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