That Girl Montana Part 25

"Who was with him?"

"White man, stranger," answered Akkomi briefly. "This man stranger, too, in the Kootenai country--stranger from away somewhere there," and he pointed vaguely toward the east. "Name--Joe--so him called."

"And the other man?"

"Other man stranger, too--go way--never come back. This one go away, too; but he come back."

"And that is all you know of them?"

"All. Joe not like Indian friends," and the old fellow's eyes wrinkled up in the semblance of laughter; "too much tenderfoot, maybe."

"But Joe's partner," persisted Overton, "he was not tenderfoot? He had Indian friends on the Columbia River."

"Maybe," agreed the old fellow, and his sly, bead-like eyes turned toward his questioner sharply and were as quickly withdrawn, "maybe so. They hunt silver over there. No good."

Just inside the door Harris sat straining his ears to catch every word, and Akkomi's a.s.sumption of bland ignorance brought a rather sardonic smile to his face, while his lips moved in voiceless mutterings of anger.

Impatience was clearly to be read in his face as he waited for Overton to question further, and his right hand opened and closed in his eagerness.

But no other questions were asked just then; for Overton suddenly walked away, leaving the crafty-eyed Akkomi alone in his apparent innocence of Joe's past or Joe's partner.

The old fellow looked after him kindly enough, but shook his head and smoked his dirty black pipe, while an expression of undivulged knowledge adorned his withered physiognomy.

"No, Dan, no," he murmured. "Akkomi good friend to little sick squaw and to you; but he not tell--not tell all things."

Then his ears, not so keen as in years gone by, heard sounds on the water, sounds coming closer and closer. But Dan's younger ears had heard them first, and it was to learn the cause that he had left so abruptly and walked to the edge of the stream.

It was the doctor and the Indian boatman who came in sight first around the bend of the creek. Back of them was another canoe, but a much larger, much more pretentious one. In this was Lyster and a middle-aged gentleman of rather portly build, who dressed in a fas.h.i.+on very fine when compared with the average garb of the wilderness.

Overton watched with some surprise the approach of the man, who was an utter stranger to him, and yet who bore a resemblance to some one seen before. A certain something about the shape of the nose and general contour of the face seemed slightly familiar. He had time to notice, also, that the hair was auburn in color, and inclined to curl, and that back of him sat a female form. By the time he had made these observations, their boat had touched the sh.o.r.e, and Lyster was shaking his hand vigorously.

"I got your letter, telling me of your big strike. It caught me before I was quite started for Helena, so I just did some talking for you where I thought it would do the most good, old fellow, and turned right around and came back. I've been wild to hear about 'Tana. How is she? This is my friend, Mr. T. J. Haydon, my uncle's partner, you know. He has made this trip to talk a little business with you, and when I learned you were not at the settlement, but up here in camp, I thought it would be all right to fetch him along."

"Of course it is all right," answered Overton, a.s.suringly. "Our camp has a welcome for your friend even if we haven't first-cla.s.s accommodations for him. And is this lady also a friend?"

For Lyster, forgetful of his usual gallantry, had allowed the doctor to a.s.sist the other voyager from the canoe--a rather tall lady of the age generally expressed as "uncertain," although the certainty of it was an indisputable fact.

A rather childish hat was perched upon her thin but carefully frizzed hair, and over her face floated a white veil, that was on a drawing string around the crown of the hat and drooped gracefully and chastely over the features beneath, after the fas.h.i.+on of 1860. A string of beads adorned the thin throat, and the rest of her array was after the same order of elegance.

The doctor and Lyster exchanged glances, and Lyster was silently proclaimed master of ceremonies.

"Oh, yes," he said, easily. "Pardon me that I am neglectful, and let me introduce you to Miss Sloc.u.m--Miss Lavina Sloc.u.m of Cherry Run, Ohio. She is the cousin of our friend, Mrs. Huzzard, and was in despair when she found her relative had left the settlement; so we had the pleasure of her company when she heard we were coming direct to the place where Mrs.

Huzzard was located."

"She will be glad to see you, miss," said Overton, holding out his hand to her in very hearty greeting. "Nothing could be more welcome to this camp just now than the arrival of a lady, for poor Mrs. Huzzard has been having a sorry siege of care for the last week. If you will come along, I will take you to her at once."

Gathering up her shawl, parasol, a fluffy, pale pink "cloud," and a homemade and embroidered traveling bag, he escorted her with the utmost deference to the door of the log cabin, leaving Lyster without another word.

That easily amused gentleman stared after the couple with keen appreciation of the picture they presented. Miss Sloc.u.m had a queer, mincing gait which her long limbs appeared averse to, and the result was a little hitchy. But she kept up with Overton, and surveyed him with weak blue eyes of grat.i.tude. He appeared to her a very admirable personage--a veritable knight of the frontier, possibly a border hero such as every natural woman has an ideal of.

But to Lyster, Dan with his arms filled with female trappings and a lot of pink zephyr blown about his face and streaming over his shoulder, like a veritable banner of Love's color, was a picture too ludicrous to be lost.

He gazed after them in a fit of delight that seemed likely to end in apoplexy, because he was obliged to keep his hilarity silent.

"Just look at him!" he advised, in tones akin to a stage whisper. "Isn't he a great old Dan? And maybe you think he would not promenade beside that make-up just as readily on Broadway, New York, or on Chestnut street, Philadelphia? Well, sir, he would! If it was necessary that some man should go with her, he would be the man to go, and Heaven help anybody he saw laughing! If you knew Dan Overton twenty years you would not see anything that would give you a better key to his nature than just his manner of acting cavalier to that--wonder."

But Mr. Haydon did not appear to appreciate the scene with the same degree of fervor.

"Ah!" he said, turning his eyes with indifference to the two figures, and with scrutiny over the little camp-site and primitive dwellings. "Am I to understand, then, that your friend, the ranger, is a sort of modern Don Juan, to whom any order of femininity is acceptable?"

"No," said Lyster, facing about suddenly. "And if my thoughtless manner of speech would convey such an idea of Dan Overton, then (to borrow one of Dan's own expressions) I deserve to be kicked around G.o.d's footstool for a while."

"Well, when you speak of his devotion to any sort of specimen--"

"Of course," agreed Lyster. "I see my words were misleading--especially to one unaccustomed to the life and people out here. But Dan, as Don Juan, is one of the most unimaginable things! Why, he does not seem to know women exist as individuals. This is the only fault I have to find with him; for the man who does not care for some woman, or never has cared for any woman, is, according to my philosophy, no good on earth. But Dan just looks the other way if they commence to give him sweet glances--and they do, too! though he thinks that collectively they are all angels. Yes, sir!

let the worst old harridan that ever was come to Overton with a tale of virtue and misfortune, and he will take off his hat and divide up his money, giving her a good share, just because she happens to be a woman.

That is the sort of devotion to women I had reference to when I spoke first; the wonder to me is that he has not been caught in a matrimonial noose long ere this by some thrifty maid or matron. He seems to me guileless game for them, as his sympathy is always so easily touched."

"Perhaps he is keeping free from bonds that he may marry this ward of his for whom he appears so troubled," remarked Mr. Haydon.

Lyster looked anything but pleased at the suggestion.

"I don't think he would like to hear that said," he returned. "'Tana is only a little girl in his eyes--one left in his charge at the death of her own people, and one who appeals to him very strongly just now because of her helplessness."

"Well," said Mr. Haydon, with a slight smile, "I appear to be rather unfortunate in all my surmises over the people of this new country, especially this new camp. I do not know whether it is because I am in a stupid mood, or because I have come among people too peculiar to be judged by ordinary standards. But the thing I am interested in above and beyond our host and his _protegee_ is the gold mine he wrote you to find a buyer for. I think I could appreciate that, at least, at its full value, if I was allowed a sight of the output."

The doctor had hurried to the cabin even before Overton and Miss Sloc.u.m, so the two gentlemen were left by themselves, to follow at their leisure.

Mr. Haydon seemed a trifle resentful at this indifferent reception.

"One would think this man had been making big deals in gold ore all his life, and was perfectly indifferent as to whether our capital is to be used to develop this find of his," he remarked, as they approached the cabin. "Did you not tell me he was a poor man?"

"Oh, yes. Poor in gold or silver of the United States mint," agreed Lyster, with a strong endeavor to keep down his impatience of this magnate of the speculative world, this wizard of the world of stocks and bonds, whom his partners deferred to, whose nod and beck meant much in a circle of capitalists. "I myself, when back East," thought Lyster to himself, "considered Haydon a wonderful man, but he seems suddenly to have grown dwarfed and petty in my eyes, and I wonder that I ever paid such reverence to his judgment."

He smiled dubiously to himself at the consciousness that the wide spirit of the West must have already changed his own views of things somewhat, since once he had thought this marketer of mines superior.

"But no one out here would think of calling Dan Overton poor," he continued, "simply because he is not among the cla.s.s that weighs a man's worth by the dollars he owns. He is considered one of the solid men of the district--one of the best men to know. But no one thinks of gauging his right to independence by the amount of his bank account."

Mr. Haydon shrugged his shoulders, and tapped his foot with the gold-headed umbrella he carried.

"Oh, yes. I suppose it seems very fine in young minds and a young country, to cultivate an indifference to wealth; but to older minds and civilization it grows to be a necessity. Is that object over there also one of the solid men of the community?"

It was Akkomi he had reference to, and the serene manner with which the old fellow glanced over them, and nonchalantly smoked his pipe in the doorway, did give him the appearance of a fixture about the camp, and puzzled Lyster somewhat, for he had never before met the ancient chief.

He nodded his head, however, saying "How?" in friendly greeting, and the Indian returned the civility in the same way, but gave slight attention to the speaker. All the attention of his little black eyes was given to the stranger, who did not address him, and whose gaze was somewhat critical and altogether contemptuous.

Then Mrs. Huzzard, without waiting for them to reach the door, hurried out to greet Lyster.

"I'm as glad as any woman can be to see you back again," she said heartily, "though it's more than I hoped for so soon, and--Yes, the doctor says she's a little better, thank G.o.d! And your name has been on her lips more than once--poor dear!--since she has been flighty, and all the thanks I feel to you for bringing Lavina right along I can never tell you; for it seems a month since I saw a woman last. I just can't count the squaw! And do you want to come in and look at our poor little girl now?

She won't know you; but if you wish--"