Told In The Hills Part 26

"Oh, here you are at last!" she remarked, in that inane way people have when they care not whether you are here or in the other place. "You took your own time."

"Well, I didn't take any other fellow's!" returned the man from the dark corner where he was unsaddling the horse.

Andrews was usually very obsequious to Miss Rachel, and she concluded he must be pretty drunk.

"I came out to help you with the things," she remarked from her post in the door-way; "where are they?"

"I've got 'em myself," came the gruff tones again from the corner. "I reckon I'll manage without help. You'd better skip for the house--you'll catch cold likely."

"Why, it isn't cold--are you? I guess Aunty left a lunch for you. I'll go and warm the coffee."

She started, and then stopped.

"Say, did you get any letters for me?"

"No."

With a grumble about her ill-luck, she started back toward the house, the late arrival following a little ways behind with something over his shoulder. Once she looked back.

"I rather think Andrews gets on dignified drunks," she soliloquized; "he is walking pretty straight, anyway."

She set the coffee-pot on the coals and glanced at the bundle he had dropped just inside the door--it was nothing but a blanket and a saddle.

"Well, upon my word!" she began, and rose to her feet; but she did not say any more, for, in turning to vent her displeasure on Andrews, she was tongue-tied by the discovery that it was not he who had followed her from the stable.

"Genesee!" she breathed, in a tone a little above a whisper. "Alah mika chahko!"

She was too utterly astonished either to move toward him or offer her hand; but the welcome in her Indian words was surely plain enough for him to understand. It was just like him, however, not to credit it, and he smiled a grim understanding of his own, and walked over to a chair.

"Yes, that's who it is," he remarked. "I am sorry, for the sake of your hopes, that it isn't the other fellow; but--here I am."

He had thrown his hat beside him and leaned back in the big chair, shutting his eyes sleepily. She had never seen him look so tired.

"Tillik.u.m, I am glad to see you again," she said, going to him and holding out her hand. He smiled, but did not open his eyes.

"It took you a long time to strike that trail," he observed. "What brought you out to the stable?"

"I thought you were Andrews, and that you were drunk and would break things."

"Oh!"

"And I am glad to see you, Jack."

He opened his eyes then. "Thank you, little girl. That is a good thing for a man to hear, and I believe you. Come here. It was a good thing for me to get that word from Kalitan, too. I reckon you know all that, though, or you wouldn't have sent it."

She did not answer, but stooped to lift the pot of coffee back from the blaze. The action recalled him to the immediate practical things, and he said:

"Think I can stay all night here?"

"I don't know of any reason to prevent it."

"Mowitza was used up, and I wanted a roof for her; but I didn't allow to come to the house myself."

"Where would you have slept?"

"In my blanket, on the hay."

"Just as if we would let you do that on our place!"

"No one would have known it if you had kept away from the stable, and in your bed, where you ought to be."

"Shall I go there at once, or pour your coffee first?"

"A cup of coffee would be a treat; I'm dead tired."

The coffee was drank, and the lunch for Andrews was appropriated for Genesee.

"Have you come back to the Kootenai country for good?" she asked, after furnishing him with whatever she could find in the pantry without awakening the rest.

"I don't know--it may be for bad," he replied doubtfully. "I've taken the trail north to sound any tribes that are hostile, and if troops are needed they are to follow me."

"Up into this country?"

"I reckon so. Are you afraid of fighting?"

She did not answer. A new idea, a sudden remembrance, had superseded that of Indian warfare.

"How long since you left Fort Owens?" she asked.

"Fifteen days. Why?"

"A friend of MacDougall's started in that direction about two weeks ago.

Davy sent a kind message by him; but you must have pa.s.sed it on the way."

"Likely; I've been in the Flathead country, and that's wide of the trail to Owens. Who was the man?"

"His name is Stuart."

He set the empty cup down, and looked in the fire for a moment with a steadiness that made the girl doubt if he had either heard or noticed; but after a little he spoke.

"What was that you said?"

"That the man's name was Stuart."

"Young or old?"

"Younger than you."