had to offer, and miners from all sections were cordially invited to visit the paralyzed man, in the vain hope that some one would chance to remember his face, or help establish the lost miner’s identity; for he seemed utterly lost from all record of his past—all but that he had loved a girl whom an unknown partner had stolen. And Overton remembered that he seemed especially interested in the whereabouts of the renegade, Lee Holly.
The unknown Lee Holly’s name had suddenly attained the importance of a gruesome ghost to Overton. He had stared gloomily at the paralytic, as though striving to glean from the living eyes the secrets held close by the silenced lips. ’Tana and Monte and Lee Holly!—his little girl and those renegades! Surely these persons141could have nothing to do with each other. Harris was looney—so Overton decided as he stalked back and forth beside the house, glancing up once in a while to a window above him—a window where he hoped to see ’Tana’s face; for all one day had gone, and the evening come again, yet he had never seen her since he had lifted her unconscious form from beside the chair of Harris. Her words, “I know now! Joe—Joe Hammond!” were yet whispering through his senses. Did those words mean anything? or was the child simply overwrought by that tragedy told in the letters? He did not imagine she would comprehend all the sadness of it until she had fallen in that faint.
The night he had talked with her first in Akkomi’s tepee, and afterward in the morning by the river, he had promised to be satisfied with what she chose to tell him of herself, and ask no questions of her past. But since the insinuations of Harris and her own peculiar words and manner, he discovered that the promise was not easy to keep—especially when Lyster besieged him with questions; for ’Tana had spent the day utterly alone, but for the ministrations of Mrs. Huzzard. She would not see even the doctor, as she said she was not sick. She would not see Overton, Lyster, or any one else, because she said she did not want to talk; she was tired, and that reason must suffice. It did for Lyster, especially after he had received a nod, a smile, and a wave of her hand from her window—a circumstance he related hopefully to Overton, as it banished the lingering fear in his mind that her exile was one caused by absolute illness.
“I candidly believe, Dan, that she is simply ashamed of having fainted before us last evening—fancies it looks weak, I suppose; and she does pride herself so on her142ungirlish strength. I’ve no doubt she will emerge from her seclusion to-morrow morning, and expect us to ignore her sentimental swoon. How is your other patient?”
“Better.”
“Much?”
“Well, just the difference of turning his eyes quickly toward a thing, instead of slowly, as at first. The doctor just told me he is able to move his head slightly, so I guess he is not to go under this trip. But he’ll never be a well man again.”
“Rather heavy on you, old fellow, that you feel bound to look after him. I can’t see the necessity of it. Why don’t you let the rest of the camp—”
But Overton had turned away and resumed his walk. Lyster stared at him in wonder for a moment and then laughed.
“All right, Rothschild,” he observed. “You know the depth of your own purse best. But, to tell the truth, you don’t act like your own responsible self to-day. You go moping around as though the other fellow’s stroke had touched you, too. You are a great fellow, Dan, to take other people’s loads on your shoulders; but it is a bad habit, and you’d better reform.”
“I will, when I have time,” returned Overton, with a grim smile. “Just now I have other things to think of. Don’t mind me.”
“I sha’n’t. I confess I don’t mind any of you very much since I saw the cheery vision of yourprotégéeat the window—and waving her hand to me, too; the first bit of sunshine I’ve seen in camp to-day. For the average specimen I’ve run across has looked to me like you—glum.”143
Receiving no reply whatever to this criticism, he strolled away after a smiling glance upward to ’Tana’s window. But no girlish hand waved greeting to him this time, and he comforted himself by humming, “My Love is but a Lassie Yet.” This was a mischievous endeavor to attract Overton’s attention and make him say something, even though the something should prove uncomplimentary to the warbler.
But it was a failure. Overton only thrust his hands a little deeper in his pockets as he stared after the handsome, light-hearted fellow. Of course, it would be Max to whom she would wave her hand; and he was glad somebody felt like singing, though he himself could not. His mind was too much tormented by the thoughts of those two who formed a nucleus for the hospital already contemptuously alluded to by the captain.
And those two?
One sat almost motionless, as he had been for the twenty-four hours. But as Mrs. Huzzard and the captain left his room, each spoke hopefully of his appearance. Mrs. Huzzard especially was very confident his face showed more animation than she had observed at her noonday visit; and the fact that he could move his head and nod in reply to questions certainly did seem to promise recovery.
In the adjoining room, close to the very thin partition, ’Tana lay with ears strained to catch each word of the conversation. But when her door was opened by Mrs. Huzzard, all semblance of interest was gone, and she lay on the little bed with closed eyes.
“I’m right glad she’s taking a nap at last,” said the good soul as she closed the door softly. “That child scarce slept a bit all night, and I know it. Curious how nervous144she got over that man’s troubles. But, of course, he did look awful at first, and nigh about scared me.”
’Tana lay still till the steps died away on the stairs, and the voices were heard more faintly on the lower floor. All the day she had waited for the people to leave the stranger in the next room alone; and, for the first time, no voice of visitors broke the silence of the upper floor.
She slipped to the door and listened. Her movements were stealthy as that of some forest animal evading a hunter. She turned the knob softly, and with still swiftness was inside the stranger’s room, and the door closed behind her.
He certainly was more alert, for his eyes met hers instantly. His look was almost one of fear, and she was trembling visibly.
“I had to come,” she said, nervously, in a half whisper, “I heard the letters read, and I have to tell you something I’ve thought all night—all day—and I have to tell you. Do you understand? Try to understand. Nod your head if you do. Do you?”
Her speech was rapid and impatient, while she listened each moment lest a step sound on the stairs again. But in all her eagerness to hear she never looked away from his face, and she uttered a low exclamation of gladness when the man’s head bent slowly in assent.
“Oh, I am so glad—so glad! You will get well; you must! Listen! I know you now, and why you looked at me so. You think you saw me up at Revelstoke—I think I remember your face there—and you don’t trust me. You are looking for that man—the man that took her away from you. You think I could find a trail to him; but you are wrong. He is dead, and I know she145is—Iknow! Your name was the last word she said—‘Joe.’ She wanted you to forgive her, and not crosshispath. You don’t believe me, perhaps; but it is all true. I went to the camp with—with the boy she wrote of. She talked of you to me. I had word to give you if we ever met. But how was I to know that Jim Harris was the man—the same man? Do you hear—do you believe me?”
Those burning eyes—eyes in which all of life in him seemed concentrated—looked out on her from the pale, strange face; looked on her until her own cheeks grew colorless, for there was something awful in the searching regard of the man who was but half alive.
“See!” she said, and slipped from her belt a package in which paper rustled, “I’ve had that plan of the gold find ever since—since she died. She gave it to me, in case you should be—as you are, and no one to look after it for you. Or, if you should go under, she said, I was to look it up. And I started to look it up—yes, I did; but things were against me, and I let it go for a while. But now, listen! If you get well, it means money must do it. See? Dan hasn’t very much—not enough to float you long. Now, I’ve thought it all out. You give up the notion of looking for that man, who wasn’t worth a shot of powder when he was alive, and worth less now. It’s that notion that’s been eating the life out of you. Oh, I’ve thought it all out! Now you just turn honest prospector, like you was when that man Ingalls first spotted you. I’m only a girl, but I’ll try to help make amends for the wrongs he did you. I’ll go partners with you. Look! here is the plan; and I’m almost sure I know where the two little streams meet. I’ve thought of it a heap; but the face of—of that dead girl, kept me146from doing anything till I had either found you or knew you were dead. No one knows I have the plan—thoughhewould have cut throats for it. Now do you trust me?”
She held the plan up so he could see it—a queer puzzle of lines and dots; but a glance sufficed, and he turned his eyes again to the face of the girl. Her eagerness, her intensity, awakened him to trust and sympathy. He looked at her and nodded his head.
“Oh, I knew you would!” she breathed, thankfully. “And I’ll stand by you—you’ll see! I’ve wanted a chance like this—a chance to make up for some of the devilment he’s done to folks—and some he’s made me help at. You know who I am, but none of the rest do—and they sha’n’t. I’m a new girl now. I want to make up for some of the badness that has been. It’s all over; but sometimes I hate the blood in my veins because—you know! And if I can only dosomegood—”
She paused, for the eyes of the paralyzed man had moved from her face, and were resting on something back of her.
It was Overton! He entered and closed the door, and stood looking doubtful and astonished, while ’Tana rose to her feet trembling and a little pale.
“How long—were you there?” she demanded, angrily.
He looked at her very steadily before making reply—such a curious, searching look that she moved uneasily because of it; but her face remained defiant.
“I just now opened the door,” he said at last, speaking in a slow, deliberate way. “I slipped here as quietly as I could, because they told me you were asleep, and I must not make a noise. I got here just as you were147telling this man that no one but him should know who you were before you came among us—that is all, I guess.”
She had sat down on a seat close to Harris, and dropped her face in her hands.
Overton stood with his back against the door, looking down at her. In his eyes was a keen sorrow as she sat down in that despairing fashion, and crept close to the stranger as though for refuge fromhim.
“I might have avoided telling what I heard,” he continued; “but I don’t think that would be quite square among friends. Then, as I see you have found a new acquaintance here, I thought maybe you would have something to tell me if you knew what I heard you say to him.”
But, kindly as his words were, she seemed to shrink from them.
“No; I can’t. Oh, Mr. Dan, I can’t—I can’t,” she muttered, with her head still bowed on the arm of the chair occupied by Harris. “If you can’t trust me any more, I can’t blame you. But I can’t tell you—that’s all.”
“Then I’ll just go down stairs again,” he decided, “and you can finish your talk with Harris. I’ll keep the rest of the folks from interrupting you as I did. But if you want me, little girl, you know I’ll not be far away.”
The tears came in her eyes. His persistent kindness to her made her both ashamed and glad, and she reached out her hand.
“Wait,” she said, “maybe I have something to tell you,” and she unfolded the paper again and showed it to Harris.148
“Shall I tell him? Would you rather he would be the man to do the business?” she asked. “You know I’m willing, but I don’t know enough myself. Do you want him to be the man?”
Harris nodded his head.
With a look of relief on her face, she turned to Overton, who watched them wonderingly.
“What sort of man is it you want? or what is it you want to tell me?”
“Only that I’ve found a plan of the ground where he made that rich find the letter told of,” she answered, with a bit of a tremble in her voice. “He’s never been able to look after it himself, and was afraid to trust any one. But now—”
“And you have the plan—you, ’Tana?”
“Yes, I have it. I think I even know where the place is located. But—don’t ask me anything about how I got the plan. He knows, and is satisfied—that is all.”
“But, ’Tana, I don’t understand. You are giving me surprises too thick this evening. If he has found a rich yield of ore, and has taken you into partnership, it means that you will be a rich woman. A streak of pay ore can do more for you than a ranger like myself; so I guess you can afford to drop me.”
Her face fell forward in her hands again. The man in the chair looked at her and then turned his eyes pleadingly to the other man, who remained standing close to the door.
Overton recognized the pleading quality of the glance, and was filled with amazement by it. Witchery seemed to have touched the stranger when paralysis touched him, else he would not so quickly have changed from his suspicion of the girl into that mute pleading for her.149
She was trying so hard to keep back the tears, and in the effort her jaws were set and her brows drawn together stormily. She looked to him as she had looked in the lodge of Akkomi.
“You don’t trust me,” she said at last; “that’s why you won’t help us. But you ought to, for I’ve never lied to you. If it’s because I’m in it that you won’t have anything to do with the mine, I’ll leave. I won’t bother you about that school. I won’t bother you about anything. I’ll help locate the place if—if Joe here is willing; and then you two can be partners, and I’ll be out of it, for I can trust you to take care of him, and see that the money does what it can for him. I can trust you if you can’t me. So you are the one to speak up. What is your answer?”
150CHAPTER XII.PARTNERS.
“Well, I’ve been a ’hoodoo’ all my, life; and if I only lead some one into luck now—good luck—oh, wouldn’t I learn a sun-dance, and dance it!”
The world was two weeks older, and it was ’Tana who spoke; not the troubled ’Tana who had crouched beside the paralytic and cowered under her fear of Overton’s distrust, but a girl grown lighter-hearted by the help of work to be done—work in which she was for once to stand side by side with Overton himself, for his decision about the prospecting had been in her favor. He had “spoken up,” as she had asked him to do, and a curious three-cornered partnership had been arranged the next day; a very mysterious partnership, of which no word was told to any one. Only ’Tana suddenly decided that the schooling must wait a little longer. Lyster would have to make the trip to Helena without her; she was not feeling like it just then, and so forth.
Therefore, despite the very earnest arguments of Mr. Lyster, he did have to go alone. During all the journey, he was conscious of a quite unreasonable disappointment, an impatience with even Overton, for not enforcing his authority as guardian, and insisting that she at once commence the many studies in which she was sadly deficient.151
But Overton had stood back and said nothing. Lyster did not understand it, and could not succeed in making either of them communicative.
“You’ll be back here in less than a month,” said Overton. “We will send her then, if she feels equal to it. In the meantime, we’ll take the best care we can of her here at the Ferry. I find I will have time to look after her a little until then. I have only one short trip to make up the river; so don’t get uneasy about her. She’ll be ready to go next run you make, sure.”
So Lyster wondered, dissatisfied, and went away. He was even a little more dissatisfied with his last memory of the girl—a vision of her bending over that unknown, helpless miner. His sympathies were with the man. He was most willing to assist, in a financial way, toward taking care of one so unfortunate. But the thing he was not willing to do was to see ’Tana devote herself without restraint to the welfare of a stranger—a man they knew nothing of—a fellow who, of course, could have no appreciation of the great luck he was in to have her constantly beside him. It was a clean waste of exceptionable sympathy; and a squaw, or some miner out of work, would do as well in this case.
He even offered to pay for a squaw, or for any masculine nurse; but the girl had very promptly suggested that he busy himself with his own duties, if he had any. She stated further that he had no control whatever over her actions, and she could not understand—
“I know I have none,” he retorted, with some impatience, and yet a good deal of fondness in his handsome eyes. “That is why I’m complaining. I wish I had. And if I had, wouldn’t I whisk you away from this152uncouth life! I wonder if you will ever let me do so, Tana?”
“I think you’d better be packing your plunder,” she remarked, coolly. “If you don’t, you’ll keep the whole outfit waiting.”
And that was how they let even Lyster go away. Not a hint was he given of the all-engrossing plan that bound both ’Tana and Overton to the interests of the passive stranger, who looked at them with intelligence, but who could not speak.
Their partnership was a curious affair, and the arrangement for interests in it was conducted on the one side by nods or shakes of the head, while the other two offered suggestions, and asked questions, until a very clear understanding was arrived at.
Only one knotty discussion had arisen. Overton offered to give one month of time to the search, on condition that one half of the find, if there was any made, should belong to ’Tana, while the original finder should have the other half. He himself would give that much time to helping them out in a friendly way; but more than that he could not give, because of other duties.
To this the man Harris shook his head with all possible vigor, while ’Tana was quite as emphatic in an audible way. Harris desired that all shares be equal, and Overton count himself in for a third. ’Tana approved the plan, insisting that she would not accept an ounce of the dust if he did not. So Dan finally agreed and ended the discussion concerning the division of the gold they might never find.
“And don’t be so dead sure that the dirt will pan out well, even if we do find the place,” he said, warningly, to ’Tana. “Why, my girl, if the average of dust153had been as high as my average of hope over strikes I’ve made myself, I would have been a billionaire long ago.”
“I never heard you talk of prospecting,” remarked ’Tana. “All the rest do here, and not you—how is that?”
“Oh, prospecting strikes one like a fever; sometimes a man recovers from it, or seems to for a while. I had the fever bad about two years ago—out in Nevada. Well, I left there. I sunk my stock of capital in a very big hole, and lost my enthusiasm for a while. Maybe I will find it again, drifting along the Kootenai; but as yet it has not struck me hard. From what I can gather, this fellow must simply have dropped on a nugget or little pocket, and something must have made him distrust his partner to such an extent that he kept the secret find to himself. So there evidently has been no testing of the soil, no move toward development. We may never find an ounce of metal, for such disappointments have been even where very large nuggets have been found. You must not expect too much of this search. Golden hope lets you down hard when you do fall with it.”
But, despite his warnings, he made arrangements for their river journey with all speed possible. The three of them were to go; and, as chaperon, Mrs. Huzzard was persuaded to join their queer “picnic” party, for that was the idea given abroad concerning their little trip to the north. It was to be a venture in the interests of Harris—supposedly the physical interests; though Captain Leek did remark, with decided emphasis, that it was the first time he ever knew of a man being sent out to live in the woods as a cure for paralysis.154
But the preparations were made; even the fact that Mrs. Huzzard was seized with an unreasonable attack of rheumatism on the eve of departure did not deter them at all.
“Unless you need me to stay here and look after you, we’ll go just the same,” decided ’Tana. “A squaw won’t be much of a substitute for you; but she’ll be better than no one, and we’ll go.”
So the squaw was secured, through the agency of her husband, whom Overton knew, and who was to take their camp outfit up the river for them. This was one reason why Mrs. Huzzard, as she watched them depart, was a little thankful for the visitation of rheumatism.
Their camp was only a day old when ’Tana announced her willingness to dance if only good fortune would come to her.
It seemed a thing probable, for as Overton poured water slowly from a tin pan into the shallow little stream, there were left in the bottom of the pan, as the last sifting bit of soil was washed out, some tiny bits of yellow the size of a pin-head, and one as large as a grain of wheat.
’Tana gave a little ecstatic cry as she bent over it and touched the particles with her finger.
“Oh, Dan—it is the gold!—the real gold! and we are millionaires!—millionaires, and you would not believe it!”
He raised his finger warningly, and shook his head.
“Wait until we are millionaires before you commence to shout,” he advised. “It is a good show here—yes; but, after all, it may be only a chance washing from hills far enough away. Show them to Harris, though;155he may be interested, though he appears to me very indifferent about the matter.”
“He don’t seem to care,” she agreed. “He just looks at us as though we were a couple of children he had found a new plaything for. But don’t you think he looks brighter?”
“Well, yes; the river trip has done him good, instead of the harm the Ferry folks prophesied. But you run along and show him the ’yellow,’ and don’t draw the squaw’s attention to it.”
The squaw was wrapped neck and heels in a blanket, although the day was one of the warmest of summer; and stretched asleep in the sun, she gave no heed to the quick, light step of the girl.
Neither did Harris, at whose tent door she lay. He must have thought it was the stoical, indifferent Indian, for he gave her a quick, startled glance as he heard her surprised “Oh!” at the door. Then she walked directly to him, lifted his right hand, and let go again. It fell on his knee in the old, helpless way.
“But you did raise it,” she said, accusingly. “I saw you as I came to the door. You stretched out your hand.”
He looked at her and nodded very slightly, then looked at his hand and appeared trying to lift it; but gave up, and shook his head sadly.
“You mean you moved it a little once, but can’t do it again?” she asked, and he nodded assent.
“Oh, well, that’s all right,” she continued, cheerfully. “You are sure to get along all right, now that you have commenced to manage your hands if ever so little. But just at first, when I saw you, I had a mighty queer notion come into my head. I thought you were getting over156that stroke faster than you let us know. But I’m too suspicious, ain’t I? Maybe it’s a bad thing for folks to trust strangers too much in this world; but it is just as bad for a girl to grow up where she can’t trust any one. Don’t you think so?”
The man nodded. They had many conversations like that, and she had grown not to notice his lack of speech nearly so much as at first. He was so good a listener, and she had become so used to his face gradually gaining again expressive power, that she divined his wishes more readily than the others.
“But trusting don’t cut any figure in what I came to speak to you about,” she continued. “No ‘trust and hope on, brethren,’ about this, I guess,” and she held the grains of yellow metal before his eyes. “There it is—the gold! Dan found it in the little hollow where the spring is. Is that where you found it?”
He shook his head, but looked pleased at the show they had found.
“Was it bigger bundles of it than this you struck?”
He nodded assent.
“Bigger than this! Well, it must have been rich. These lumps are enough in size if they only turn out enough in number. Oh, how I wish you had put the very spot on that plan of the ground and the rivers! Still, I suppose you were right to be cautious. And if I hadn’t been on a lone trail through this country last spring, and got lost, and happened to notice the two little streams running into the river so close to each other, we might have had a year’s journey along the Kootenai before we could have found the particular little stream and followed the right one to its source. I think we are close on the trail now, Joe.”157
He shook his head energetically when she called him Joe.
“Well, I forget,” she said. “You see, I’ve been thinking for months about finding Joe Hammond; and now that I’ve found you, I can’t get used to thinking you are Jim Harris. What’s the use of your changing your name, anyway? You did it so you could trail him, your partner, better. But what was the use, with him well and strong, and with devils back of him, and you alone and barely able to crawl? Your head was wrong, Joe—Jim, I mean. If you hadn’t been looney, you’d just have settled down and worked your claim, got rich, and then looked for your man.”
He shook his head impatiently, and looked at her with as much of a frown as his locked muscles would allow, and a very queer, hard smile about his eyes and mouth.
“Ah!” and ’Tana shivered a little; “don’t look like that, Joe. You wouldn’t get any Sunday-school prizes for a meek and lowly spirit if the manager saw you fix your face in that fashion. I guess I know how you felt. If you had just so much strength, and couldn’t hope for more, you wouldn’t waste it looking for gold while he was above ground. Now, ain’t I about right?”
He gave no assent, but smiled in a more kindly way at the shrewdness of her guess.
“You won’t own up, but I know I am right,” she said; “and the way I know it is because I think I’d feel just like that myself if some one hurt me bad. I wonder if girls often feel that way. I guess not. I know Ora Harrison, the doctor’s girl, don’t. She says her prayers every night, and asks God to let her enemies have good luck. U’m! I can’t do that.”158
The man watched her as she sat silent for a little, looking out into the still, warm sunshine. The squaw slumbered on, and the girl stared across her, and her face grew sad and moody with some hard thought.
“It’s awful to hate,” she said, at last. “Don’t you think it is?—to hate so that you can’t breathe right when the person you hate comes near where you are—to be able tofeelif he comes near, even when you don’t see or hear him, to feel a devil that rises up in your breast and makes you want to get a knife and cut—cut deep, until the blood you hate runs away from the face you hate, and leaves it white and cold. Ah! it’s bad, I reckon, to have some one hate you; but it’s a thousand times worse to hate back. It makes the prettiest day black when the devil tells you of the hate you must remember, and you can’t pray it away, and you can’t forget it, and you can’t help it! Oh, dear!”
She put her hands over her eyes and leaned her head against his hand. He felt her tears, but could not comfort her.
“You see, I know—how you felt,” she said, trying to speak steadily. “Girls shouldn’t know; girls should have love and good thoughts taught to them. I—I’ve dreamed dreams of what a girl’s life ought to be like; something like Ora’s home, where her mother kisses her and loves her, and her father kisses and loves them both. I went to their home once, and I never could go again. I was starving for the kind of home she has, and I knew I never would get it. That is the hardest part of it—to know, no matter how hard you try to be good, all your life, you can’t get back the good thoughts and the love that should have been yours when you were little—the good thoughts that would have kept hate from growing159in your heart, until it is stronger than you are. Oh, it’s awful!”
The squaw, who did not understand English, but did understand tears, rolled over and peered out from her blanket at the girl who knelt there as at the feet of a confessor. But the girl did not see her; she still knelt there, almost whispering now.
“And the worst of it is, Joe, after they are dead—the ones you hate—then the devil in you commences to torment you by making you think of some good points among the bad ones; some little kind word that would have made the hate in your heart less if it had not been for your own terrible wickedness. And it gnaws and torments you just like a rat gnawing the heart out of a log for a nest. And hate is terrible! whether it is live hate, or dead, it is terrible. Maybe I won’t feel so bad now that I’ve said out loud to some one how I feel—how much harder my heart is than it ought to be. I couldn’t tell any one else. But you hate, too, you know. Maybe you know, too, that dead hate hurts worst—that it haunts like a ghost.”
She looked up at him, and saw again that queer, wise smile about his lips.
“You don’t believe he’s dead!” she said, and her face grew paler. “You think he’s still alive, and that is why you don’t want folks to use your old name. You are laying for him yet, and you so helpless you can’t move!”
The man only looked at her grimly. He would not deny; he would not assent.
“But you are wrong,” she persisted. “He is dead. The Indians told me so—Akkomi told me so. Would they lie to me? Joe, can’t you let the hate go by, now that he is dead—dead?”160
But no motion answered her, though his eyes rested on her kindly enough. Then the squaw arose and slouched away to pick up firewood in the forest, and the girl arose, too, and touched his hand.
“Well, whether you can or not, I am glad I told you what I did. Maybe it won’t worry me so much now; for sometimes, just when I’m almost happy, the ghost of that bad hate seems to whisper, whisper, and there ain’t any more good times for me. I’m glad I told you. I would not have, though, if you could talk like other folks, but you can’t.”
She got him a drink of water, slipped their first find of the gold into his pocket, and then stood at the tent door, watching for Overton.
But he did not come, and after a little she picked up the pan again and started for the small stream where she had left him.
The man in the chair watched her go, and when she was out of sight, that right hand was again slowly raised from the chair.
“C—an’t I?” he whispered, in a strange, indistinct way. “Poor lit—tle girl! poor little—girl!”