“Breakfast! Why, I’m thinking more about dinner, Mrs. Huzzard. I was up in the hills last night, and had a camp breakfast before you city folks were stirring. Where’s ’Tana?”
A dubious sniff from Captain Leek embarrassed Mrs. Huzzard for a moment. She thought he meant to answer and hesitated to give him a chance. But the sniff seemed to express all he wanted to say, and she flushed a little at its evident significance.
“Well, what’s the matter now?” demanded the younger man, impatiently, “where is she – do you know?”
“Oh – why, yes – of course we do,” said Mrs. Huzzard hurriedly. “I didn’t mean to leave you without an answer – no, indeed. But the fact is, the captain is set against something I did this morning, but I do hope you won’t be. Whatever they know or don’t know in sussiety, the girl was ignorant of it as could be when she asked to go, and so was I when I let her. That’s the gospel truth, and I do hope you won’t have hard feeling against me for it.”
He came a step nearer them both, and looked keenly from one to the other – even a little threateningly into the watchful eyes of Captain Leek.
“Let her go! What do you mean? Where – Out with it!”
“Well, then, it was on the river she went, in one of them tiltuppy Indian boats that I’m deathly afraid of. But Mr. Lyster, he did promise faithfully he’d take good care of her. And as she’d seemed a bit low-spirited this morning, I thought it ’ud do her good, and I part told her to run along. And to think of its being improper for them to go together – alone! Well, then, I never did – that’s all!”
“Is it?” and Overton drew a long breath as of relief and laughed shortly. “Well, you are perfectly right, Mrs. Huzzard. There is nothing wrong about it, and don’t you be worried into thinking there is. Max Lyster is a gentleman – didn’t you ever happen to know one, dad? Heavens! what a sinner you must have been in your time, if you can’t conceive two young folks going out for an innocent boat ride. If any ’sky pilot’ drifts up this way, I’ll explain your case to him – and ask for some tracts. Why, man, your conscience must be a burden to you! I understand, now, how it comes I find your hair a little scarcer each time I run back to camp.”
He had seated himself, and leaning back, surveyed the irate captain as though utterly oblivious of that gentleman’s indignation, and then turned his attention to Mrs. Huzzard, who was between two fires in her regret that the captain should be ridiculed and her joy in Overton’s commendation of herself. The captain had dismayed her considerably by a monologue on etiquette while she was making the pies, and she had inwardly hoped that the girl and her handsome escort would return before Overton, for vague womanly fears had been awakened in her heart by the opinions of the captain. To be sure, Dan never did look at girls much, and he was as “settled down” as any old man yet. The girl was pretty, and there was a bit of mystery about her. Who could tell what her guardian intended her for? This question had been asked by Captain Leek. Dan was very close-lipped about her, and his reticence had intensified the mystery regarding his ward. Mrs. Huzzard had seen wars of extermination started for a less worthy reason than pretty Montana, and so she had done some quiet fretting over the question until ’Tana’s guardian set her free from worries by his hearty words.
“Don’t you bother your precious head, or ’Tana’s, with ideas of what rules people live by in a society of the cities thousands of miles away,” he advised her. “It’s all right to furnish guards or chaperons where people are so depraved as to need them.”
This with a turn of his eyes to the captain, who was gathering himself up with a great deal of dignity.
“Good-morning, Mrs. Huzzard,” he said, looking with an unapproachable air across Dan’s tousled head. “If my stepson at times forgets what is due a gentleman in your house, do not fancy that I reflect on you in the slightest for it. I regret that he entertains such ideas, as they are totally at variance with the rules by which he was reared. Good-morning, madame.”
Mrs. Huzzard clasped her hands and gazed with reproach at Overton, but at the same time she could not repress a sigh of relief.
“Well, now, he is good-natured to take it like that, and speak so beautiful,” she exclaimed, admiringly; “and you surely did try any man’s patience, Mr. Dan. Shame on you!”
But Dan only laughed and held up his finger warningly.
“You’ll marry that man some day, if I don’t put a stop to this little mutual admiration society I find here on my return,” he said, and caught her sleeve as she tried to pass him. “Now don’t you do it, Mrs. Huzzard. You are too nice a woman and too much of a necessity to this camp for any one man to build up a claim for you. Just think what will happen if you do marry him! Why, you’ll be my stepmother! Doesn’t the prospect frighten you?”
“Oh, stop your nonsense, Mr. Dan! I declare you do try a body’s patience. You are too big to send to bed without your supper, or I vow I’d try it and see if it would tame you any. The captain is surely righteous mad.”
“Then let him attend to his postoffice instead of interfering with your good cooking. Jim Hill said yesterday he guessed the postoffice had moved to your hotel, and the boys all ask me when the wedding is to be.”
She blushed with a certain satisfaction, but tossed her head provokingly.
“Well, now, you can just tell them it won’t be this week, Mr. Dan Overton; so you can quit your plaguing. Who knows but they may be asking the same about you, if you keep fetching such pretty girls into camp? Oh, I guess you don’t like bein’ plagued any more than other folks.”
For Overton’s smile had vanished at her words, and a tiny wrinkle crept between his brows. But when she commented on it, he recovered himself, and answered carelessly:
“But I don’t think I will keep on bringing pretty girls into camp – that is, I scarcely think it will grow into a steady habit,” he said, and met her eyes so steadily that she dismissed all idea of any heart interest in the girl. “But I’d rather ’Tana didn’t hear any chaff of that sort. You know what I mean. The boys, or any one, is like enough to joke about it at first; but when they learn ’for keeps,’ that I’m not a marrying man, they’ll let up. As she grows older, there’ll be enough boys to bother her in camp without me. All I want is to see that she is looked after right; and that’s what I’m in here to talk about this morning.”
“Well, now, I’m right glad to help you all I can – which ain’t much, maybe, for I never did have a sight of schooling. But I can learn her the milliner trade – though it ain’t much use at the Ferry yet; but it’s always a living, anyway, for a woman in a town. And as to cookin’ and bakin’ – ”
“Oh, yes; they are all right; she will learn such things easily, I think! But I wanted to ask about that cousin of yours – the lady who, you said, wanted to come out from Ohio to teach Indians and visit you. Is she coming?”
“Well, she writes like it. She is a fine scholar, Lavina is; but I kind o’ let up on asking her to come after I struck this camp, for she always held her head high, I hear, and wouldn’t be noways proud of me as a relation, if she found me doing so much downright kitchen work. I hain’t seen her since she was grow’d up, you know, and I don’t know how she’d feel about it.”
“If she’s any good, she’ll think all the more of you for having pluck to tackle any honest work that comes,” said Overton, decidedly. “We all do – every man in the settlement. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be asking you to look after this little girl, who hasn’t any folks – father or mother – to look after her right. I thought if that lady teacher would just settle down here, I would make it worth her while to teach ’Tana.”
“Well, now, that would be wise,” exclaimed Mrs. Huzzard, delightedly. “An’ I’ll write her a letter this very night. Or, no – not to-night,” she added, “for I’ll be too busy. To-night the dance is to be.”
“What dance?”
“Well,