Mr. Max Lyster was not given to the study of deep problems; his habits of thought did not run in that groove. But he did watch the young stranger with unusual interest. Her face puzzled him as much as her presence there.
"I feel as though I had seen you before," he said at last, and her face grew a shade paler. She did not look up, and when she spoke, it was very curtly:
"Where?"
"Oh, I don't know--in fact, I believe it is a resemblance to some one I know that makes me feel that way."
"I look like some one you know?"
"Well, yes, you do--a little--a lady who is a little older than you--a little more of a brunette than you; yet there is a likeness."
"Where does she live--and what is her name?" she asked, with scant ceremony.
"I don't suppose her name would tell you much," he answered. "But it is Miss Margaret Haydon, of Philadelphia."
"Miss Margaret Haydon," she said slowly, almost contemptuously. "So you know her?"
"You speak as though you did," he answered; "and as if you did not like the name, either."
"But you think it's pretty," she said, looking at him sharply. "No, I don't know such swells--don't want to."
"How do you know she is a swell?"
"Oh, there's a man owns big works across the country, and that's his name. I suppose they are all of a lot," she said, indifferently. "Say! are there any girls at Sinna Ferry, any family folks? Dan didn't tell me--only said there was a white woman there, and I could live with her. He hasn't a wife, has he?"
"Dan?" and he laughed at the idea, "well, no. He is very kind to women, but I can't imagine the sort of woman he would marry. He is a queer fish, you know."
"I guess you'll think we're all that up in this wild country," she observed. "Does he know much about books and such things?"
"Such things?"
"Oh, you know! things of the life in the cities, where there's music and theaters. I love the theaters and pictures! and--and--well, everything like that."
Lyster watched her brightening face, and appreciated all the longing in it for the things he liked well himself. And she loved the theaters! All his own boyish enthusiasm of years ago crowded into his memory, as he looked at her.
"You have seen plays, then?" he asked, and wondered where she had seen them along that British Columbia line.
"Seen plays! Yes, in 'Frisco, and Portland, and Victoria--big, real theaters, you know; and then others in the big mining camps. Oh, I just dream over plays, when I do see them, specially when the actresses are pretty. But I mostly like the villains better than the heroes. Don't know why, but I do."
"What! you like to see their wickedness prosper?"
"No--I think not," she said, doubtfully. "But I tell you, the heroes are generally just too good to be live men, that's all. And the villain mostly talks more natural, gets mad, you know, and breaks things, and rides over the lay-out as though he had some nerve in him. Of course, they always make him throw up his hands in the end, and every man in the audience applauds--even the ones who would act just as he does if such a pretty hero was in their way."
"Well, you certainly have peculiar ideas of theatrical personages--for a young lady," decided Lyster, laughing. "And why you have a grievance against the orthodox handsome hero, I can't see."
"He's too good," she insisted, with the little frown appearing between her brows, "and no one is ever started in the play with a fair chance against him. He is always called Willie, where the villain would be called Bill--now, isn't he? Then the girl in the story always falls in love with him at first sight, and that's enough to rile any villain, especially when he wants her himself."
"Oh!" and the face of the young man was a study, as he inspected this wonderful ward of Dan. Whatever he had expected from the young swimmer of the Kootenai, from the welcomed guest of Akkomi, he had not expected this sort of thing.
She was twisting her pretty mouth, with a schoolgirl's earnestness, over a problem, and accenting thus her patient forming of the clay face. She built no barriers up between herself and this handsome stranger, as she had in the beginning with Overton. What she had to say was uttered with all freedom--her likes, her thoughts, her ambitions. At first the fineness and perfection of his apparel had been as grandeur and insolence when contrasted with her own weather-stained, coarse skirt of wool, and her boy's blouse belted with a strap of leather. Even the blue beads--her one feminine bit of adornment--had been stripped from her throat, that she might give some pleasure to the little bronze-tinted runners on the shore. But the gently modulated, sympathetic tones of Lyster and the kindly fellowship in his eyes, when he looked at her, almost made her forget her own shabbiness (all but those hideous coarse shoes!) for he talked to her with the grace of the people in the plays she loved so, and had not once spoken as though to a stray found in the shelter of an Indian camp.
But he did look curious when she expressed those independent ideas on questions over which most girls would blush or appear at least a little conscious.
"So, you would put a veto on love at first sight, would you?" he asked, laughingly. "And the beauty of the hero would not move you at all? What a very odd young lady you would have me think you! I believe love at first sight is generally considered, by your age and sex, the pinnacle of all things hoped for."
A little color did creep into her face at the unnecessary personal construction put on her words. She frowned to hide her embarrassment and thrust out her lips in a manner that showed she had little vanity as to her features and their attractiveness.
"But I don't happen to be a young lady," she retorted; "and we think as we please up here in the bush. Maybe your proper young ladies would be very odd, too, if they were brought up out here like boys."
She arose to her feet, and he saw more clearly then how slight she was; her form and face were much more childish in character than her speech, and the face was looking at him with resentful eyes.
"I'm going back to camp."
"Now, I've offended you, haven't I?" he asked, in surprise. "Really, I did not mean to. Won't you forgive me?"
She dug her heel in the sand and did not answer; but the fact that she remained at all assured him she would relent. He was amused at her quick show of temper. What a prospect for Dan!
"I scarcely know what I said to vex you," he began; but she flashed a sullen look at him.
"You think I'm odd--and--and a nobody; just because I ain't like fine young ladies you know somewheres--like Miss Margaret Haydon," and she dug the sand away with vicious little kicks. "Nice ladies with kid slippers on," she added, derisively, "the sort that always falls in love with the pretty man, the hero. Huh! I've seen some men who were heroes--real ones--and I never saw a pretty one yet."
As she said it, she looked very straight into the very handsome face of Mr. Lyster.
"A young Tartar!" he decided, mentally, while he actually colored at the directness of her gaze and her sweepingly contemptuous opinion of "pretty men."
"I see I'd better vacate your premises since you appear unwilling to forgive me even my unintentional faults," he decided, meekly. "I'm very sorry, I'm sure, and hope you will bear no malice. Of course I--nobody would want you to be different from what you are; so you must not think I meant that. I had hoped you would let me buy that clay bust as a memento of this morning, but I'm afraid to ask favors now. I can only hope that you will speak to me again to-morrow. Until then, good-by."
She raised her eyes sullenly at first, but they dropped, ashamed, before the kindness of his own. She felt coarse and clumsy, and wished she had not been so quick to quarrel. And he was turning away! Maybe he would never speak nicely to her again, and she loved to hear him speak.
Then her hand was thrust out to him, and in it was the little clay model.
"You can have it. I'll give it to you," she said, quite humbly. "It ain't very pretty, but if you like it--"
Thus ended the first of many differences between Dan's ward and Dan's friend.
When Daniel Overton himself came stalking down among the Indian children, looking right and left from under his great slouch hat, he halted suddenly, and with his lips closed somewhat grimly, stood there watching the rather pretty picture before him.
But the prettiness of it did not seem to appeal to him strongly. He looked on the girl's half smiling, drooped face, on Lyster, who held the model and his hat in one hand and, with his handsome blonde head bared, held out his other hand to her, saying something in those low, deferential tones Dan knew so well.
Her hand was given after a little hesitation. When they beheld Dan so near them, the hands were unclasped and each looked confused.
Mr. Lyster was the first to recover, and adjusting his head covering once more, he held up the clay model to view.
"Thought you'd be around before long," he remarked, with a provoking gleam in his eyes. "I really had no hope of meeting Miss Rivers before you this morning; but fortune favors the brave, you know, and fortune sent me right along these sands for my morning walk--a most indulgent fortune, for, look at this! Did you know your ward is an embryo sculptress?"
The older man looked indifferently enough at the exalted bit of clay.
"I leave discoveries of that sort to you. They seem to run in your line more than mine," he answered, briefly. Then he turned to the girl. "Akkomi told me you were here with the children, 'Tana. If you had other company, Akkomi would have made him welcome."
He did not speak unkindly, yet she felt that in some way he was not pleased; and perhaps--perhaps he would change his mind and leave her where he found her! And if so, she might never see--either of their faces again! As the thought came to her, she looked up at Dan in a startled way, and half put out her hand.
"I--I did not know. I don't like the lodges. It is better here by the river. It is your friend that came, and I--"
"Certainly. You need not explain. And as you seem to know each other, I need not do any introducing," he answered, as she seemed to grow confused. "But I have a little time to talk to you this morning and so came early."
"Which means that I can set sail for the far shore," added Lyster, amiably. "All right; I'm gone. Good-by till to-morrow, Miss Rivers. I'm grateful for the clay Indian, and more grateful that you have agreed to be friends with me again. Will you believe, Dan, that in our short acquaintance of half an hour, we have had time for one quarrel and 'make up'? It is true. And now that she is disposed to accept me as a traveling companion, don't you spoil it by giving me a bad name when my back is turned. I'll wait at the canoes."
With a wave of his hat, he passed out of sight around the clump of bushes, and down along the shore, singing cheerily, and the words floated back to them:
"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 passion 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 embarrassed, 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 compassionate 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 shore.
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!
