"Well, I've been a 'hoodoo' all my, life; and if I only lead some one into luck now--good luck--oh, wouldn't I learn a sun-dance, and dance it!"
The world was two weeks older, and it was 'Tana who spoke; not the troubled 'Tana who had crouched beside the paralytic and cowered under her fear of Overton's distrust, but a girl grown lighter-hearted by the help of work to be done--work in which she was for once to stand side by side with Overton himself, for his decision about the prospecting had been in her favor. He had "spoken up," as she had asked him to do, and a curious three-cornered partnership had been arranged the next day; a very mysterious partnership, of which no word was told to any one. Only 'Tana suddenly decided that the schooling must wait a little longer. Lyster would have to make the trip to Helena without her; she was not feeling like it just then, and so forth.
Therefore, despite the very earnest arguments of Mr. Lyster, he did have to go alone. During all the journey, he was conscious of a quite unreasonable disappointment, an impatience with even Overton, for not enforcing his authority as guardian, and insisting that she at once commence the many studies in which she was sadly deficient.
But Overton had stood back and said nothing. Lyster did not understand it, and could not succeed in making either of them communicative.
"You'll be back here in less than a month," said Overton. "We will send her then, if she feels equal to it. In the meantime, we'll take the best care we can of her here at the Ferry. I find I will have time to look after her a little until then. I have only one short trip to make up the river; so don't get uneasy about her. She'll be ready to go next run you make, sure."
So Lyster wondered, dissatisfied, and went away. He was even a little more dissatisfied with his last memory of the girl--a vision of her bending over that unknown, helpless miner. His sympathies were with the man. He was most willing to assist, in a financial way, toward taking care of one so unfortunate. But the thing he was not willing to do was to see 'Tana devote herself without restraint to the welfare of a stranger--a man they knew nothing of--a fellow who, of course, could have no appreciation of the great luck he was in to have her constantly beside him. It was a clean waste of exceptionable sympathy; and a squaw, or some miner out of work, would do as well in this case.
He even offered to pay for a squaw, or for any masculine nurse; but the girl had very promptly suggested that he busy himself with his own duties, if he had any. She stated further that he had no control whatever over her actions, and she could not understand--
"I know I have none," he retorted, with some impatience, and yet a good deal of fondness in his handsome eyes. "That is why I'm complaining. I wish I had. And if I had, wouldn't I whisk you away from this uncouth life! I wonder if you will ever let me do so, Tana?"
"I think you'd better be packing your plunder," she remarked, coolly. "If you don't, you'll keep the whole outfit waiting."
And that was how they let even Lyster go away. Not a hint was he given of the all-engrossing plan that bound both 'Tana and Overton to the interests of the passive stranger, who looked at them with intelligence, but who could not speak.
Their partnership was a curious affair, and the arrangement for interests in it was conducted on the one side by nods or shakes of the head, while the other two offered suggestions, and asked questions, until a very clear understanding was arrived at.
Only one knotty discussion had arisen. Overton offered to give one month of time to the search, on condition that one half of the find, if there was any made, should belong to 'Tana, while the original finder should have the other half. He himself would give that much time to helping them out in a friendly way; but more than that he could not give, because of other duties.
To this the man Harris shook his head with all possible vigor, while 'Tana was quite as emphatic in an audible way. Harris desired that all shares be equal, and Overton count himself in for a third. 'Tana approved the plan, insisting that she would not accept an ounce of the dust if he did not. So Dan finally agreed and ended the discussion concerning the division of the gold they might never find.
"And don't be so dead sure that the dirt will pan out well, even if we do find the place," he said, warningly, to 'Tana. "Why, my girl, if the average of dust had been as high as my average of hope over strikes I've made myself, I would have been a billionaire long ago."
"I never heard you talk of prospecting," remarked 'Tana. "All the rest do here, and not you--how is that?"
"Oh, prospecting strikes one like a fever; sometimes a man recovers from it, or seems to for a while. I had the fever bad about two years ago--out in Nevada. Well, I left there. I sunk my stock of capital in a very big hole, and lost my enthusiasm for a while. Maybe I will find it again, drifting along the Kootenai; but as yet it has not struck me hard. From what I can gather, this fellow must simply have dropped on a nugget or little pocket, and something must have made him distrust his partner to such an extent that he kept the secret find to himself. So there evidently has been no testing of the soil, no move toward development. We may never find an ounce of metal, for such disappointments have been even where very large nuggets have been found. You must not expect too much of this search. Golden hope lets you down hard when you do fall with it."
But, despite his warnings, he made arrangements for their river journey with all speed possible. The three of them were to go; and, as chaperon, Mrs. Huzzard was persuaded to join their queer "picnic" party, for that was the idea given abroad concerning their little trip to the north. It was to be a venture in the interests of Harris--supposedly the physical interests; though Captain Leek did remark, with decided emphasis, that it was the first time he ever knew of a man being sent out to live in the woods as a cure for paralysis.
But the preparations were made; even the fact that Mrs. Huzzard was seized with an unreasonable attack of rheumatism on the eve of departure did not deter them at all.
"Unless you need me to stay here and look after you, we'll go just the same," decided 'Tana. "A squaw won't be much of a substitute for you; but she'll be better than no one, and we'll go."
So the squaw was secured, through the agency of her husband, whom Overton knew, and who was to take their camp outfit up the river for them. This was one reason why Mrs. Huzzard, as she watched them depart, was a little thankful for the visitation of rheumatism.
Their camp was only a day old when 'Tana announced her willingness to dance if only good fortune would come to her.
It seemed a thing probable, for as Overton poured water slowly from a tin pan into the shallow little stream, there were left in the bottom of the pan, as the last sifting bit of soil was washed out, some tiny bits of yellow the size of a pin-head, and one as large as a grain of wheat.
'Tana gave a little ecstatic cry as she bent over it and touched the particles with her finger.
"Oh, Dan--it is the gold!--the real gold! and we are millionaires!--millionaires, and you would not believe it!"
He raised his finger warningly, and shook his head.
"Wait until we are millionaires before you commence to shout," he advised. "It is a good show here--yes; but, after all, it may be only a chance washing from hills far enough away. Show them to Harris, though; he may be interested, though he appears to me very indifferent about the matter."
"He don't seem to care," she agreed. "He just looks at us as though we were a couple of children he had found a new plaything for. But don't you think he looks brighter?"
"Well, yes; the river trip has done him good, instead of the harm the Ferry folks prophesied. But you run along and show him the 'yellow,' and don't draw the squaw's attention to it."
The squaw was wrapped neck and heels in a blanket, although the day was one of the warmest of summer; and stretched asleep in the sun, she gave no heed to the quick, light step of the girl.
Neither did Harris, at whose tent door she lay. He must have thought it was the stoical, indifferent Indian, for he gave her a quick, startled glance as he heard her surprised "Oh!" at the door. Then she walked directly to him, lifted his right hand, and let go again. It fell on his knee in the old, helpless way.
"But you did raise it," she said, accusingly. "I saw you as I came to the door. You stretched out your hand."
He looked at her and nodded very slightly, then looked at his hand and appeared trying to lift it; but gave up, and shook his head sadly.
"You mean you moved it a little once, but can't do it again?" she asked, and he nodded assent.
"Oh, well, that's all right," she continued, cheerfully. "You are sure to get along all right, now that you have commenced to manage your hands if ever so little. But just at first, when I saw you, I had a mighty queer notion come into my head. I thought you were getting over that stroke faster than you let us know. But I'm too suspicious, ain't I? Maybe it's a bad thing for folks to trust strangers too much in this world; but it is just as bad for a girl to grow up where she can't trust any one. Don't you think so?"
The man nodded. They had many conversations like that, and she had grown not to notice his lack of speech nearly so much as at first. He was so good a listener, and she had become so used to his face gradually gaining again expressive power, that she divined his wishes more readily than the others.
"But trusting don't cut any figure in what I came to speak to you about," she continued. "No 'trust and hope on, brethren,' about this, I guess," and she held the grains of yellow metal before his eyes. "There it is--the gold! Dan found it in the little hollow where the spring is. Is that where you found it?"
He shook his head, but looked pleased at the show they had found.
"Was it bigger bundles of it than this you struck?"
He nodded assent.
"Bigger than this! Well, it must have been rich. These lumps are enough in size if they only turn out enough in number. Oh, how I wish you had put the very spot on that plan of the ground and the rivers! Still, I suppose you were right to be cautious. And if I hadn't been on a lone trail through this country last spring, and got lost, and happened to notice the two little streams running into the river so close to each other, we might have had a year's journey along the Kootenai before we could have found the particular little stream and followed the right one to its source. I think we are close on the trail now, Joe."
He shook his head energetically when she called him Joe.
"Well, I forget," she said. "You see, I've been thinking for months about finding Joe Hammond; and now that I've found you, I can't get used to thinking you are Jim Harris. What's the use of your changing your name, anyway? You did it so you could trail him, your partner, better. But what was the use, with him well and strong, and with devils back of him, and you alone and barely able to crawl? Your head was wrong, Joe--Jim, I mean. If you hadn't been looney, you'd just have settled down and worked your claim, got rich, and then looked for your man."
He shook his head impatiently, and looked at her with as much of a frown as his locked muscles would allow, and a very queer, hard smile about his eyes and mouth.
"Ah!" and 'Tana shivered a little; "don't look like that, Joe. You wouldn't get any Sunday-school prizes for a meek and lowly spirit if the manager saw you fix your face in that fashion. I guess I know how you felt. If you had just so much strength, and couldn't hope for more, you wouldn't waste it looking for gold while he was above ground. Now, ain't I about right?"
He gave no assent, but smiled in a more kindly way at the shrewdness of her guess.
"You won't own up, but I know I am right," she said; "and the way I know it is because I think I'd feel just like that myself if some one hurt me bad. I wonder if girls often feel that way. I guess not. I know Ora Harrison, the doctor's girl, don't. She says her prayers every night, and asks God to let her enemies have good luck. U'm! I can't do that."
The man watched her as she sat silent for a little, looking out into the still, warm sunshine. The squaw slumbered on, and the girl stared across her, and her face grew sad and moody with some hard thought.
"It's awful to hate," she said, at last. "Don't you think it is?--to hate so that you can't breathe right when the person you hate comes near where you are--to be able to feel if he comes near, even when you don't see or hear him, to feel a devil that rises up in your breast and makes you want to get a knife and cut--cut deep, until the blood you hate runs away from the face you hate, and leaves it white and cold. Ah! it's bad, I reckon, to have some one hate you; but it's a thousand times worse to hate back. It makes the prettiest day black when the devil tells you of the hate you must remember, and you can't pray it away, and you can't forget it, and you can't help it! Oh, dear!"
She put her hands over her eyes and leaned her head against his hand. He felt her tears, but could not comfort her.
"You see, I know--how you felt," she said, trying to speak steadily. "Girls shouldn't know; girls should have love and good thoughts taught to them. I--I've dreamed dreams of what a girl's life ought to be like; something like Ora's home, where her mother kisses her and loves her, and her father kisses and loves them both. I went to their home once, and I never could go again. I was starving for the kind of home she has, and I knew I never would get it. That is the hardest part of it--to know, no matter how hard you try to be good, all your life, you can't get back the good thoughts and the love that should have been yours when you were little--the good thoughts that would have kept hate from growing in your heart, until it is stronger than you are. Oh, it's awful!"
The squaw, who did not understand English, but did understand tears, rolled over and peered out from her blanket at the girl who knelt there as at the feet of a confessor. But the girl did not see her; she still knelt there, almost whispering now.
"And the worst of it is, Joe, after they are dead--the ones you hate--then the devil in you commences to torment you by making you think of some good points among the bad ones; some little kind word that would have made the hate in your heart less if it had not been for your own terrible wickedness. And it gnaws and torments you just like a rat gnawing the heart out of a log for a nest. And hate is terrible! whether it is live hate, or dead, it is terrible. Maybe I won't feel so bad now that I've said out loud to some one how I feel--how much harder my heart is than it ought to be. I couldn't tell any one else. But you hate, too, you know. Maybe you know, too, that dead hate hurts worst--that it haunts like a ghost."
She looked up at him, and saw again that queer, wise smile about his lips.
"You don't believe he's dead!" she said, and her face grew paler. "You think he's still alive, and that is why you don't want folks to use your old name. You are laying for him yet, and you so helpless you can't move!"
The man only looked at her grimly. He would not deny; he would not assent.
"But you are wrong," she persisted. "He is dead. The Indians told me so--Akkomi told me so. Would they lie to me? Joe, can't you let the hate go by, now that he is dead--dead?"
But no motion answered her, though his eyes rested on her kindly enough. Then the squaw arose and slouched away to pick up firewood in the forest, and the girl arose, too, and touched his hand.
"Well, whether you can or not, I am glad I told you what I did. Maybe it won't worry me so much now; for sometimes, just when I'm almost happy, the ghost of that bad hate seems to whisper, whisper, and there ain't any more good times for me. I'm glad I told you. I would not have, though, if you could talk like other folks, but you can't."
She got him a drink of water, slipped their first find of the gold into his pocket, and then stood at the tent door, watching for Overton.
But he did not come, and after a little she picked up the pan again and started for the small stream where she had left him.
The man in the chair watched her go, and when she was out of sight, that right hand was again slowly raised from the chair.
"C--an't I?" he whispered, in a strange, indistinct way. "Poor lit--tle girl! poor little--girl!"
