That Girl Montana

“I could not be of much use, unless I had an invitation myself to the dance,” Dan remarked, dryly; “mine has evidently been delayed in the mail.”

“You don’t like it?” said the girl, detecting the fact in his slight change of tone. “You don’t want me to go to dances?”

“What an idea!” exclaimed Lyster. “Of course, he is not going to spoil our good time by objecting – are you, Dan? I never thought of that. You see, you were away; but, of course, I fancied you would like it, too. I’ll write you out a flourishing request for your presence, if that’s all.”

“It isn’t necessary; I’ll be there, I reckon. But why should you think I mean to keep you from jollifications?” he asked, looking kindly at ’Tana. “Don’t get the idea in your head that I’m a sort of ‘Bad Man from Roaring River,’ who eats a man or so for breakfast every day, and all the little girls he comes across. No, indeed! I’ll whistle for you to dance any time; so get on your war-paint and feathers when it pleases you.”

The prospect seemed to please her, for she walked closer to him and looked up at him with more content.

“Anyway, you ain’t like Captain Leek,” she decided. “He’s the worst old baby! Why, he just said all sorts of things about dances. Guess he must be a heavy swell where he comes from, and where all the fandangoes are got up in gilt-edged style. I’d like to spoil the gilt for him a little. I will, too, if he preaches any more of his la-de-da society rules to me. I’ll show him I’m a different boy from Mrs. Huzzard.”

“Now, what would you do?” asked Lyster. “He wouldn’t trust himself in a boat with you, so you can’t drown him.”

“Don’t want to. Huh! I wouldn’t want to be lynched for him. All I’d like to hit hard would be his good opinion of himself. I could, too, if Dan wouldn’t object.”

“If you can, you’re a wonder,” remarked Dan. “And I’ll give you license to do what I confess I can’t. But I think you might take us into your confidence.”

This she would not do, and escaped all their questions, by taking refuge in Mrs. Huzzard’s best room, and much of her afternoon was spent there under that lady’s surveillance, fashioning a party gown with which to astonish the natives. For Mrs. Huzzard would not consent to her appearing in the savageness of an Indian dress, when the occasion was one of importance – namely, the first dance in the settlement held in the house of a respectable woman.

And as ’Tana stitched, and gathered, and fashioned the dress, according to Mrs. Huzzard’s orders, she fashioned at the same time a little plan of her own in which the personality of Captain Leek was to figure.

If Mrs. Huzzard fancied that her silent smiles were in anticipation of the dancing festivities, she was much mistaken.

CHAPTER VII.

A GAME OF POKER

Mr. Max Lyster, in his hasty plans for an innocent village dance, had neglected to make allowance for a certain portion of the inhabitants whose innocence was not of the quality that allowed them to miss anything, no matter who was host. They would shoot the glass out of every window in a house, if the owner of the house should be in their bad books for any trifling slight, and would proceed to “clean out” any establishment where their own peculiar set was ignored.

There were, perhaps, seven or eight women in the place who were shown all respect by men in general. They were the wives and daughters of the city fathers – the first of the “family folks” to give the stamp of permanency to the little camp by the river. These ladies and their husbands, together with the better class of the “boys,” were the people whom Mr. Lyster expected to meet and to partake of his hospitality in the cheery abode of Mrs. Huzzard.

But Overton knew there were one or two other people to consider, and felt impatient with Lyster for his impulsive arrangements. Of course, ’Tana could not know and Mrs. Huzzard did not, but Lyster had at least been very thoughtless.

The fact was that the well-ordered establishment of Mrs. Huzzard was a grievance and a thorn in the side of certain womankind, who dwelt along the main street and kept open drinking saloons seven days in the week. They would have bought ribbons and feathers from her, and as a milliner thought no more about her, or even if she had opened a hotel, with a bar attached, they would have been willing to greet her as a fellow worker, and all would have had even chances. But her effrontery in opening an eating house, where only water – pure or adulterated with tea or coffee – was drunk – Well, her immaculate pretensions, to use the vernacular of one of the disgusted, “made them sick.”

It may have been their dislike was made more pronounced because of the fact that the more sober-minded men turned gladly to the irreproachable abode of Mrs. Huzzard, and the “bosses” of several “gangs” of workmen had arranged with her for their meals. Besides, the river men directed any strangers to her house; whereas, before, the saloons had been the first point of view from which travelers or miners had seen Sinna Ferry. All these grievances had accumulated through the weeks, until the climax was capped when the report went abroad that a dance was to take place at the sickeningly correct restaurant, and that only the elité of the settlement were expected to attend.

Thereupon some oaths had been exchanged in a desultory fashion over the bars at Mustang Kate’s and Dutch Lena’s; and derisive comments made as to Mrs. Huzzard and her late charge, the girl in the Indian dress. Some of the boys, who owned musical instruments – a banjo and a mouth organ – were openly approached by bribery to keep away from the all too perfect gathering, so that there might be a dearth of music. But the boys with the musical instruments evaded the bribes, and even hinted aloud their desire to dance once anyway with the new girl of the curly hair and the Indian dress.

This decision increased somewhat the muttering of the storm brewing; and when Dutch Lena’s own man indiscreetly observed that he would have to drop in line, too, if all the good boys were going, then indeed did the cyclone of woman’s wrath break over that particular branch of Hades. Lena’s man was scratched a little with a knife before quiet was restored, and there had been some articles of furniture flung around promiscuously; also some violent language.

Overton divined somewhat of all this, knowing as he did the material of the neighborhood, though no actual history of events came to his ears. And ’Tana, presenting herself to his notice in all the glory of her party dress, felt her enthusiasm cool as he looked at her moodily. He would have liked to shut her away from all the vulgar gaze and comment he knew her charming face would win for her. His responsibilities as a guardian forced on him so many new phases of thought. He had never before given the social side of Sinna Ferry much consideration; but he thought fast and angrily as he looked down on the slim, girlish, white-draped figure and the lovely appealing face turned upward to him.

“You don’t like it – you don’t think it is pretty?” she asked, and her mouth was a little tremulous. “I tried so hard. I sewed part of it myself, and Mrs. Huzzard said – ”

Lyster arose from a seat by the window. He had entered the room but a moment before, and now lounged toward her with critical eyes.

“Mrs. Huzzard said you were enchanting in your new gown – is not that it?” he asked, and then frowned at Overton in a serio-comic way. “And lives there a man with soul so dead that he cannot perceive the manifold beauties arranged for his inspection? Well, you know I told you I appreciate you much more than he will ever do; so – ”

“What nonsense you are talking!” said Overton, irritably. “Of course, the dress is all right. I don’t know much about such things, though; so my opinion is not worth much. But I don’t think little girls should be told so much of their charms, Lyster. They are too likely to be made think that prettiness is the only thing worth living for.”

He smiled at ’Tana to soften the severity of his speech; but she was not looking at him just then, and so missed the softening accompaniment. She felt it was herself who was taken to task instead of Lyster, and stood with drooped, darkening face until the door closed behind Overton.

“That is your fault,” she burst out. “He – he might have thought it was nice, if you hadn’t been here with your fool speeches. You just go around laughing at everything, Mr. Max Lyster, and you’re just as empty as that china cat on the mantel, and it’s hollow. I’d like to hit you sometimes when you say your nice, tantalizing words – that’s what I’d like to do; and maybe some day I will.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised if you did,” he agreed, and stepped back out of range of her clenched brown hands. “Whew! what a trial you’d be to a guardian who had nerves. You are spoiling your pretty face with that satanic expression. Now, why should you make war on me? I’m sure I am one of your most devoted servants.”

“You are your own devoted servant,” she retorted, “and you’ll never be any other person’s.”

“Well, now, I’m not so sure of that,” he said, and looked at her smilingly. All her anger did not keep him from seeing what a wondrous difference all that white, billowy lawn made in the girl whom he had taken for a squaw that first day when he saw her swimming the Kootenai.

She looked taller, slighter, with such lovable curves in the girlish form, and the creamy neck and arms gleaming through the thin material. No ornaments or ribbons broke the whiteness of her garb – nothing but the Indian belt of beads that Overton had given her, and in it were reddish tints and golden brown the color of her hair.

To be sure, the cheeks were a little tanned by the weather, and the little hand was browner than need be for beauty; but, for all that, he realized, as Overton had seemingly not done, that the girl, when dressed as dainty girlhood should be, was very pretty, indeed.

“I am willing to sign myself your bond slave from this hour, if that will lessen your anger against me,” he protested. “Just think, I leave Sinna Ferry to-morrow. How shall I do penance until then?”

“‘It may be for years, and it may be forever,Then why art thou silent, O voice of my heart?’”

She pouted and frowned a little at his warbling, though a smile eventually touched her lips, and speculation shone in her eyes.

“I will make you do penance,” she declared, “and right now, too. I haven’t any money, but I’ll put up my moccasins against five dollars in a game of poker.”

“You – play poker?”

“I’ll try,” she said briefly, and her eyes sparkled; “I’ll play you and ask no favors.”

“Your moccasins are not worth five.”

“Maybe not. Call it two-fifty then and promise me two hands at that.”

“How sure you are to win!” he laughed, well pleased that she was diverted from her quick displeasure. “We’ll call it five against the moccasins. Here are the cards. And what am I to do with those little moccasins, even if I do win them?”

“Oh, I’ll take care of the moccasins!” she said, easily. “I guess they’ll not trouble you much, Mr. Lyster. Cut for deal?”

He nodded, and they commenced their game there alone in Mrs. Huzzard’s most respectable café. Mrs. Huzzard herself did not approve of card playing. No one but Captain Leek had, as yet, been allowed that privilege. His playing she had really begun to look upon as almost moral in its effects, since he pursued it as the most innocent of pastimes, never betting more than a few dimes, and since it secluded him effectually from the roaring lion of iniquity to which so many men fell victims in the lively little settlement. But ’Tana, knowing that card playing by a girl would not be a thing within Mrs. Huzzard’s understanding, glanced warily at the door leading to the second floor of the establishment and comforted herself that the mistress of the domain was yet employed by her toilet for the evening.

’Tana dealt, and did it so deftly that Lyster looked at her in surprise, even irritation. What business had she touching the bits of pasteboard like that – like some old gambler. Such a slight slip of a thing, with all the beauty of early youth in her face, and all the guilelessness of a vestal in the pure white of her garb. He fancied he would have felt different if he had seen her playing cards in that Indian dress; it would not have brought such a discord with it. And it was not merely that she played, but it was the way she played that brought vexation to him – that careless, assured handling of the cards. It seemed almost professional, – it seemed —

“I’ll just take that little five,” remarked his opponent easily, and spread out the cards before him. “I know what you’ve got, and it won’t touch this flush, and if you play again I’d advise you to gather your wits and not play so wild – that is, if you want to win.”

He stared at her in astonishment. It was quite true – while his thoughts had been with her personality and her incongruous occupation, her thoughts had been centered very decidedly on the points of the game. She, at least, had not played “wild.” A doubt even came into his mind, as to whether she played honestly.

“I don’t think I cared about winning,” he answered, “I’d rather have given you the stakes than to have had you play for them that way – yes, ’Tana, double the stakes.”

“Oh, would you?” she asked, with saucy indifference. “Well, I ain’t asking favors. I guess I can win all I want.”

“No doubt you can,” he assented, gravely. “But as young ladies do not generally depend on their skill with cards to earn their pocket money, I’m afraid Overton would have a lecture ready for you, if he learned of your skill.”

“Let him,” she said, recklessly. “I’ve tried to be good, and tried to be nice, and – and even pretty,” she added, touching the dainty sleeve and skirt of her dress, “but what use is it? He just stands off and stares at me, and even speaks sharp as if he’s sorry he ever brought me down here. I didn’t think he’d be like that. He was nicer in Akkomi’s village; and now – ”

She hesitated, and, seeing that Lyster’s eyes were watching her attentively, she laughed in a careless way, and curled the five-dollar bill around her finger.

“So I might as well be bad, don’t you see? and I’m going to be, too. I want this five dollars to gamble with, and for nothing else in the world. I’m going to get square with some one.”

“Which means you are going to worry some one else, just because Overton has annoyed you,” decided Lyster. “That is a woman’s idea of retaliation, I believe. Am I the selected victim?”

“Of course you’re not, or I wouldn’t have told you. All I wanted of you was to give me a start.”

“Exactly; your frankness is not very flattering; but, in spite of it, I’d like to give you a start in a different way – toward a good school, for instance. How would you like that?”

She looked at him for a moment suspiciously, she was so used to raillery from him; then she answered briefly:

“But you are not my guardian, Mr. Max Lyster.”

“Then you prefer card playing?”

“No, I don’t. I’d like it, but my income can’t cover such luxuries, and I have booked myself to play for a time this evening, if I can get the man I want to play with.”

“But that is what you must not do,” he said, hastily. “With Overton or myself, of course, a game would not do you any special harm; but you simply must not indulge in such pastime with this promiscuous gathering of people – of men.”

“But it isn’t men – it’s only one man I want to play – do you see?”

“I might if I knew who it was; but you don’t know any men here but Dan and me.”

“Yes, I do, too. I know Captain Alphonso Leek.”

“Perhaps, but – ” Lyster smiled, and shook his head dubiously.

“But he won’t play with me, because he don’t like me; that’s what you would say, if you were not too polite – isn’t it? He doesn’t approve of me, and can’t understand why I’m on the face of the earth, and especially why Dan should take any responsibility but Captain Leek on his hands. Huh! Can’t I see? Of course I do. I heard him call me ‘that’ this morning. And so, I want to play a game of poker with him.”

She looked impishly at him from under her brows, and twirled the money.

“Won’t you be a messenger of peace and fix the game for me?” she asked, insinuatingly. “You know you promised to do penance.”

“Then I forswear all rash promises for the future,” he declared.

“But you did promise.”

“Well, then, I’ll keep my word, since you are such a little Shylock. And if it is only the captain – ”

She laughed after he had gone out, and sat there shuffling the cards and building them into various forms. She was thus employed when Overton again passed the window and entered the room ere she could conceal them. He observed her attempt to do so and smiled indulgently.

“Playing with the cards, are you?” he asked, in a careless way. “They are expensive toys sometimes. But I’ll teach you ’seven-up’ some day; it’s an easy game.”

“Is it?” she said; but did not look up at him. His indifference to the pretty dress had not yet ceased to annoy her.

“Yes. And see here, ’Tana! I forgot to give you a present I brought you a little while ago. It’s a ring a fellow from the upper lake region worried me into buying, as he was dead broke. He bought it from an Indian up near Karlo. Queer for an Indian to have, isn’t it?”

“Near Karlo?” she said, and reached out her hand for it.

There was a strange look on her face, a strange choking sound in her throat. He noticed it, and his voice was very kindly as he spoke again.

“You don’t like even to hear of that region, do you? You must have been very miserable somewhere up there. But never mind, little girl; we’ll try to forget all that. And if the ring fits you, wear it, no matter what country it comes from.”

She tried to thank him, but the words would not come easily, and her outstretched hand in which the ring lay was tremulous.

“Oh, that’s all right,” he said hastily, afraid, no doubt, she was going to cry, as he had seen her do before at kind words. “Never mind about the thanks. If you care to wear it, that’s all that’s necessary; though a snake ring is not the prettiest of ornaments for a girl. It fits, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it fits,” she returned, and slipped it on her finger. “It is very nice,” but she shivered as with cold, and her hand shook.

It was curious enough to attract notice anywhere, a silver and a gold snake twined together with their heads meeting, and in the flattened gold head, eyes of garnet gleamed, while the silver head had eyes of emerald. Not a girlish looking ornament, surely.

“I’ll wear it,” she said, and dropped the hand to her side. “But don’t tell the rest where it came from. I may want to tease them.”

CHAPTER VIII.

THE DANCE

“Ain’t it lovely, Ora?” and ’Tana danced past Ora Harrison, the doctor’s pretty daughter, as if her feet had wings to them. And as Ora’s bright face smiled an answer, it was clear that the only two young girls in the settlement were enjoying Lyster’s party to the full.

For it was a pronounced success. Every “boy” invited was there in as much of festive outfit as circumstances would allow. All the “family” people were there. And the presence of Doctor Harrison – the only “professional” man in the town – and his wife and daughter gave a stamp of select society to the gathering in Mrs. Huzzard’s rooms.

Mrs. Huzzard beamed with pleasure at the great success of it all. She would have liked to dance, too, and refused most unwillingly when Lyster tried to persuade her. But a supercilious glance from the captain made her refusal decided. The doubt as to whether ladies in “sussiety” ever did dance after forty years, and one hundred and sixty-three pounds weight, deterred her. Now, if the captain had asked her to dance, she would have been more assured.

But the captain did not; and, after a while, he was not to be seen. He had vanished into the little back sitting room, and she was confident he was engaged in his innocent pastime of a friendly game of cards with the doctor.

“Go and dance with ’Tana, or that nice little girl of the doctor’s,” she said to Lyster, when he was trying to inveigle her into a quadrille – “that’s the sort of partner for you.”

“But ’Tana has disappeared mysteriously; and as Miss Ora is ’bespoke,’ I can’t dance with her unless I want a duel with her partner.”

“’Tana disappeared! Well, now, I haven’t seen her for two dances,” said Mrs. Huzzard, looking around searchingly, “though I never missed her till this minute.”

“Beg pardon, ma’am,” said a voice at her elbow; “but is it the – the young lady with the white dress you are looking for?”

“Yes, it is,” answered Mrs. Huzzard, and turned around to face the speaker, who was an apologetic-looking stranger with drab-colored chin whiskers, and a checkered shirt, and a slight impediment in his speech.

“Well, ma’am, I saw her go into that room there quite a spell ago,” and he nodded toward the back sitting room. “She hasn’t passed out again, as I’ve seen.”

Then, as Mrs. Huzzard smiled on him in a friendly way, he ventured further:

“She’s a very pretty girl, as any one can see. Might I ask her name?”

“Oh, yes! Her name is Rivers – Miss Tana Rivers,” said Mrs. Huzzard. “You must be a stranger in the settlement?”

“Yes, ma’am, I am. My name is Harris – Jim Harris. I come down from the diggings with Mr. Overton this morning. He allowed it would be all right for me to step inside, if I wanted to see the dancing.”

“To be sure it is,” agreed Mrs. Huzzard, heartily. “His friends are our friends, and civil folks are always right welcome.”

“Thank, you, ma’am; you’re kind, I’m sure. But we ain’t just friends, especial. Only I had business in his line, so we picked up acquaintance and come into camp together; and when I saw the pretty girl in white, I did think I’d like to come in a spell. She looks so uncommon like a boy I knew up in the ’big bend’ country. Looks enough like him to be a twin; but he wasn’t called Rivers. Has – has this young lady any brothers or cousins up there?”

“Well, now, as for cousins, they are far out, and we hain’t ever talked about them; but as for brothers or sisters, father or mother, that she hasn’t got, for she told me so. Her pa and Mr. Dan Overton they was partners once; and when the pa died he just left his child to the partner’s care; and he couldn’t have left her to a squarer man.”

“That’s what report says of him,” conceded the stranger, watching her with guarded attention. “Then Mr. Overton’s partner hasn’t been dead long?”

“Oh, no – not very long; not long enough for the child to get used to talking of it to strangers, I guess; so we don’t ask her many questions about it. But it troubles her yet, I know.”

“Of course – of course; such a pretty little girl, too.”

Then the two fell into quite a pleasant chat, and it was not until he moved away from beside her, to make room for the doctor’s wife, that Mrs. Huzzard observed that one arm hung limply beside him, and that one leg dragged a little as he walked. He was a man who bore paralysis with him.

She thought, while he was talking to her, that he looked like a man who had seen trouble. A weary, drawn look was about his eyes. She had seen dissipated men who looked like that; yet this stranger seemed in no ways a man of that sort. He was so quiet and polite; and when she saw the almost useless limbs, she thought she knew then what that look in his face meant.

But there were too many people about for her to study one very particularly, so she lost sight of the stranger, Harris, and did not observe that he had moved near the door of the sitting room, or that the door was open.

But it was; and just inside of it Lyster stood watching, with a certain vexation, a game of cards played there. The doctor had withdrawn, and was looking with amusement at the two players – ’Tana and Captain Leek. The captain was getting the worst of it. His scattered whiskers fairly bristled with perplexity and irritation. Several times he displayed bad judgment in drawing and discarding, because of his nervous annoyance, while she seemed surprisingly skillful or lucky, and was not at all disturbed by her opponent’s moods. She looked smilingly straight into his eyes, and when she exhibited the last winning hand, and the captain dashed his hand angrily into the pack, she waited for one civil second and then swept the stakes toward her.