Another canoe, with a woman in it, skimmed over the waters in the twilight that evening--a woman with all the gladness of youth in her bright eyes, and an eagerness for the north country that far outstripped the speed of the boat.
Each dark tree-trunk as it loomed up from the shores, each glint of the after-glow as it lighted the ripples, each whisper of the fresh, soft wind of the mountains, was to her as a special welcome. All of them touched her with the sense of a friendship that had been faithful. That she was no more to them than any of the strangers who came and went on the current, she could not believe; for they all meant so much, so very much to her.
She asked for a paddle, that she might once more feel against her strength the strong rush of the mountain river. She caressed its waves and reached out her hands to the bending boughs, and laughter and sighs touched her lips.
"Never again!" she whispered, as if a promise was being made; "never again! my wilderness!"
The man who had charge of the canoe--a stalwart, red-whiskered man of perhaps forty-five--looked at her a good deal in a cautious way. She was so unlike any of the girls he had ever seen--so gay, so free of speech with each stranger or Indian who came their way; so daintily garbed in a very correct creation of some city tailor; and, above all, so tenderly careful of a child who slept among the rugs at her feet, and looked like a bit of pink blossom against the dark furs.
"You are a stranger here, aren't you?" she asked the man. "I saw no one like you running a boat here last summer."
"No, no," he said, slowly; "I didn't then. My camp is east of Bonner's Ferry, quite a ways; but I get around here sometimes, too. I don't run a boat only for myself; but when they told me a lady wanted to get to Twin Springs, I didn't allow no scrub Indians to take her if my boat was good enough."
"It is a lovely boat," she said, admiringly; "the prettiest I ever saw on this river, and it is very good of you to bring me yourself. That is one of the things makes me realize I am in the West once more--to be helped simply because I am a girl alone. And you didn't even know my name when you offered to bring me."
"No, but I did before I left shore," he answered; "and then I counted myself kind of lucky. I--I've heard so much about you, miss, from folks up at Twin Springs; from one lady there in particular--Mrs. Huzzard."
"Oh! so you know her, do you?" she asked, and wondered at the self-conscious look with which he owned up that he did--a little.
"A little? Oh, that is not nearly enough," she said, good-naturedly. "Lorena Jane is worth knowing a good deal of."
"That's my opinion, too," he agreed; "but a fellow needs some help sometimes, if he ain't over handy with the gift of gab."
"Well, now, I should not think you would need much help," she answered. "You ought to be the sort she would make friends with quick enough."
"Oh, yes--friends," he said, and sent the canoe on with swifter, stronger strokes. The other boat, paddled by Indians and carrying baggage, was left far behind.
"You make this run often?" she asked, with a little wonder as to who the man was. His dress was much above the average, his boat was a beautiful and costly thing, and she had not learned, in the haste of her departure, who her boatman was.
"Not very often. Haven't been up this way for two weeks now."
"But that is often," she said. "Are you located in this country?"
"Well--yes, I have been. I struck a silver lode across the hills in yon direction. I've sold out and am only prospecting around just now, not settled anywhere yet. My name is McCoy."
"McCoy!" and like a flash she remembered the post-script of Mrs. Huzzard's letter. "Oh, yes--I've heard of you."
"You have? Well, that's funny. I didn't know my name had got beyond the ranges."
"Didn't you? Well, it got across the country to Manhattan Island--that's where I was when it reached me," and she smiled quizzically. "You know Mrs. Huzzard writes me letters sometimes."
"And do you mean--did she--"
"Yes, she did--mentioned your name very kindly, too," she said, as he hesitated in a confused way. Then, with all the gladness of home-coming in her heart and her desire that no heart should be left heavy, she added: "And, really, as I told you before, I don't think you need much help."
The kindly, smiling eyes of the man thanked her, as he drove the canoe through the clear waters. Above them the stars were commencing to gleam faintly, and all the sweet odors of the dusk floated by them, and the sweetest seemed to come to her from the north.
"We will not stop over--let us go on," she said, when he spoke of Sinna Ferry. "I can paddle while you rest at times, or we can float there on the current if we both grow tired; but let us keep going."
But ere they reached the little settlement, a canoe swept into sight ahead of them and when it came near, Captain Leek very nearly fell over the side of it in his anxiety to make himself known to Miss Rivers.
"Strangest thing in the world!" he declared. "Here I am, sent down to telegraph you and wait a week if need be until an answer comes; and half-way on my journey I meet you just as if the message had reached you in some way before it was even put on paper. Extraordinary thing--very!"
"You were going to telegraph me? What for?" and the lightness of her heart was chased away by fear. "Is--is any one hurt?"
"Hurt? Not a bit of it. But Harris thinks he is worse and wanted you, until Dan concluded to ask you to come. I have the message here somewhere," and he drew out a pocket-book.
"Dan asked me to come? Let me see it, please," and she unfolded the paper and read the words he had written--the only time she had ever seen his writing in a message to her.
A lighted match threw a flickering light over the page, on which he said:
"Joe is worse. He wants you. Will you come back?
"DAN OVERTON."
She folded it up and held it tight in her hand under the cloak she wore. He had sent for her! Ah! how long the night would be, for not until dawn could she answer his message.
"We will go on," she said. "Can't you spare us a boatman? Mr. McCoy has outstripped our Indian extras who have our outfit, and he needs a little rest, though he won't own up."
"Why, of course! Our errand is over, too, so we'll turn back with you. I just passed Akkomi a few miles back. He is coming North with the season, as usual. I thought the old fellow would freeze out with the winter; but there he was drifting North to a camping-place he wanted to reach before stopping. I suppose we'll have him for a neighbor all summer again."
The girl, remembering his antipathy to all of the red race, laughed and raised in her arms the child, that had awakened.
"All I needed to perfect my return to the Kootenai country was the presence of Akkomi," she confessed. "I should have missed him, for he was my first friend in the valley. And it may be, Mr. McCoy, that if he is inclined to be friendly to-night, I may ask him to take me the rest of the way. I want to talk to him. He is an old friend."
"Certainly," agreed McCoy; but he evidently thought her desire was a very peculiar one.
"But you will have a friend at court just the same--whether I go all the way with you or not," she said and smiled across at him knowingly.
Captain Leek heard the words, too, and must have understood them, for he stared stonily at the big, good-looking miner. Their greeting had been very brief; evidently they were not congenial spirits.
"Is that a--a child?" asked the captain, as the little creature drooped drowsily with its face against 'Tana's neck; "really a child?"
"Really a child," returned the girl, "and the sweetest, prettiest little thing in the world when her eyes are open." As he continued to stare at her in astonishment while their boats kept opposite each other, she added: "You would have sooner expected to see me with a pet bear, or wolf, wouldn't you?"
"Yes; I think I would," he confessed, and she drew the child closer and kissed it and laughed happily.
"That is because you only know one side of me," she said.
The stars were thick overhead, and their clear light made the night beautiful. When they reached the boats of Akkomi, only a short parley was held, and then an Indian canoe darted out ahead of the others. Two dark experts bent to the paddles and old Akkomi sat near the girl and the child. Looking in their dusky faces, 'Tana realized more fully that she was again in the land of the Kootenais.
It was just as she would have chosen to come back, and close against her heart was pressed the message by which he had called her.
The child slept, but she and the old Indian talked now and then in low tones all through the night. She felt no weariness. The air she breathed was as a tonic against fatigue, and when the canoe veered to the left and entered the creek leading to camp, she knew her journey was almost over.
The dusk was yet over the land, a faint whiteness touched the eastern edge of the night and told of the dawn to come, but it had not arrived.
The camp was wrapped in silence. Only the watch-man of the ore-sheds was awake, and came tramping down to the shore when their paddles dipped in the water and told him a boat was near. It was the man Saunders.
"Miss Rivers!" he exclaimed, incredulously. "Well, if this isn't luck! Harris will about drop dead with joy when he sees you. He took worse just after dark last night. He says he is worse, though he can talk yet. I was with him a little while, and how he did worry because you wouldn't get here before he was done for! Overton has been with him all night; went to bed only an hour ago. I'll call the folks up for you."
"No," said the girl, hastily; "call no one yet. I will go to Joe if you will take me. If he is so bad, that will be best. Let the rest sleep."
"Can I carry the--the baby?" he asked, doubtfully, and took the child in his arms with a sort of fear lest it should break. He was not the sort of man to be needlessly curious, so he showed no surprise at the rather strange adjunct to her outfit, but carried the little sleeper into the pretty sitting room, where he deposited it on a couch, and the girl arranged it comfortably, that it might at last have undisturbed rest.
A man in an adjoining room heard their voices and came to the door.
"You can come out for a while, Kelly," said Saunders. "This is Miss Rivers. She will want to see him."
A minute later the man in charge had left 'Tana alone beside Harris.
All the life in him seemed to gather in his eyes as he looked at her.
"You have come! I told him you would--I told Dan," he whispered, excitedly. "Come close; turn up the light; I want to see you plain. Just the same girl; but happier--a heap happier, ain't you?"
"A heap happier," she agreed.
"And I helped you about it some--about the mine, I mean. I like to think of that, to think I made some return for the harm I done you."
"But you never did me any harm, Joe."
"Yes, I did--lots. You didn't know--but I did. That's why I wanted you to come so bad. I wanted to square things--before I had to go."
"But you are all right, Joe. You are not going to die. You are much better than when I saw you last."
"Because I can talk, you think so," he answered. "But I am cold to my waist--I know what that means; and I ain't grumbling. It's all right, now that you have come. Queer that all the time we've known each other, this is the first time I've talked to you! 'Tana, you must let me tell Dan Overton all--"
"All! All what?"
"Where I saw you first, and--"
"No--no, I can't do that," she said, shrinking back. "Joe, I've tried often to think of it--of telling him, but I never could. He will have to trust or distrust me, but I can't tell him."
"I know how you feel; but you wrong yourself. Any one would give you credit instead of blaming you--don't you ever think of that? And then--then, 'Tana, I tried to tell him down at the Ferry, because I thought you were in some game against him. I managed to tell him you were Holly's partner, but hadn't got any farther when the paralysis caught me. I hadn't time to tell him that Holly was your father, and that he made you go where he said; or that you dressed as a boy and was called 'Monte,' because that disguise was the only safety possible for you in the gambling dens where he took you. Part of it I didn't understand clearly at that time. I didn't know you really thought he was dead, and that you tramped alone into this region in your boy's clothes, so you could get a new start where no white folks knew you. I told him just enough to wrong you in his eyes, and then could not tell him enough to right you again. Now do you know why I want you to let me tell him all--while I can?"
It had taken him a long time to say the words; his articulation had grown indistinct at times, and the excitement was wearing on him.
Once the door into the room where the child lay swung open noiselessly, and he had turned his eyes in that direction; but the girl's head was bowed on the arm of his chair, and she did not notice it.
"And then--there are other things," he continued. "He don't know you were the boy Fannie spoke of in that letter; or that she gave you the plot of this land; or, more--far more to me!--that you took care of her till she died. All that must give him many a worried thought, 'Tana, that you never counted on, for he liked you--and yet all along he has been made to think wrong of you."
"I know," she assented. "He blamed me for--for a man being in my cabin that night, and I--I wanted him to--think well of me; but I could not tell him the truth, I was ashamed of it all my life. And the shame has got in my blood till I can't change it. I want him to know, but I can't tell him."
"You don't need to," said a voice back of her, and she arose to see Overton standing in the door. "I did not mean to listen; but I stopped to look at the child, and I heard. I hope you are not sorry," and he came over to her with outstretched hand.
She could not speak at first. She had dreamed of so many ways in which she would meet him--of what she would say to him; and now she stood before him without a word.
"Don't be sorry, 'Tana," he said, and tightened his hand over her own. "I honor you for what I heard just now. You were wrong not to tell me; I might have saved you some troubles."
"I was ashamed--ashamed!" she said, and turned away.
"But it is not to me all this should be told," he said, more coldly. "Max is the one to know; or, maybe, he does know."
"He knows a little--not much. Seldon and Haydon recognized--Holly. So the family knew that, but no more."
It was so hard for her to talk to him there, where Harris looked from one to the other expectantly.
And then the child slipped from the couch and came toddling into the light and to the girl.
"Tana--bek-fas!" she lisped, imperatively. "Bek-fas."
"Yes, you shall have your breakfast very soon," promised the girl. "But come and shake hands with these gentlemen."
She surveyed them each with baby scrutiny, and refused. "Bek-fas" was all the world contained that she would give attention to just then.
"You with a baby, 'Tana?" said Harris. "Have you adopted one?"
"Not quite," and she wished--how she wished it was all over! "Her mother, who is dead, gave her to me. But she has a father. I have come up here to see what he will say."
"Up here!"
"Yes. But I must go and find some one to get her breakfast. Then--Dan--I would like to see you."
He bowed and started to follow her, but Harris called him back.
"This spurt of strength has about done for me," he said. "The cold is creeping up fast. I want to tell you something else. Don't tell her till I am gone, for she wouldn't touch my hand if she knew it. I killed Lee Holly!"
"You didn't--you couldn't!"
"I did. I was able to walk long before you knew it, but I lay low. I knew if he was living, he would come where she was, sooner or later, and I knew the gold would fetch him, so I waited. I could hardly keep from killing him as he left her cabin that first night, but she had told him to come back, and I knew that would be my time. She thought once it might be me, but changed her mind. Don't tell her till I am gone, Dan. And--listen! You are everything to her, and you don't know it. I knew it before she left, but--Oh, well, it's all square now, I guess. She won't blame me--after I'm dead. She knows he deserved it. She knew I meant to kill him, if ever I was able."
"But why?"
"Don't you know? He was the man--my partner--who took Fannie away. Don't you--understand?"
"Yes," and Overton, after a moment, shook hands with him.
"I didn't want 'Tana to go back on me--while I lived," he whispered. It was his one reason for keeping silence--the dread that she could never talk to him freely, nor ever clasp his hand again; and Overton promised his wish should be regarded.
When he went to find 'Tana, Mrs. Huzzard had possession of her, and the two women were seeing that the baby got her "bek-fas," and doing some talking at the same time.
"And he's got his new boat, has he?" she was saying. "Well, now! And it's to be a new house next, and a fine one, he says, if he can only get the right woman to live in it," and she smoothed her hair complacently. "He thinks a heap of fine manners in a woman, too; and right enough, for he'll have an elegant home to put one in and she never to wet her hands in dish-water! But he is so backward like; but maybe this time--"
"Oh, you must cure him of that," laughed the girl. "He is a splendid fellow, and I won't forgive you if you don't marry him before the summer is over."
At that instant Overton opened the door.
"If you are ready now to see me--" he began, and she nodded her head and went toward him, her face a little pale and visibly embarrassed.
Then she turned and went back.
"Come, Toddles," she said; "you come with 'Tana."
A faint flush was tingeing the east, and over the water-courses a silvery mist was spread. She looked out from the window and then up the mountain.
"Let us go out--up on the bluff," she suggested. "I have been shut up in houses so long! I want to feel that the trees are close to me again."
He assented in silence and the child, having appeased its hunger, was disposed to be more gracious, and the little hands were reached to him while she said:
"Up."
He lifted her to his shoulder, where she laughed down in high glee at the girl who walked beside in silence. It was so much easier to plan, while far away from him, what she would say, than to say it.
But he himself broke the silence.
"You call her Toddles," he remarked. "It is not a pretty name for so pretty a child. Has she no other one?"
They had reached the bluff above the camp that was almost a town now. She sat down on a log and wished she could keep from trembling so.
"Yes--she has another one--a pretty one, I think," she said, at last. "It is Gracie--Grace--"
She looked up at him appealingly.
But the emotion in her face made his lips tighten. He had heard so many revelations of her that morning. What was this last to be?
"Well," he said, coldly, "that is a pretty name, so far as it goes; but what is the rest of it?"
"Overton," she said, in a low voice, and his face flushed scarlet.
"What do you mean?" he asked, harshly, and the little one, disliking his tone, reached her arms to 'Tana. "Whose child is this?"
"Your child."
"It is not true."
"It is true," she answered, as decidedly as himself. "Her mother--the woman you married--told me so when she was dying."
He stared at her incredulously.
"I wouldn't believe her even then," he answered. "But how does it come that you--"
"You don't need to claim her, if you don't want to," she said, ignoring all his astonishment. "Her mother gave her to me. She is mine, unless you claim her. I don't care who her father was--or her mother, either. She is a helpless, innocent little child, thrown on the world--that is all the certificate of parentage I am asking for. She shall have what I never had--a childhood."
He walked back and forth several times, turning sometimes to look at the girl, whom the child was patting on the cheek while she put up her little red mouth every now and then for kisses.
"Her mother is dead?" he asked at last, halting and looking down at her.
She thought his face was very hard and stern, and did not know it was because he, too, longed to take her in his arms and ask for kisses.
"Her mother is dead."
"Then--I will take the child, if you will let me."
"I don't know," she said, and tried to smile up at him. "You don't seem very eager."
"And you came back here for that?" he said, slowly, regarding her. "'Tana, what of Max? What of your school?"
"Well, I guess I have money enough to have private teachers out here for the things I don't know--and there are several of them! And as for Max--he didn't say much. I saw Mr. Seldon in Chicago and he scolded me when I told him I was coming back to the woods to stay--"
"To stay?" and he took a step nearer to her. "'Tana!"
"Don't you want me to?" she asked. "I thought maybe--after what you said to me in the cabin--that day--"
"You'd better be careful!" he said. "Don't make me remember that unless--unless you are willing to tell me what I told you that day--unless you are willing to say that you--care for me--that you will be my wife. God knows I never hoped to say this to you. I have fought myself into the idea that you belong to Max. But now that it is said--answer me!"
She smiled up at him and kissed the child happily.
"What shall I say?" she asked. "You should know without words. I told you once I would make coffee for no man but you. Do you remember? Well, I have come back to you for that. And see! I don't wear Max's ring any longer. Don't you understand?"
"That you have come back to me--'Tana!"
"Now don't eat me! I may not always be a blessing, so don't be too jubilant. I have bad blood in my veins, but you have had fair warning."
He only laughed and drew her to him, and she could never again say no man had kissed her.
"'Tana!" said the child, "'ook."
She looked where the little hand pointed and saw all the clouds of the east flooded with gold, and higher up they lay blushing above the far hills.
A new day was creeping over the mountains to banish shadows from the Kootenai land.
