That Girl Montana

by Marah Ellis Ryan

  CHAPTER XIII.

  THE TRACK IN THE FOREST.

  Their camp was about a mile from the Kootenai River, and close to a streamof depth sufficient to carry a canoe; while, a little way north of theircamp, a beautiful spring of clear water gurgled out from under a littlebank, and added its portion to the larger stream that flowed eastward tothe river.

  There was a little peculiarity about the spring, which made it one toremember--or, rather, two to remember, for it was really a twin, and itssister stream slipped from the other side of the narrow ledge and rannorth for a little way, and then turned to the east and emptied into theKootenai, not a hundred yards from the stream into which its mate hadrun.

  The two springs were not twenty feet apart, and lay direct north and southfrom each other. Then their wide curves, in opposite directions, leftwithin their circle a tract of land like an island, for the streamsbounded it entirely except for that narrow neck of rock and soil joiningit to the bigger hills to the west.

  It was in the vicinity of the two springs that the rude sketch of Harrisbade them search; but more definite directions than that he had not given.He had marked a tree where the north stream joined the river; and findingthat as a clew, they followed the stream to its source. When they reachedthe larger stream, navigable for a mile, they concluded to move theirtents there, for no lovelier place could be found.

  It was 'Tana and Overton who tramped over the lands where the streams lay,and did their own prospecting for location. He was surprised to find herknowledge of the land so accurate. The crude drawing was as a solvedproblem to her; she never once made a wrong turn.

  "Well, I've thought over it a heap," she said, when he commented on herclever ideas. "I saw that marked tree as we went down to the Ferry, and Iremembered where it was; and the trail is not hard if you only get startedon it right. It's getting started right that counts--ain't it, Dan?"

  There seemed fewer barriers between them in the free, out-of-door life,where no third person's views colored their own. They talked of Lyster,and missed him; yet Dan was conscious that if Lyster were with them, hewould have come second instead of first in her confidences, and herfriendly, appealing ways.

  Whether he trusted her or not, she did not know. He had not asked aquestion as to how that survey of the land came to her; but he watchedHarris sometimes when the girl paid him any little attention, and he couldread only absolute trust in the man's eyes.

  Overton was not given to keen analysis of people or motives; a healthyunconcern pervaded his mind as to the affairs of most people. Butsometimes the girl's character, her peculiar knowledge, her mysteriouspast, touched him with a sense of strange confusion, yet in the midst ofthe confusion--the deepest of it--he had put all else aside when sheappealed to him, and had followed her lead into the wilderness.

  And as she ran from him with the particles of gold, and carried them, ashe bade her, to Harris, he followed her with his gaze until shedisappeared through the green wall of the bushes. Once he started tofollow her, and then stopped, suddenly muttered something about a "cursedfool," and flung himself face down in the tall grass.

  "It's got to end here," he said, aloud, as men grow used to thinking whenthey live alone in the woods much. Then he raised himself on his elbowsand looked over the little grassy dip of the land to where the stream fromthe hills sparkled in the warm sun; and then away beyond to where theevergreens raised their dark heads along the heights, looking like somberguardians keeping ward over the sunny valley of the twin springs. Overthem all his gaze wandered, and then up into the deep forest above him--aforest unbroken from there to the swift Columbia.

  The perfect harmony of it all must have oppressed him until he felthimself the one discordant note, for he closed his eyes with a sigh thatwas almost a groan.

  "I'll see it all again--often, I suppose," he muttered; "but never quiteas it is now--never, for it's got to end. The little bits of gold I foundare a warning of the changes to come here--that is the way it seems to me.Queer how a man will change his idea of life in a year or so! There havebeen times when I would have rejoiced over the prospect of wealth there ishere; yet all I am actually conscious of is regret that everything mustchange--the place--the people--all where gold is king. Pshaw! what a foolI would seem to any one else if he knew. Yet--well, I have dreamed all mydays of a sort of life where absolute happiness could be lived. Othermen do the same, I suppose--yes, of course. I wonder if others also comein reach of it too late. I suppose so. Well, reasoning won't change it. Imarked out my own path--marked it out with as little thought as manyanother fool; but I've got to walk in it just the same, and cursing backdon't help luck. But I had to have a little pow-wow all alone and be sorryfor myself, before turning my back on the man I'd like to be--and--therest of my dreams that have come in sight for a little while but can nevercome nearer--There she comes again! I'm glad of it, for she will at leastkeep me from drifting into dreams alone."

  But she appeared to be dreaming a little herself. At any rate, the sceneshe had passed through in the tent left memories too dark with feeling tobe quickly dispelled, and he noticed at once the change in her face, andthe traces of tears left about her eyes.

  "What has hurt you?" he asked.

  She shook her head and said:

  "Nothing."

  "Oh! So you leave here jolly enough, and run around to camp, and cry aboutnothing--do you?" he asked, with evident unbelief. "Were you crying forjoy over those little grains of gold--or over your loneliness in being sofar from the Ferry folks?"

  She laughed at the mere idea of either--and laughter dispels tear tracesso quickly from faces that are young. "Lonely!" she exclaimed: "lonelyhere? why, I feel a heap more satisfied here than down at the Ferry, wherethe whole place smelled like saw-mills and new lumber. I always had agrudge against saw-mills, for they spoil all the lovely woods. That is whyI like all this," and she made a sweep of her arm, embracing all theterritory in sight; "for in here not a tree has been touched with an ax.Lonely here! Why, Dan, I've been so perfectly happy that I'm afraid--yes,I am. Didn't you ever feel like that--just as if you were too happy tolast, and you were afraid some trouble would come and end it all?"

  But Overton stooped to lift the pick he had been using, and so turned hisface away from her.

  "Well, I'm glad you are not getting blue over lack of company," heremarked; "for we have only commenced prospecting, you know, and it willbe at least a week before we can hope to send for any one else to joinus."

  "A week! Do you intend to send for other folks, then?" and her tone wasone of regret. "Oh, it would be all different, then. My pretty camp wouldbe spoiled for me if folks should come talking and whistling up our creek.Don't let any one know so soon!"

  "You don't know what you are talking of," he answered, a little roughly."This is a business trip. We did not come up here just because we werelooking for a pretty picture of a place to camp in."

  "Oh!" and surprise and dismay were in the exclamation. "Then you don'tcare for it--you want other people just as soon as you find the richstreak where the gold is? Well"--and she looked again over their littlechosen valley--"I almost hope you won't find it very soon--not for severaldays. I would like to live just like this for a whole week. And Ithought--I was so sure you liked it, too."

  "Oh, yes," he answered, indifferently enough, evidently giving his wholeattention to examining the soil he had commenced to dig up again, "I likethe camp all right, but we can't just stand around and admire it, if wewant to accomplish what we came for. And see here, 'Tana," he said, andfor the first time he looked at her with a sort of unwillingness, "youmust know that this gold is going to make a big change in things for you.You can't live out in the woods with a couple of miners and an Indiansquaw, after your fortune is made--don't you see that? You must go toschool, and live out in the world where your money will help you to--well,the right sort of society for a girl."

  "What is the use of having money if it don't help you to live where youplease?" she demanded. "I though
t that was what money was for. I'd a heaprather stay poor here in the woods, with--with the folks I know, insteadof going where I'll have to buy friends with money. Don't think I'd wantthe sort of friends who have to be baited with money, anyway."

  He stared at her helplessly. She was saying to him the things he hadcalled himself a fool for thinking. But he could not call her a fool. Hecould only stifle an impatient groan, and wonder how he was to reason herinto thinking as other girls would think of wealth and its advantages.

  "Why were you so wild about finding the gold, if you care so little forthe things it brings?" he demanded, and she pointed toward the tents.

  "It was for him I thought at first--of how the money would, maybe, help tomake him well--get him great doctors, and all that. The world had beenrough on him--people had brought him trouble, and--and I thought, maybe, Icould help clear it away. That was what I had in my mind at first."

  "You need things, too, don't you?--not doctors, but education--books,beautiful things. You want pictures, statues, fine music, theaters--allsuch things. Well, the money will help you get them, and get people toenjoy them with you. I've heard you talk to Max about how you would liketo live, and what you would like to see; and I think you can soon. But,'Tana, you will live then where people will be more critical than we arehere--"

  "More like Captain Leek?" she asked, with a deep wrinkle between herbrows; "for if they are, I'll stay here."

  "N--no; not like him; and yet they will think considerable of his sort ofideas, too," he answered, blunderingly. "One thing sure is this: When youractual work here is over, you must go at once back to Mrs. Huzzard. It wasnecessary for you to come, else I wouldn't have allowed it. But, littlegirl, when you get among those fine friends you are going to have, I don'twant them to think you had a guardian up here who didn't take the firstbit of civilized care of you. And that's what they would think if I letyou stay here, just as though you were a boy. So you see, 'Tana, I justfelt I'd have to tell you plain that you would have to try and fityourself to city ways of living. And when you are a millionairess, as youcount on being, we three partners can't keep on living in tents in theKootenai woods."

  She pulled handfuls of the plumy grasses beside her, and stared sulkilyahead of her. Evidently it was a great deal for her to understand atonce.

  "Would they blame you--_you_ for it, if they knew?" she asked at last.

  "Yes, they would--if they knew," he said, savagely; and turning away, hewalked across the little grassy level to where the abrupt little wall orledge commenced--the one from under which the springs flowed.

  She thought he was simply out of patience with her. He was going to thewoods--anywhere to be rid of her and her stupid ideas; and swift as abird, she slipped after him.

  "Then I'll go, Dan," she said reassuringly, catching his arm. "So don't bevexed at me for being stubborn. Come! let me look for the gold with you,and then--then I'll go when you say."

  "It's a bargain," he said, briefly, and drew his arm away. "And if we aregoing to do any more prospecting this evening, we had better begin."

  He stood facing her, with his back to the bank that was the first tinystep toward the mountain that rose dark and shadowy far above. He hadwalked along there before, looking with a miner's attention to the lay ofthe land. Suddenly he uttered an exclamation, and a light of comprehensionbrightened his eyes.

  "I've got a clew to it, sure, 'Tana!" he said, eagerly. "Do you know wherewe are standing? Well, if I don't make a big mistake, a good-sized riveronce rolled along just where we are now. The little creek is all that'sleft of it. This soil is all a comparatively recent deposit, and it andthe gold dust in it have been washed down from the mountain. Which meansthat this little valley is only a gateway, and the dust we found is only atrail we are to follow up to the mine from which it came. Do youunderstand?"

  "Yes, I think so," she answered, looking at the green-covered banks, andtrying to realize how they looked when a mountain river had cut its waythrough and covered all the pretty level where the spring stream slippednow. "But doesn't that make the gold seem farther away--much farther? Willwe have to move up higher in the mountains?"

  "That is a question I need time to answer, but if I am right--if there isa backing of gold ore somewhere above this old river bed, it means a muchsurer thing than an occasional bit of dust washed out of the mud here. Butwe won't ignore our little placer digging either. There is an advantage toa poor prospector in having a claim he can work without any machinery buta pick, shovel, and pan; while the gold ore needs a fortune to develop it.Let us go back and talk to Harris, to see if his evidence substantiates mytheory. If not, we will just stake out our claims on the level, and bethankful. Later we will investigate the hills."

  The girl walked slowly beside him back to their camp. The shadows werecommencing to lengthen. It was nearing supper time, and their day had beena busy, tiring one, for they had moved their camp many miles since dawn.

  "You are very nearly worn out, aren't you?" he asked, as he noticed hertired eyes and her listless step. "You see, you would tramp along theshore this morning when I wanted you to stay in the boat."

  "Yes, I know," she answered; "but I don't think that made me tired. Maybeit's the gold we are to find. How queer it is, Dan, that a person willwant and want some one thing all his life, and he thinks it will make himso happy; and yet, when at last he gets in sight of it, he isn't happy atall. That is the way I feel about our gold. I suppose I ought to besinging and laughing and dancing for joy. I said I would, too. Yet hereI am feeling as stupid as can be, and almost afraid of the fine life yousay I must go to. Oh, bother! I won't think over it any more. I am goingto get supper."

  For while 'Tana would accept the squaw as an assistant and a gatherer offuel, she decidedly declined to have her installed as head cook. Sheherself filled that office with a good deal of girlish conceit, encouragedby the praise of Overton and the approving nods of Harris.

  There had been a fifth member of their party, Flap-Jacks' husband. 'Tanahad bestowed that name on the squaw in the very beginning of theiracquaintance. But Overton had sent him on an errand back to Sinna Ferry,not wishing to have his watchful eyes prying into their plans in the verybeginning of their prospecting. And it was not until he had started on hisjourney that the pick and pan had disclosed the golden secret of the oldriver bed.

  Harris watched the two approach, and his keen gray eyes turned with acertain fondness from one to the other. They were as guardian angels tohim, and their mutual care of him had brought them closer to each otherthere in the wilderness than they ever had been in the little settlementfarther down the river.

  "Squaw not here yet?" asked 'Tana, and at once set to work preparingthings for the supper.

  Harris shook his head, but at that moment their hand-maiden did return,carrying a great load of sticks for fire, and then brought to the girl anumber of fine trout she had caught almost at their door. She built thefire outside, where two forked sticks had been driven into the ground, andacross them a pole lay, from which kettles could be hung. As 'Tana set thecoffee pot on the hot coals, the Indian woman spoke to her in that lowvoice which is characteristic of the red people.

  "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 'Tanare-entered the wigwam, he glanced around at her with a dubious smile.

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

  "I was not the night I played the captain," she answered; "and I think youmight 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 neverget over the
idea, now, that you cheated him, and that your conscience gotthe better of you to such an extent that you tried to wipe a sin away bygiving the money back."

  "Perhaps I did," she answered, quietly. "I had to settle his conceit someway, 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 slicingdown of Mrs. Huzzard's last contribution--a brown loaf.

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

  "I was right in my theory about the old river bed," he said to her, as shepoured his coffee. "Harris backs me up in it, and it was ore he found, andnot the loose dirt in the soil. So the thing I am going to strike out foris 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 prowledaround. 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 thosefootprints, and she followed the Indian down into the woods alreadygrowing dusky in the dying day.

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

  They reached an open space where no trees grew very close--a bit of marshland, where the soil was black and tall ferns grew. The squaw led herstraight to a place where two of the fern fronds were bent and broken. Sheparted the green lances, and there beside it was a scraping away of theearth, as though some one walking there had slipped, and in the blacksandy loam a shoe had sunk deep. The Indian was right; it was the mark ofa white man, for the reds of that country had not yet adopted the footgearof 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 slenderoutline 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 lightlingered over the wilderness. Beautiful flowers shone white and pink andyellow in the opaline light of the evening; and 'Tana mechanically pluckeda few that touched her as she passed, but she gave little notice to theirbeauty. All her thought was on the slender footprint of the man in thewoods, and her face looked troubled.

  They walked on, looking to right and left in any nook where deep shadowslay, but never a sign could they see of aught that was human besidesthemselves, until they neared the springs again, when the squaw laid herhand 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 therestraight, strong, and surely to be trusted; yet her first impulse was totell him nothing.

  "Take the water and go," she said to the Indian, and the woman disappearedlike 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 Ihave nerves. If you had not come in sight the instant you did, I shouldhave been after you."

  "But nothing will harm us; I am not afraid, and it is pretty in the woodsnow," she answered lamely, and toyed with the flowers. But the touch ofher fingers was nervous, and the same quality trembled in her voice. Henoticed it and reaching out took her hand in his very gently, and yet withdecision 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 couldnot.

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

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

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

  Did he guess all the stormy emotions locked alone in the girl's heart, andwearing out her strength? Did he guess all the childish longing to feelstrong, loving arms around her as a shield? His utterance of her name drewher to him. His arm fell around her shoulders, and her head was bowedagainst his breast. The hat she wore had fallen to the ground, and as hebent over her, his hand caressed her hair tenderly, but there was more ofmoody 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 sovery poor."

  Then she uttered a half-strangled scream of terror and broke away fromhim; for across his shoulder she saw a face peering at her from theshadows of the over-hanging bushes above them, a white, desperate face, atsight of which she staggered back and would have fallen had Overton notcaught her.

  He had not seen the cause of her alarm, and for one instant thought it washimself 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 pass lightly through the shadows and awayfrom them. He could not tell whether it was an Indian, a white man, oreven an animal scampering off that way through the bushes. But anythingthat spied like that and ran when discovered was a thing to shoot at. Hedropped 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 herface. What did it mean? She herself had just come from the woods--pale,agitated, and with only a semblance of flower gathering to explain herabsence. 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; butswiftly 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 itimpossible for him to go unless he picked her up and carried her along.

  He stooped, took her head roughly in his hands, and turned her face up, sothat the light would fall upon it.

  "_Him!_ Then you know who it is?" he said, grimly. "What sort of businessis this, 'Tana? Are you going to tell me?"

  But she only crouched closer to him, and, sobbing, begged him not to go.Once he tried to break away but lost his footing, and the soil and bits ofboulders went clattering down past her.

  With a muttered oath of impatience, he gave up the pursuit, and stareddown at her with an expression more bitter than any she had ever seen onhis face before.

  "So you are bound to protect him, are you?" he asked, coldly. "Very well.But if y
ou value him so highly you had better keep him clear of this camp,else he'll find himself ready for a box. Come! get up and go to the tents.That is a better place for you than here. Your coming out here thisevening has been a mistake all around--or else mine has. I wish to HeavenI could undo it all."

  She stood a little apart from him, but her hand was still outstretched andclasping his arm.

  "All, Dan?" she asked, and her mouth trembled. But his own lips were firmenough, as he nodded his head and looked at her.

  "All," he said briefly. "Go now; and here are your flowers for which youhunted so long in the woods."

  He stooped to pick them up for her from where they had fallen--the white,fragrant things he had thought so beautiful as she came toward him withthem in the moonlight.

  But as he lifted them from the bank, where they were scattered, he sawsomething else there which was neither beautiful nor fragrant, but overwhich he bent with earnest scrutiny. An ordinary looking piece of shale orstone it would have seemed to an inexperienced eye, a thing with irregularveins of a greenish appearance, and the green dotted plainly withyellow--so plainly as to show even in the moonlight the nature of thefind.

  He turned to the girl and reached it to her with the flowers.

  "There! When my foot slipped I broke off that bit of 'float' from theledge," he said curtly. "Show it to Harris. We have found the gold ore,and I'll stake out the claims to-night. You can afford to leave forcivilization now as soon as you please, I reckon, for your work in theKootenai country is over. Your fortune is made."