"And she wants a thousand dollars in money or free gold--a thousand dollars to-day?"
"No use asking me what for, Dan, for I don't know," confessed Lyster. "I can't see why she don't tell you herself; but you know she has been a little queer since the fever--childish, whimsical, and all that. Maybe as she has not yet handled any specie from your bonanza, she wants some only to play with, and assure herself it is real."
"Less than a thousand in money and dust would do for a plaything," remarked Overton. "Of course she has a right to get what she wants; but that amount will be of no use to her here in camp, where there is not a thing in the world to spend it for."
"Maybe she wants to pension off some of her Indian friends before she leaves," suggested Max--"old Akkomi and Flap-Jacks, perhaps. I am a little like Miss Slocum in my wonder as to how she endures them, though, of course, the squaw is a necessity."
"Oh, well, she was not brought up in the world of Miss Slocum--or your world, either," answered Overton. "You should make allowance for that."
"Make allowance--I?" and Lyster looked at him curiously. "Are you trying to justify her to me? Why, man, you ought to know by this time what keeps me here a regular lounger around camp, and there is no need to make excuses for her to me. I thought you knew."
"You mean you--like her?"
"Worse than that," said Max, with his cheery, confident smile. "I'm trying to get her to say she likes me."
"And she?"
"Well, she won't meet me as near half-way as I would like," he confessed; "talks a lot of stuff about not being brought up right, and not suited to our style of life at home, and all that. But she did seem rather partial to me when she was ill and off guard. Don't you think so? That is all I have to go on; but it encourages me to remember it."
Overton did not speak, and Lyster continued speculating on his chances, when he noticed his companion's silence.
"Why don't you speak, Dan? I did hope you would help me rather than be indifferent."
"Help you!" and Lyster was taken aback at the fierce straightening of the brows and the strange tone in which the words were uttered. The older man could not but see his surprised look, for he recovered himself, and dropped his hand in the old familiar way on Lyster's shoulder.
"Not much chance of my helping you when she employs you as an agent when she wants any service, rather than exchange words with me herself. Now, that is the way it looks, Max."
"I know," agreed Lyster. "And to tell the truth, Dan, the only thing she does that really vexes me is her queer attitude toward you of late. I can't think she means to be ungrateful, but--"
"Don't bother about that. Everything has changed for her lately, and she has her own troubles to think of. Don't you doubt her on my account. Just remember that. And if--she says 'yes' to you, Max, be sure I would rather see her go to you than any other man I know."
"That is all right," observed Lyster, laughingly; "but if you only had a love affair or two of your own, you could perhaps get up more enthusiasm over mine."
Then he sauntered off to report the financial interview to 'Tana, and laughed as he went at the impatient look flung at him by Overton.
He found 'Tana visiting at the tent of the cousins, who were using all arguments to persuade her to share their new abode. Each was horrified to learn that she had dismissed the squaw at sleeping time, and had remained in the cabin alone.
"Not quite alone," she corrected, "for Harris was just on the other side of the door."
"Much protection he would be."
"Well, then, Dan Overton was with him. How is he for protection?"
"Thoroughly competent, no doubt," agreed Miss Lavina, with a rather scandalized look. "But, my dear, the propriety?"
"Do you think Flap-Jacks would help any one out in propriety?" retorted 'Tana. "But we won't stumble over that question long, for I want to leave the camp and go back to the Ferry."
"And then, 'Tana?"
"And then--I don't know, Mrs. Huzzard, to school, maybe--though I feel old for that, older than either of you, I am sure--so old that I care nothing for all the things I wanted less than a year ago. They are within my reach now, yet I only want to rest--"
She did not finish the sentence.
Mrs. Huzzard, noticing the tired look in her eyes and the wistfulness of her voice, reached out and patted her head affectionately.
"You want, first of all, to grow strong and hearty, like you used to be--that is what you need first, then the rest will all come right in good time. You'll want to see the theaters, and the pictures, and hear the fine music you used to talk of. And you'll travel, and see all the fine places you used to dream about. Then, maybe, you'll get ambitious, like you used to be, about making pictures out of clay. For you can have fine teaching now, you know, and you'll find, after a while, that the days will hardly seem long enough for all the things you want to do. That is how it will be when you get strong again."
'Tana tried to smile at the cheerful picture, but the smile was not a merry one. Her attention was given to Lyster and Overton, whom she could see from the tent door.
How tall and strong Dan looked! Was she to believe that story of him heard last night? The very possibility of it made her cheeks burn at the thought of how she had stood with his arm around her. And he had pitied her that night. "Poor little girl!" he had said. Was his pity because he saw how much he was to her, while he himself thought only of some one else? One after another those thoughts had come to her through the sleepless night, and when the day came she could not face him to speak to him of the simplest thing. And of the money she must have, she could not ask him at all. She wished she could have courage to go to him and tell him the thing she had heard; but courage was not strong in her of late. The fear that he might look indifferently on her and say, "Yes, it is true--what then?"--the fear of that was so great that she had walked by the water's edge, as the sun rose, and felt desperate enough to think of sleep under the waves, as a temptation. For if it was true--
The two older women watched her, and decided that she was not yet strong enough to think of long journeys. Her hands would tremble at times, and tears, as of weakness, would come to her eyes, and she scarcely appeared to hear them when they spoke.
She never walked through the woods as of old, though sometimes she would stand and look up at the dark hills with a perfect hunger in her eyes. And when the night breeze would creep down from the heights, and carry the sweet wood scents of the forest to her, she would close her eyes and draw in long breaths of utter content. The strong love for the wild places was as second nature to her; yet when Max would ask her to go with him for flowers or mosses, her answer was always "no."
But she would go to the boat sometimes, though no longer having strength to use the paddle. It was a good place to think, if she could only keep the others from going, too, so she slipped away from Max and the women and went down. A chunky, good-looking fellow was mending one of the canoes, and raised his head at her approach, nodding to her and evidently pleased when she addressed him.
"Yes, it is a shaky old tub," he agreed, "but I told Overton I thought it could be fixed to carry freight for another trip; so he put me at it."
"You are new in camp, aren't you?" she asked, not caring at all whether he was or not. She was always friendly with the workmen, and this one smiled and bowed.
"We are all that, I guess," he said. "But I came up the day Haydon and Seldon came. I lived with Seldon down the country, and was staggered a little, I tell you, when I found Overton was in charge, and had struck it rich. But no man deserves good luck more."
"No," she agreed. "Then you knew him before?"
"Yes, indeed--over in Spokane. He don't seem quite the same fellow, though. We thought he would just go to the dogs after he left there, for he started to drink heavily. But he must have settled in his own mind that it wasn't worth while; so here he is, straight as a string, and counting his dollars by the thousands, and I'm glad to see it."
"Drink! He never drinks to excess, that we know of," she answered. "Doesn't seem to care for that sort of thing."
"No, he didn't then, either," agreed this loquacious stranger, "but a woman can drive as good men as him to drink; and that is about the way it was. No one thought any worse of Overton, though--don't think that. The worst any one could say was that he was too square--that's all."
Too square! She walked away from him a little way, all her mind aflame with his suggestions. He had taken to drink and dissipation because of some woman. Was it the woman whose name she had heard last night? The key to the thing puzzling her had been dropped almost at her feet, yet she feared to pick it up. No teaching she had ever received told her it was unprincipled to steal through another the confidence he himself had not chosen to give her. But some instinct of justice kept her from further question.
She knew the type of fellow who was rigging up the canoe, a light-headed, assuming specimen, who had not yet learned to keep a still tongue in his head, but he did not impress her as being a deliberate liar. Then, all at once, she realized who he must be, and turned back. There was no harm in asking that, at any rate.
"You are the man whom Overton sent to put Harris to bed last night, are you not?" she asked.
He nodded, cheerfully.
"And your name is Jake Emmons, of the Spokane country?"
"Thet's who," he assented; "that's where I came across Lottie Snyder, Overton's wife, you know. I was running a little stage there for a manager, and she--"
"I am not asking you about--about Mr. Overton's affairs," she said, and she sat down, white and dizzy, on the overturned canoe. "And he might not like it if he knew you were talking so free. Don't do it again."
"All right," he agreed. "I won't. No one here seems to know about the bad break he made over there; but, Lord! there was excuse enough. She is one of those women that look just like a little helpless baby; and that caught Overton. Young, you know. But I won't whisper her name in camp again, for it is hard on the old man. But, as you are partners, I guessed you must know."
"Yes," she said, faintly; "but don't talk, don't--"
"Say! You are sick, ain't you?" he demanded, as her voice dropped to a whisper. "Say! Look here, Miss Rivers! Great snakes! She's fainted!"
When she opened her eyes again, the rough roof of her cabin was above her, instead of the blue sky. The women folks were using the camp restorative--whisky--on her to such good purpose that her hands and face and hair were redolent of it, and the amount she had been forced to swallow was strangling her.
The face she saw first was that of Max--Max, distressed and anxious, and even a little pale at sight of her death-like face.
She turned to him as to a haven of refuge from the storm of emotion under which she had fallen prostrate.
It was all settled now--settled forever. She had heard the worst, and knew she must go away--away from where she must see that one man, and be filled with humiliation if ever she met his gaze. A man with a wife somewhere--a man into whose arms she had crept!
"Are you in pain?" asked Miss Lavina, as 'Tana groaned and shut her eyes tight, as if to bar out memory.
"No--nothing ails me. I was without a hat, and the sun on my head made me sick, I suppose," she answered, and arose on her elbow. "But I am not going to be a baby, to be watched and carried around any more. I am going to get up."
Just outside her door Overton stood; and when he heard her voice again, with its forced independent words, he walked away content that she was again herself.
"I am going to get up," she continued. "I am going away from here to-morrow or next day--and there are things to do. Help me, Max."
"Best thing you can do is to lie still an hour or two," advised Mrs. Huzzard, but the girl shook her head.
"No, I'm going to get up," she said, with grim decision; and when Lyster offered his hand to help her, she took it, and, standing erect, looked around at the couch.
"That is the last time I'm going to be thrown on you for any such fool cause," she said, whimsically. "Who toted me in here--you?"
"I? Not a bit of it," confessed Lyster. "Dan reached you before any of the others knew you were ill. He carried you up here."
"He? Oh!" and she shivered a little. "I want to talk to Harris. Max, come with me."
He went wonderingly, for he could see she was excited and nervous. Her hand trembled as it touched his, but her mouth was set so firmly over the little white teeth that he knew it was better to humor her than fret her by persuading her to rest.
But once beside Harris, she sat a long time in silence, looking out from the doorway across the level now active with the men of the works. Not until the two cousins had walked across to their other shelter did she speak, and then it was to Harris.
"Joe, I am sick," she confessed; "not sick with the fever, but heartsick and headsick. You know how and maybe why."
He nodded his head, and looked at Lyster questioningly.
"And I've come in here to tell you something. Max, you won't mind. He can't talk, but knows me better than you do, I guess; for I've come to him before when I was troubled, and I want to tell him what you said to me in the boat."
Max stared at her, but silently agreed when he saw she was in earnest. He even reached out his hand to take hers, but she drew away.
"Wait till I tell him," she said, and turned to the helpless man in the chair. "He asked me to marry him--some day. Would it be right for me to say yes?"
"'Tana!" exclaimed Lyster; but she raised her hand pleadingly.
"I haven't any other person in the world I could go to and ask," she said. "He knows me better than you do, Max, and I--Oh! I don't think I should be always contented with your ways of living. I was born different--a heap different. But to-day it seems as if I am not strong enough to do without--some one--who likes me, and I do want to say 'yes' to you, yet I'm afraid it is only because I am sick at heart and lonely."
It was a declaration likely to cool the ardor of most lovers, but Lyster reached out his hand to her and laughed.
"Oh, you dear girl," he said, fondly. "Did your conscience make it necessary for you to confess in this fashion? Now listen. You are weak and nervous; you need some one to look after you. Doesn't she, Harris? Well, take me on trial. I will devote myself to your interests for six months, and if at the end of that time you find that it was only sickness and loneliness that ailed you, and not liking me, then I give you my word I'll never try to hold you to a promise. You will be well and strong by that time, and I'll stand by the decision you make then. Will you say 'yes,' now?"
She looked at Harris, who nodded his head. Then she turned and gave her hand to Max.
"Yes," she said. "But if you should be sorry--"
"Not another word," he commanded; "the 'yes' is all I want to hear just now; when I get sorry I'll let you know."
