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?"