That Girl Montana Part 8

"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, coa.r.s.e 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 sh.o.r.e.

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 coa.r.s.e 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 s.e.x, 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 embarra.s.sment 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 a.s.sured 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 n.o.body; 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--n.o.body 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 coa.r.s.e 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 sh.o.r.e," 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 pa.s.sed out of sight around the clump of bushes, and down along the sh.o.r.e, singing cheerily, and the words floated back to them: