That Girl Montana Part 23

"More white men to come into camp?" she asked.

"White men? No. Why do you ask?"

"I see tracks--not Dan's tracks--not yours."

"Made when?"

"Now--little while back--only little."

Overton heard their voices, though not their words; and as 'Tana re-entered the wigwam, he glanced around at her with a dubious smile.

"That is the first time I ever heard you actually talking Chinook," he observed; "though I've had an idea you could, ever since the evening in Akkomi's village. It is like your poker playing, though you have been very modest about it."

"I was not the night I played the captain," she answered; "and I think you might let me alone about that, after I gave him back his money."

"That is just the part I can not forgive you for," he said. "He will never get over the idea, now, that you cheated him, and that your conscience got the better of you to such an extent that you tried to wipe a sin away by giving the money back."

"Perhaps I did," she answered, quietly. "I had to settle his conceit some way, for he did bother me a heap sometimes. But I'm done with that."

She seemed rather thoughtful during the frying of the fish and the slicing down of Mrs. Huzzard's last contribution--a brown loaf.

She was disturbed over the footprints seen by the Indian woman--the track of a white man so close to their camp that day, yet who had kept himself from their sight! Such actions have a meaning in the wild countries, and the meaning troubled her. While it would have been the most simple thing in the world to tell Overton and have him make a search, something made her want to do the searching herself--but how?

"I was right in my theory about the old river bed," he said to her, as she poured his coffee. "Harris backs me up in it, and it was ore he found, and not the loose dirt in the soil. So the thing I am going to strike out for is the headquarters where that loose dust comes from."

"Oh! then it was ore you found?" she asked.

Harris nodded his head.

"Ore on the surface--and near here."

That news made her even more anxious about that stranger who had prowled around. Perhaps he, too, was searching for the hidden wealth.

When the supper was over, and the sun had slipped back of the mountain, she beckoned to the squaw, and with the water bucket as a visible errand, they started toward the spring.

But they did not stop there. She wanted to see with her own eyes those footprints, and she followed the Indian down into the woods already growing dusky in the dying day.

The birds were singing their good-night songs, and all the land seemed steeped in repose. Only those two figures, gliding between the trees, carried with them the spirit of unrest.

They reached an open s.p.a.ce where no trees grew very close--a bit of marsh land, where the soil was black and tall ferns grew. The squaw led her straight to a place where two of the fern fronds were bent and broken. She parted the green lances, and there beside it was a sc.r.a.ping away of the earth, as though some one walking there had slipped, and in the black sandy loam a shoe had sunk deep. The Indian was right; it was the mark of a white man, for the reds of that country had not yet adopted the footgear of their more advanced neighbors.

"It turn to camp," said the squaw. "Maybe some white thief, so I tell you.

Me tell Dan?"

"Wait," answered the girl; and, kneeling down, she studied the slender outline of the foot attentively. "Any more tracks?"

"No more--only leaves stirred nearer to camp; he go that way."

The full moon rose clear and warm in the east, while yet the sun's light lingered over the wilderness. Beautiful flowers shone white and pink and yellow in the opaline light of the evening; and 'Tana mechanically plucked a few that touched her as she pa.s.sed, but she gave little notice to their beauty. All her thought was on the slender footprint of the man in the woods, and her face looked troubled.

They walked on, looking to right and left in any nook where deep shadows lay, but never a sign could they see of aught that was human besides themselves, until they neared the springs again, when the squaw laid her hand on the arm of the girl.

"Dan," she said, in her low, abrupt way.

The girl, looking up, saw him a little way ahead of them, standing there straight, strong, and surely to be trusted; yet her first impulse was to tell him nothing.

"Take the water and go," she said to the Indian, and the woman disappeared like a mere wraith of a woman in the pale shadows.

"Don't go so far next time when you want to pick flowers in the evening,"

said Overton, as 'Tana came nearer to him. "You make me realize that I have nerves. If you had not come in sight the instant you did, I should have been after you."

"But nothing will harm us; I am not afraid, and it is pretty in the woods now," she answered lamely, and toyed with the flowers. But the touch of her fingers was nervous, and the same quality trembled in her voice. He noticed it and reaching out took her hand in his very gently, and yet with decision that forced her to look up at him.

"Little girl--what is it? You are sick?"

She shook her head.

"No, I am not--I am not sick," and she tried to free her hand, but could not.

"'Tana," and his teeth closed for a moment on his lip lest he say all the warm words that leaped up from his heart at sight of her face, which looked startled and pale in the moonlight--"'Tana, you won't need me very long; and when you go away, I'll never try to make you remember me. Do you understand, little girl? But just now, while we are so far off from the rest of the world, won't you trust me with your troubles--with the thoughts that worry you? I would give half of my life to help you. Half of it! Ah, good G.o.d! all of it! 'Tana--"

In his voice was all the feeling which compels sympathy, or else builds up a wall that bars it out. But in the eyes of the girl, startled though she was, no resistance could be read. Her hand was in his, her face lifted to him, and alight with sudden gladness. In his eyes she read the force of an irresistible power taking possession of a man's soul and touching her with its glory.

"'Tana!" he said very softly, in a tone she had never before heard Dan Overton use--a tone hushed and reverent and appealing. "_'Tana!_"

Did he guess all the stormy emotions locked alone in the girl's heart, and wearing out her strength? Did he guess all the childish longing to feel strong, loving arms around her as a shield? His utterance of her name drew her to him. His arm fell around her shoulders, and her head was bowed against his breast. The hat she wore had fallen to the ground, and as he bent over her, his hand caressed her hair tenderly, but there was more of moody regret than of joy in his face.

"'Tana, my girl! poor little girl!" he said softly.

But she shook her head.

"No--not so poor now," she half whispered and looked up at him--"not so very poor."

Then she uttered a half-strangled scream of terror and broke away from him; for across his shoulder she saw a face peering at her from the shadows of the over-hanging bushes above them, a white, desperate face, at sight of which she staggered back and would have fallen had Overton not caught her.

He had not seen the cause of her alarm, and for one instant thought it was himself from whom she shrank.

"Tell me--what is it?" he demanded. "'Tana, speak to me!"

She did not speak, but a rustle in the bushes above them caught his ear; and looking up, he saw a form pa.s.s lightly through the shadows and away from them. He could not tell whether it was an Indian, a white man, or even an animal scampering off that way through the bushes. But anything that spied like that and ran when discovered was a thing to shoot at. He dropped his hand to his revolver, but she caught his arm.

"No, Dan! Oh, don't--don't shoot him!"

He stared at her, conscious that it was no ordinary fear that whitened her face. What did it mean? She herself had just come from the woods--pale, agitated, and with only a semblance of flower gathering to explain her absence. Had she met some one there--some one who--

He let go of her and started to run up the side of the steep bank; but swiftly as he moved, she caught him and clung to him, half sobbing.

"Don't go! Oh, Dan, let him go!" she begged, and her grasp made it impossible for him to go unless he picked her up and carried her along.