"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 Coeur 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."
Lyster shrugged his shoulders and looked after her as she vanished into the regions where Mrs. Huzzard was concocting dishes for the mid-day meal.
"I doubt if she thinks like the rest," he remarked. "How fiery she is, and how independent in her views of things."
But Overton smiled at her curt speech.
"Poor 'Tana has lived among rough scenes until she learns to judge quickly, and for herself," he said. "Her words are true enough, too; she may have known just such boys as Holly's clever little partner and seen how hard it was for them to be any good. I wonder now what has become of young 'Monte' since Holly disappeared. He would be a good one to follow, if there is doubt as to Holly's death being a fact. I believe there was a reward out for him some time ago, to stimulate lagging justice. Don't know if it's withdrawn or not."
"Square," decided Harris, in silent communion with himself, as he surveyed Overton; "dead square, and don't scent the trail. I'd like to know what their little game is with him. Some devilment, sure."
On one pretext and another he kept close to Overton. He was studying the stalwart, easy-going keeper of the peace, and Dan, who had a sort of compassion for all who were halt, or blind, or homeless, took kindly enough to the semi-paralyzed stranger. Harris seemed to belong nowhere in particular, yet knew each trail of the Kootenai and Columbia country, knew each drift where the yellow sands were found--each mine where the silver hunt paid best returns.
"You've prospected some, I see, even if you don't get over the ground very fast," Dan remarked; "and with it all, I reckon you've staked out some pay claims for yourself?"
The face of Harris contracted in a swift frown; he drew a long breath, and his clasped hands tightened on each other.
"I did," he said, in a choked, nervous sort of way; "I did. If I could tell you of it, I would. You're the sort of man I'd--But never mind. I'm not well yet--not strong enough to get excited over it. I've got to take things easy for a spell, or another stroke of this paralysis will come as my share. That handicaps me considerable. I was--was upset by something unexpected last night, and I've had a queer, shaky feeling ever since; can't articulate clear. Did you notice? The--the only thing under God's heaven I'm afraid of is that paralysis--that it will catch me again before I get my work done; and to-day--"
"Don't talk of it," advised Overton, as he noticed how the man's voice hesitated and trembled, how excitable he was over the subject of his mineral finds and his threatened helplessness. "Don't think of it, and you'll come out all right yet. If I can do anything for you--"
The other man laughed in a spasmodic, contemptuous fashion.
"For me?" he said. "You can't. I thought you could, but I was on a blind trail--you can't. I can give you a lift, though--yes, I can. It's about--about that girl. You--you tried to guard her last night, as if she was a flower the rough wind must not blow on. I know--I watched you. I've been there, and know."
"Know what? You're an infernal fool!" burst out Dan, with all his good nature out of sight. "No hints about the girl, or--or anything else! I won't have it!"
"It's no hint; facts are all I'd mention to you, and I'd do that just because I think you're square. And they--they are playing you. See? For he ain't dead. I don't know what their game is with you, but he ain't dead; and there--there's no telling what scheme he's got her into this--this territory for. So I want you to know. I don't want you to be caught in any trap of theirs. She--she looks all right; but he's a devil--a thing infernal--a--"
Overton caught him by one arm, and swung him around like a child.
"Speak clear. No more of your blasted stuttering or beating away from points; who is the man you talk of? Who is playing with me? Now speak."
"Why, Monte, the girl; Monte and Lee Holly. He's somewhere alive--that's what I'm trying to tell you. I was hunting for him when I found her laying low here, don't you understand? You stare so. It is Lee Holly and-- Ah--my--God!"
The last words were gurgled in his throat; his face whitened, and he sank to the ground as though his bones had suddenly been converted into jelly--a strange, shapeless heap of humanity as he lay at Overton's feet. Overton bent over him, and after a moment of blank amaze, lifted the helpless head, and almost dropped it again, when the eyes, appealing and keenly conscious, met his own. There was a queer chuckling sound in the man's throat; he was trying to speak, but could not. The secret he was trying to tell was buried back of those speechless lips, and one more stroke of the doom he feared had overtaken him.
CHAPTER X.
THE STRANGER'S LOVE STORY.
'Tana sat alone in her room a few hours later, and from the window watched the form of Ora Harrison disappear along the street. The latter had been sent by her father with some medicine for the paralyzed stranger, and the girls had chatted of the school 'Tana was to attend, and of the schools Ora had gone to and all the friends she remembered there, who now sent her such kind letters. Ora told 'Tana of the lovely time she expected to have when the steamers would come up from Bonner's Ferry to the Kootenai Lake region, for then her friends were to come in the summers, and the warm months were to be like holidays.
All this girlish frankness, all the cheery friendship of the doctor's family filled 'Tana with a wild unrest against herself--against the world.
"It would be easy to be good if a person lived like that always," she thought, "in a nice home, with a mother to kiss me and a father I was not ashamed of. I felt stupid when they talked to me. I could only think how happy they were, and that they did not seem to know it. And Ora was sweet and sorry for me because my parents were dead. Huh!" she grunted, disdainfully, in the Indian fashion peculiar to her at times. "If she knew how I felt about it she'd hate me, I suppose. They'd all think I was bad clear through. They wouldn't understand the reason--no nice women like them could. Oh, if the school would only make me nice like that! But I suppose it's got to be born in people, and I was born different."
Even this reason did not render her more resigned; and, to add to her disquiet, there came to her the memory of eyes whose gaze made her shiver--the eyes of the stranger whom Overton had carried into the house for dead, but whose brain was yet alive. He had looked at her with a strange, wild stare, and Overton himself had turned his eyes toward her in moody questioning when she came forward to help. He had accepted the help, but each time she raised her eyes she saw that Dan was looking at her with a new watchfulness; all his interest in the stricken stranger did not keep him from that.
"If any one is accountable for this, I guess I'm the man," he confessed, ruefully. "He told me he was afraid of this, yet I was fool enough to lose my temper and turn him around rough. It might have struck him, anyway; but my conscience doesn't let me down easy. He'll be my care till some one comes along with a stronger claim."
"Maybe there is some one somewhere," said 'Tana. "There might be letters, if it would be right to look."
"If there are relatives anywhere in the settlements, I guess they'd be glad enough if I'd look," decided Overton. "There is no way to get permission from him, though," and he looked in the helpless man's eyes. "I don't know what you'd say to this if you could speak, stranger," he said; "but to go through your pockets seems the only way to locate you or your friends; so I'll have to do it."
It was not easy to do, with those eyes staring