"And, after all, not a plain trail found that will help us locate this man or his friends," decided Overton--"not a name we can really fasten to but the name on the envelope--Joe Hammond. It is too bad. Why, 'Tana! Good God! _'Tana!_"
For the girl, who had uttered no word, but had listened to that last letter with whitened face and staring eyes, leaned against the wall at its close, and a little gasp from her drew their attention.
She fell forward on her face ere Overton could reach her.
"Tana, my girl, what is it? Speak!" he entreated.
But the girl only whispered: "I know now! Joe--Joe Hammond!" and fainted dead away at the feet of the paralyzed man.
CHAPTER XI.
'Tana AND JOE.
"Just like a part in a play, captain--that's just the way it struck me," said Mrs. Huzzard, recounting the affair for the benefit of the postmaster of Sinna Ferry. "The man a-sitting there like a statue, with only his eyes looking alive, and that poor, scared dear a-falling down on the floor beside him, and looking as white as milk! I never had a notion she was so easy touched by people's troubles. It surely was a sorry story read from them three letters. I tell you, sir, men leave women with aching hearts many's the time," and she glanced sentimentally toward her listener; "though if there is one place more heart-rending to be deserted in than another, I think an Indian village would be the very worst. Just to think of that poor dear dying there in a place she didn't even know the name of."
"Humph! I've an idea you are giving your sympathy to the wrong individual," decided the captain. "It must be easier even to die in some unknown corner than for a living soul to be shut up in a dead body, after the manner of this Harris, or Hammond, or whatever his name is. I guess, from the looks of things, he must have collapsed when that second letter reached him; had a bad stroke, and was just recovering somewhat when he strayed into this camp. Yes, madame, I've an idea he's had a harder row to hoe than the girl; and, then, it doesn't look as though he'd deserved it so much."
"Mr. Dan is mightily upset over it, ain't he?"
"Mr. Dan is just as likely to get upset over any other vagabond who strays in his direction," grumbled the captain. "Folks are always falling in his way to be looked after. He has the worst luck! He never did a bit of harm to this stranger--nothing but drop a hand on his shoulder; and all at once the man falls down helpless. And Dan feels in duty bound to take care of him. Then the girl 'Tana has to flop over in the same way, just when I thought we were to get rid of her. And she's another charge to look after. He'll be wanting to hire your house for a hospital next thing, Mrs. Huzzard."
"And welcome he'd be to it for 'Tana," declared Mrs. Huzzard, valiantly. "She's been a bit saucy to you at times, and I know it; but, indeed, it's only because she fancies you don't like her."
"Like her, madame! A girl who plays poker, and--and--"
"And wins," added Mrs. Huzzard, with a twinkle in her eyes. "Ah, now, didn't Mr. Max tell me the whole story! She is a clip, and I know it; but I think she only meant that game as a bit of a joke."
"A twenty-dollar joke, Mrs. Huzzard, is too expensive to be funny," growled the captain, with natural discontent. "But if I could only convince myself that the money was honestly won, I would not feel so annoyed over it; but I can't--no, madame. I am confident there was a trick in that game--some gambler's trick she has picked up among her promiscuous acquaintances. And I am annoyed--more than ever annoyed now that there is a chance of her remaining longer under Dan's care. She's a dangerous _protge_ for a boy of his age, that's all."
"Dangerous! Oh, now, I've my doubts of that," said Mrs. Huzzard, shaking her head, emphatically. "You take my word for it, if she's dangerous as a girl to any one in this camp, it's not Mr. Dan's peace of mind she's disturbing, but that of his new friend."
"You mean Lyster? Ridiculous! A gentleman of culture, used to the best society, give a thought to such an unclassed individual? No, madame!--don't you believe it. His interest about the school affair was doubtless to get her away from camp, and to keep her from being a responsibility on Dan's hands."
"Hum! maybe. But, from all the dances he danced with her, and the way he waited on her, I'd a notion that he did not think her a great responsibility at all."
This conversation occurred the morning after those letters had been read. The owner of them was installed in the best room Mrs. Huzzard had to offer, and miners from all sections were cordially invited to visit the paralyzed man, in the vain hope that some one would chance to remember his face, or help establish the lost miner's identity; for he seemed utterly lost from all record of his past--all but that he had loved a girl whom an unknown partner had stolen. And Overton remembered that he seemed especially interested in the whereabouts of the renegade, Lee Holly.
The unknown Lee Holly's name had suddenly attained the importance of a gruesome ghost to Overton. He had stared gloomily at the paralytic, as though striving to glean from the living eyes the secrets held close by the silenced lips. 'Tana and Monte and Lee Holly!--his little girl and those renegades! Surely these persons could have nothing to do with each other. Harris was looney--so Overton decided as he stalked back and forth beside the house, glancing up once in a while to a window above him--a window where he hoped to see 'Tana's face; for all one day had gone, and the evening come again, yet he had never seen her since he had lifted her unconscious form from beside the chair of Harris. Her words, "I know now! Joe--Joe Hammond!" were yet whispering through his senses. Did those words mean anything? or was the child simply overwrought by that tragedy told in the letters? He did not imagine she would comprehend all the sadness of it until she had fallen in that faint.
The night he had talked with her first in Akkomi's tepee, and afterward in the morning by the river, he had promised to be satisfied with what she chose to tell him of herself, and ask no questions of her past. But since the insinuations of Harris and her own peculiar words and manner, he discovered that the promise was not easy to keep--especially when Lyster besieged him with questions; for 'Tana had spent the day utterly alone, but for the ministrations of Mrs. Huzzard. She would not see even the doctor, as she said she was not sick. She would not see Overton, Lyster, or any one else, because she said she did not want to talk; she was tired, and that reason must suffice. It did for Lyster, especially after he had received a nod, a smile, and a wave of her hand from her window--a circumstance he related hopefully to Overton, as it banished the lingering fear in his mind that her exile was one caused by absolute illness.
"I candidly believe, Dan, that she is simply ashamed of having fainted before us last evening--fancies it looks weak, I suppose; and she does pride herself so on her ungirlish strength. I've no doubt she will emerge from her seclusion to-morrow morning, and expect us to ignore her sentimental swoon. How is your other patient?"
"Better."
"Much?"
"Well, just the difference of turning his eyes quickly toward a thing, instead of slowly, as at first. The doctor just told me he is able to move his head slightly, so I guess he is not to go under this trip. But he'll never be a well man again."
"Rather heavy on you, old fellow, that you feel bound to look after him. I can't see the necessity of it. Why don't you let the rest of the camp--"
But Overton had turned away and resumed his walk. Lyster stared at him in wonder for a moment and then laughed.
"All right, Rothschild," he observed. "You know the depth of your own purse best. But, to tell the truth, you don't act like your own responsible self to-day. You go moping around as though the other fellow's stroke had touched you, too. You are a great fellow, Dan, to take other people's loads on your shoulders; but it is a bad habit, and you'd better reform."
"I will, when I have time," returned Overton, with a grim smile. "Just now I have other things to think of. Don't mind me."
"I sha'n't. I confess I don't mind any of you very much since I saw the cheery vision of your _protge_ at the window--and waving her hand to me, too; the first bit