That Girl Montana

“What! Don’t you want to play any more, captain?” she asked, maliciously. “I would really like to have another dance, yet if you want revenge – ”

“Go and dance by all means,” he said, testily. “When I want another game of poker, I’ll let you know, but I must say I do not approve of such pastime for young ladies.”

“None of us would, if in your place, captain,” laughed the doctor. “And, for my part, I am glad I did not play against her luck.”

The captain mumbled something about a difference between luck and skill, while ’Tana swept the money off the table and laughed – not a pleasant laugh, either.

“One – two – three – four! – twenty dollars – that is about a dollar a minute, isn’t it?” she asked provokingly. “Well, captain, I guess we are square up to to-night, and if you want to open another account, I’m ready.”

She spoke with the dash and recklessness of a boy. Lyster noticed it again, and resented it silently. But when she turned, she read the displeasure in his eyes.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” she inquired airily. “Is it time for our dance? You see, the captain wanted some amusement, and, as the doctor was nearly asleep over the cards, I came in and helped them out.”

“Beautifully,” agreed the doctor.

But Lyster borrowed no cheeriness from their smiles.

“I think it is our dance,” Lyster observed. “And if you will come – ”

“Certain,” she said, with a nod; but at the door she paused. “Won’t you keep this money for me?” she asked. “I’ve no pocket. And just put a five in a locked pocket ’for keeps,’ please; I owe it to you.”

“To me? You won that five.”

“No, I didn’t; I cheated you,” she whispered. “Keep it, please do.”

She pushed the money into his hand. One piece of it fell and rolled to the feet of the stranger, who leaned carelessly against the doorway, but in such a position that he could easily see into the sitting room.

He stooped and picked up the money.

“Yours, miss?” he said, courteously, and she smilingly reached out her hand for it – the hand on which Overton’s gift, the strange ring, glittered.

The paralytic stranger barely repressed an exclamation as he noticed it, and from it his eyes went swiftly, questioningly, to the girl’s face.

“Yes, it’s mine,” she said, with a nod of thanks. Then she smiled a little as she saw where his attention was given. “Are you wondering if the snakes you see are the result of odd drinks? Well, they are not; they are of metal and won’t hurt you.”

“Beg pardon, miss. Guess I did look at your pretty ring sharp; and it is enough to make a man shake if he’s been drinking. But a little drink will do me a long time.”

Then Lyster and the girl passed on, the girl smiling at the little exchange of words with the stranger. But Lyster himself was anything but well pleased at the entire affair. He resented the fact that he had found her there gambling, that she had shown such skill, that she had turned to the seedy-looking stranger and exchanged words, as men might do, but as a girl assuredly should not do. All these things disturbed him. Why, he could scarcely have told. Only that morning she had been but a little half-savage child, who amused him by her varying moods and sharp speech. But to-night, in her graceful white gown, she seemed to have grown taller and more womanly and winsome. The glances and homage of the most acceptable youths about revealed to him the fact that she was somewhat more than the strong swimmer or clever canoeist. She was deemed charming by others, in a very different fashion than he had thought of her, and she appeared rather too conscious of the fact. He fancied that she even delighted in letting him see that others showed deference to her, when he had only that day teased her as carelessly as he would have teased a boy into a rage.

Then to stop and jest like that with the insignificant stranger by the door! Mr. Lyster said a bad word in his mind, and decided that the presuming masculinity of the settlement would be allowed few chances for favors the remainder of the evening. He intended to guard her himself – a formidable guard for the purpose, as a man would need a good deal of self-reliance to try for favor if so handsome a personality as Lyster’s was an opponent.

But the rather shabby stranger, standing by the inner door, scarcely noticed the noticeable young fellow. All his attention was given to the girl who had spoken to him so frankly. She passed on and did not observe his excessive interest. But his eyes lighted up when he heard her voice speaking to him, and his face flushed with color as he stroked his beard with his well hand and gazed after her.

“So this is where the trail begins, is it?” he whispered to the trembling hand at his lips. “Well, I would have looked for it many another place before commencing with a partner of Mr. Dan Overton – law-and-order man. He must have gulled this whole territory beautifully to have them swear by him as they do. And ’Monte’ is his protégée! Well, Miss – or Mr. Monte – whichever it is – your girl’s toggery is more becoming than the outfit I saw you wear last; but though your hair is a little darker, I’d swear to you anywhere – yes, and to the ring, too. Well, I think I’ll rest my weary body in this ’burgh’ for a few weeks to come. If the devil hasn’t helped his own, and cheated me, this partner – Mr. ‘Rivers’ – is yet alive and in the flesh. If so, there is one place he will drift sooner or later, and that is to this young gambler. And then – then death will be no sham for him, for I will be here, too.”

To ’Tana – jubilant with her victory over her instinctive antagonist, the captain – all the evening was made for her pleasure, and she floated in the paradise of sixteen years; and the world where people danced was the only world worth knowing.

“I will be good now – I can be as good as an angel since I’ve got even with the captain.”

She whispered those words to Lyster, whose hand was clasping hers, whose arm was about her waist, as they, drifted around the rather small circle, to a waltz played on a concertina and a banjo.

She looked up at him, mutely asking him to believe her. Her desire for revenge satisfied, she could be a very good girl now.

It was just then that Overton, who stood outside the window, glanced in and saw her lovely upturned face – saw the red lips move in some pouting protest, to which Lyster smiled but looked doubtfully down at her. To the man watching them from without, the two seemed always so close – so confidential. At times he even wondered if Lyster had not learned more than himself of her life before that day at Akkomi’s camp.

All that evening Dan had not once entered the room where they danced, or added in any way to their merry-making. He had stood outside the door most of the time, or sometimes rested a little way from it on a store box, where he smoked placidly, and inspected the people who gathered to the dance.

All the invited guests came early, and perfect harmony reigned within. A few of the unsavory order of citizens had sauntered by, as though taking note of the pleasures from which they were excluded. But it was not until almost twelve o’clock – just after Overton had turned away from watching the waltz – that a pistol shot rang out in the street, and several dancers halted.

Some of the men silently moved to the door, but just then the door was opened by Overton, who looked in.

“It was only my gun went off by accident,” he said, carelessly. “So don’t let me stampede the party. Go on with your music.”

The stranger, Harris, was nearest the door, and essayed to pass out, but Overton touched him on the arm.

“Not just yet,” he said hurriedly. “Don’t come out or others will follow, and there’ll be trouble. Keep them in some way.”

Then the door closed. The concertina sobbed and shrieked out its notes, and drowned a murmur of voices on the outside. One man lay senseless close to the doorstep, and four more men with two women stood a little apart from him.

“If another shot is fired, your houses will be torn down over your heads to-morrow,” said Overton, threateningly; “and some of you will not be needing an earthly habitation by that time, either.”

“Fury! It is Overton!” muttered one of the men to another. “They told us he wasn’t in this thing.”

“What for you care?” demanded the angry tones of a Dutch woman. “What difference that make – eh? If so be as we want to dance – well, then, we go in and dance – you make no mistake.”

But the men were not so aggressive. The most audacious was the senseless one, who had fired the revolver and whom Overton had promptly and quietly knocked down.

“I don’t think you men want any trouble of this sort,” he remarked, and ignored the women entirely. “If you’ve been told that I’m not in this, that’s just where some one told you a lie; and if it’s a woman, you should know better than to follow her lead. If these women get through that door, it will be when I’m an angel. I’m doing you all a good turn by not letting the boys in there know about this. No religion could save you, if I turned them loose on you; so you had better get away quiet, and quick.”

The men seemed to appreciate his words.

“That’s so,” mumbled one.

And as the other woman attempted a protest, one of the men put his hand over her mouth, and, picking her up bodily, walked down the street with her, she all the time kicking and making remarks of a vigorous nature.

The humor of the situation appealed to the delicate senses of her companions, until they laughed right heartily, and the entire tone of the scene was changed from a threat of battle to an excuse for jollity. The man on the ground reeled upward to his feet with the help of a shake from Overton.

“Where’s my gun?” he asked, sulkily.

Blood trickling from a cut brow compelled him to keep one eye shut.

“Overton has it,” explained one of his friends. “Come on, and don’t try another racket.”

“I want my gun – it was him hit me,” growled the wounded one, whose spirits had not been enlivened by the spectacle the rest had witnessed.

“You are right – it was him,” agreed the other, darkly; “and if it hadn’t been for breaking up the dance, I guess he’d a-killed you. Come on. You left a ball in his arm by the looks of things, and all he did was to knock you still. He may want to do more to-morrow. But as you have no gun, you’d better wait till then.”

The door had been opened, and the light streamed out. Men talked in a friendly, jovial fashion on and about the doorstep. They saw the forms moving away in the shadows, but no sign of disturbance met them.

Overton stood looking in the window at the dancers. The waltz was not yet finished, and ’Tana and Lyster drifted past within a few feet of him. The serenity of their evening had not been disturbed. Her face held all of joyous content – so it seemed to the watcher. She laughed as she danced; and hearing the music of her high, girlish tones, he forgot for a time the stinging little pain in his arm, until his left hand, thrust into his coat pocket, slowly filled with blood. Then Dan turned to the man nearest him.

“If Doctor Harrison is still in there, would you do me the favor of asking him to come outside for a few minutes?” he asked, and the man addressed stepped closer.

“There is a back way into the house. Hadn’t you better just step in that way, and have him fix you up? He’s in the back room, alone, smoking.”

Overton turned with an impatient exclamation, and a sharp, questioning look. It was the half-paralyzed stranger – Harris.

“Oh, I ain’t interfering!” he said, amiably. “But as I slipped out through the back door before your visitors left, I dropped to the fact that you had some damage done to that left arm. Yes, I’ll carry any message you like to your doctor, for I like your nerve. But I must say it’s thankless work to stand up as a silent target for cold lead, just so some one else may dance undisturbed. Take an old man’s advice, sonny, do some of the dancing yourself.”

CHAPTER IX.

THE STRANGER’S WARNING

That one festive night decided the immediate future of ’Tana. All her joy in it did not prevent a decision that it should be the last in her experience, for a year to come, at least.

It was Lyster who broached the subject, and Overton looked at him closely while he talked.

“You are right,” he decided, at last; “a school is the easiest path out of this jungle, I reckon. I thought of a school, but didn’t know where – I’m not posted on such things. But if you know the trail to a good one, we’ll fix it. She has no family folks at all, so – ”

“I’d like to ask, if it’s allowable – ”

“Don’t ask me about her people,” said the other, quickly; “she wouldn’t want me to talk of them. You see, Max, all sorts get caught in whirlpools of one sort or another, when ventures are made in a new country like this, and often it’s a thoroughbred that goes under first, while a lot of scrub stock will pull through an epidemic and never miss a feed. Well, her folks belonged to the list that has gone under – speculating people, you know, who left her stranded when they started ’over the range,’ and she’s sensitive about it – has a sort of pride, too, and doesn’t want to be pitied, I guess. Anyway, I’ve promised she sha’n’t be followed by any reminder of her misfortunes, and I can’t go into details.”

“Oh, that’s all right; I’m not curious to know whether her folks had a palace or a cabin to live in. But she has brightness. I like her well enough to give up some useless pastimes that are expensive, and contribute the results to a school fund for her, if you say yes. But I should like to know if her people belonged to the class we call ladies and gentlemen – that is all.”

Overton did not answer at once. His eyes were turned toward his bandaged arm, and a little wrinkle grew between his brows.

“The man is dead, and I don’t think there’s anything for me to say as to his gentlemanly qualities,” he said at last. “He was a prospector and speculator, with an equal amount of vice and virtue in him, I suppose; just about like the rest of us. Her mother I never saw, but have reason to think she was a lady.”

“And you say every word of that as if they were drawn from you with forceps,” said Lyster, cheerily. “Well, I’ll not bother you about it again. But, you see, there is a cousin of mine at the school I spoke of, and I wanted to know because of that. It’s all right, though; my own instincts would tell me she came of good stock. But even good stock will grow wild, you know, if it doesn’t get the right sort of training. You know, old fellow, I’m downright in earnest about wanting to help you about her.”

“Yes, I know. You have, too,” said the other. “You’ve pointed out the school and all, and we see she can’t be left here.”

“Not when you are ranging around the hills, and never a man to take your place as a guard,” agreed Lyster. “I feel about two years old ever since I heard of how you kept annoyances from us last night while we were so serenely unconscious of your trials. ’Tana will scarcely look at me this morning, for no reason but that I did not divine the state of affairs and go to help you. That girl has picked up so much queer knowledge herself that she expects every one to be gifted with second sight.”

Then he told, with a good deal of amusement, the episode of the poker game and the discomfiture of the captain.

Overton said little. He was not so much shocked or vexed over it as Lyster had been, because he had lived more among people to whom such pastimes were not unusual.

“And I offered to teach her ’seven-up,’ because it was easy,” he remarked grimly. “Yes, the school is best. You see, even if I am on the ground, I’m not a fit guardian. Didn’t I give her leave to get square with the old man? While, if I’d been the right sort of a guardian, she would have been given a moral lecture on the sinfulness of revenge. I guess we’d better begin to talk school right away.”

“I imagine she’ll object at first, through force of habit, and protest that she knows enough for one girl.”

But she did not. She listened with wonder in her eyes, and something of shamed contrition in her face, and knew so well – so very well that she did not deserve it. She had wanted – really wanted to vex him when she played the cards, when she had danced past, and never let on she saw him looking somberly in at the window the night before. But in the light of morning and with the knowledge of his wounded arm, all her resentment was gone. She could scarcely speak even the words she meant to say.

“I can’t do that – go, I mean. It will cost so much, and I have no money. I can’t make any here, and – and you are not rich enough to lend it to me, even if I could pay it back some day, so – ”

“Never mind about the money; it will be got. I’m to start up north of this soon, and this doesn’t seem a good place to school you in, anyway. So, for a year or so, you go to that school down in Helena. Max knows the name of it; I forget. When you get all rigged out with an education, and have a capital of knowledge, you can talk then about the money and paying it, if it makes you feel more comfortable. But just now you be a good little girl; go down there with Max to the school, study hard, so that if I drop into a chasm some night, or am picked off by a bullet, you’ll have learned, anyway, how to look after yourself in the right way.”

“Oh, it’s Mr. Max, then, that’s planning this, is it?” she asked suddenly, and her face flushed a little – he must have thought in anger, for he said:

“Why – yes; that is – mostly. You see, ’Tana, I’ve drifted out from the ways of the world while Max has kept up with them. So he proposed – well, no matter about the plan. I’m to suggest it to you, and as it’s no loss and all gain to you, I reckon you’ll be sensible enough to say yes.”

“I will,” she answered, quietly; “it is very kind of you both to be so good to me, for I haven’t been good to you – to either of you, I’m sorry – I – maybe I’ll be better when I come back – and – maybe I can pay you some day.”

“Me? Oh, you won’t owe me anything, and I reckon you’d better not make plans about coming back here! The books and things you learn will likely turn you toward other places – finer places. This is all right for men who have money to make; but you – ”

“I’m coming back here,” she said, nodding her head emphatically. “Maybe not for always – but I’ll come back some time – I will.”

She was twisting her fingers in a nervous way, and, as he watched her, he noticed that her little brown hands were devoid of all ornament.

“Where is the ring?” he asked. “Have you lost it already?”

“No, it’s here – in my pocket,” and she drew it out that he might see. “I – I took it off this morning when I saw you were shot. You’ll laugh, I suppose; but I thought the snakes brought bad luck.”

“So you are superstitious?”

“Oh, I don’t know! I’m not afraid very often; but sometimes I think there are signs that are true. I’ve heard old folks say so, and talk of things unlucky. I took the ring off when I saw your arm.”

“But the arm was only scratched – not worth a thought from a little girl like you,” he said; “and surely not worth throwing off your jewelry for. But some day – some day of good luck, I may find you a prettier ring – one more like a girl’s ring, you know; one you can wear and not be afraid.”

“If I’m afraid, it isn’t for myself,” she said, with that old, unchildlike look he had not seen in her eyes of late. “But I’ll tell you what I’m afraid of. Have you ever heard of people who were ’hoodoos’? I guess you have. Well, sometimes I’m afraid I’m just that – like the snakes in that ring. I’m afraid I bring bad luck to people – people I like. It isn’t the harm to me that ever frightens me. I guess I can fight that; but no one can fight a ’hoodoo,’ I guess; and your arm – ”

“Oh, see here! Wake up, ’Tana, you’re dreaming! Who put that cussed nonsense into your head? ‘Hoodoo!’ Pshaw! I will have patience with you in anything but that. Did any one look at you last night as if you were a ’hoodoo’? Here comes Max; we’ll ask him.”

But she did not smile at their badinage.

“I was in earnest, and you think it only funny,” she said. “Well, maybe you won’t always laugh at it. Men who know a heap believe in ‘hoodoos.’”

“But not ’hoodoos’ possessed of the tout ensemble of Miss Rivers,” objected Lyster. “You are simply trying to scare us – me, out of the journey I hoped to make with you to Helena. You are trying to evade a year of scholastic training we have planned for you, and you would like to prophesy that the boat will blow up or the cars run off the track if you embark. But it won’t. You will say good-by to your ogre of a guardian to-morrow. You will be guarded by no less a personage than my immaculate self to the door of your academy; from which you will emerge, later on, with never a memory of ’hoodoos’ in your wise brain; and you will live to a green old age and make clay busts of us both when we are gray haired. There! I think I’m a good healthy sort of a prophet; and as a reward will you go with me to-morrow?”

“With you? Then it is you who – ”

“Who has planned the whole brilliant scheme? Exactly – the journey part of it at all events; and I’m not so modest as our friend here. I’ll take the blame of my share, and his, too, if he doesn’t speak up for himself. Here comes your new friend, Dan. Where did you pick him up?”

It was the man Harris, and beside him was the captain. They were talking with some animation of late Indian raids to the westward.

“I doubt if it was Indians at all who did the thieving,” remarked Harris; “there are always a lot of scrub whites ready to take advantage of war signals, and do devilment of that sort, made up as reds.”

“Oh, yes – some say so! That man Holly used to get the credit of that sort of renegade work. Handsome Holly he was called once. But now that he’s dead, maybe we’ll see he was not the only one to work mischief between the whites and reds.”

“Holly? Lee Holly?” asked Lyster. “Why, didn’t we hear a rumor that he wasn’t dead at all, but had been seen somewhere near Butte?”

“I didn’t,” returned Overton, who was the one addressed, “though it may be so. He’s a very slippery specimen and full of schemes, from what I hear. But he doesn’t seem to range over this territory, so I’ve never run across him. It would be like him, though, to play dead when the Government men grew warm on his trail, and he’d no doubt get plenty of help from his Indian allies.”

Harris was watching him keenly, and the careless honesty of the speaker’s face and tone evidently perplexed him, for he turned with a baffled look to the girl, who stood with down-dropped eyes, and twisted a spray of leaves nervously around her fingers. He noticed one quick, troubled glance she gave Overton, but even to his suspicious eyes it did not seem a regard given a fellow-conspirator.

“I believe it was the doctor I heard speak of the rumor that Holly was yet above ground,” said Lyster. “The mail came up yesterday, and perhaps he found it in the papers. Don’t think I had heard of the man before. Is he one of the important people up here?”

“Rather,” remarked Overton, “an accomplished crook who has dabbled in several trades in the Columbia River region. The latest was a wholesale horse steal from a ranch over in Washington – Indian work, with him as leader. The regulars from the fort got after them, there was an ugly fight, and the reds reported Holly as killed. That is the last I heard of him. You were asking me yesterday if he ever prospected in our valley, didn’t you?” he asked, turning to Harris.

“A man made undue importance of by the stupid Indians,” declared Captain Leek. “He humored their superstitions and played medicine man with them, I’ve heard; and he had a boy for a partner – a young slip the gamblers called ’Monte’ down in Cœur d’Alene. Some said it was his son.”

“A fine instructor for youth,” observed Lyster. “Who could expect anything but vice from a man who had such a boyhood?”

“But you would,” said ’Tana, suddenly, “if you knew that boy when he grew to be a man. If he was bad, you’d want him to get off the earth where you walked; and you never once would stop to ask if he was brought up right or not – you know you wouldn’t – nobody does, I guess. I don’t know why it is, but it seems all wrong to me. Maybe, though, when I go to school, and learn things, I will think like the rest, and not care.”