LITMIR.BIZ

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stranger's face.

      'Tana's eyes were closed, but her lips moved voicelessly. The light was dim in the little room, and Lyster bent over to look at her, and touched her hot forehead tenderly.

      "Poor little girl! poor 'Tana!" he said, and turned the covering from about her chin where she had pulled it. He had seen her last so saucy, so defiant of all his wishes, and the change to this utter helplessness brought the quick tears to his eyes. He clasped her hand softly and turned away.

      "It is too dark in here to see anything very clearly," said the stranger, who bent toward her slightly, with his hat in his hand.

      Then Akkomi, who had intercepted the light somewhat, moved from the foot of the bed to the stranger's side, and a little sunshine rifted through the small doorway and outlined more clearly the girl's face on the pillow.

      The stranger, who was quite close to her, uttered a sudden gasping cry as he saw her face more clearly, and drew back from the bed.

      The dark hand of the Indian caught his white wrist and held him, while with the other hand he pointed to the curls of reddish brown clustering around the girl's pale forehead, and from them to the curls on Mr. Haydon's own bared head. They were not so luxuriant as those of the girl, but they were of the same character, almost the same color, and the vague resemblance to something familiar by which Overton had been impressed was at once located by the old Indian the moment the stranger lifted the hat from his head.

      "Sick, maybe die," said Akkomi, in a voice that was almost a whisper--"die away from her people, away from the blood that is as her blood," and he pointed to the blue veins on the white man's wrist.

      With an exclamation of fear and anger, Mr. Haydon flung off the Indian's hand.

      Lyster, scarce hearing the words spoken, simply thought the old fellow was drunk, and was about to interfere, when the girl, as though touched by the contest above her, turned mutteringly on the pillow and opened her unconscious eyes on the face of the stranger.

      "See!" said the Indian. "She looks at you."

      "Ah! Great God!" muttered the other and staggered back out of the range of the wide-open eyes.

      Lyster, puzzled, astonished, came forward to question his Eastern friend, who pushed past him rudely, blindly, and made his way out into the sunshine.

      Akkomi looked after him with a gratified expression on his dark, wrinkled old face, and bending over the girl, he muttered in a soothing way words in the Indian tongue, as though to quiet her restlessness with Indian witchery.

      CHAPTER XV.

      SOMETHING WORSE THAN A GOLD CRISIS.

      "What is the matter with your friend?" asked Overton, as Lyster stood staring after Mr. Haydon, who walked alone down the way they had come from the boats. "Is one glimpse of our camp life enough to drive him to the river again?"

      "No, no--that is--well, I don't just know what ails him," confessed Lyster, rather lamely. "He went in with me to see 'Tana, and seems all upset by the sight of her. She does look very low, Dan. At home he has a daughter about her age, who really resembles her a little--as he does--a girl he thinks the world of. Maybe that had something to do with his feelings. I don't know, though; never imagined he was so impressionable to other people's misfortunes. And that satanic-looking old Indian helped make things uncomfortable for him."

      "Who--Akkomi?"

      "Oh, that is Akkomi, is it? The old chief who was too indisposed to receive me when I awaited admittance to his royal presence! Humph! Well, he seemed lively enough a minute ago--said something to Haydon that nearly gave him fits; and then, as if satisfied with his deviltry, he collapsed into the folds of his blanket again, and looks bland and innocent as a spring lamb at the present speaking. Is he grand chamberlain of your establishment here? Or is he a medicine man you depend on to cure 'Tana?"

      "Akkomi said something to Mr. Haydon?" asked Overton, incredulously. "Nonsense! It could not have been anything Haydon would understand, anyway, for Akkomi does not speak English."

      Lyster looked at him from the corner of his eyes, and whistled rather rudely.

      "Now, it is not necessary for any reason whatever, for you to hide the accomplishments of your noble red friend," he remarked. "You are either trying to gull me, or Akkomi is trying to gull you--which is it?"

      "What do you mean?" demanded Overton, impatiently. "You look as though there may be a grain of sense in the immense amount of fool stuff you are talking. Akkomi, maybe, understands English a little when it is spoken; but, like many another Indian who does the same, he will not speak it. I have known him for two years, in his own camp and on the trail, and I have never yet heard him use English words."

      "Well, I have not had the felicity of even a two-hour acquaintance with his royal chieftainship," remarked Lyster, "but during the limited space of time I have been allowed to gaze on him I am confident I heard him use five English words, and use them very naturally."

      "Can you tell me what they were?"

      "Certainly; and I see I will have to--and maybe bring proof to indorse me before you will quite credit what I tell you," answered Lyster, with an amused expression. "You can scarcely believe a tenderfoot has learned more of your vagabond reds than you yourself knew, can you? Well, I distinctly heard him say to Mr. Haydon: 'See! She looks at you.' But his other mutterings did not reach my ears; they did Haydon's, however, and drove him out yonder. I tell you, Dan, you ought to chain up your medicine men when capitalists brave the wilds of the Kootenai to lay wealth at your doorstep, for this pet of yours is not very engaging."

      Overton paid little heed to the chaffing of his friend. His gaze wandered to the old Indian, who, as Lyster said, was at that moment a picture of bland indifference. He was sunning himself again at the door of Harris' cabin, and his eyes followed sleepily the form of Mr. Haydon, who had stopped at the creek, and with hands clasped back of him, was staring into the swift-flowing mountain stream.

      "Oh, I don't doubt you, Max," said Overton, at last. "Don't speak as if I did. But the idea that old Akkomi really expressed himself in English would suggest to me a vital necessity, or else that he was becoming weak in his old age; for his prejudice against his people using any of the white men's words has been the most stubborn thing in his whole make-up. And what strong necessity could there be for him to address Mr. Haydon, an utter stranger?"

      "Don't know, I am sure--unless it is that his interest in 'Tana is very strong. You know she saved the life of his little grandchild--the future chief, you said. And I think you are fond of asserting that an Indian never forgets a favor; so it may be that his satanic majesty over there only wanted to interest a seemingly influential stranger in a poor little sick girl, and was not aware that he took an uncanny way of doing it. Had we better go down and apologize to Haydon?"

      "You can--directly. Who is he?"

      "Well, he is the great moneyed mogul at the back of the company for whom you have been doing some responsible work out here. I guess he is what you call a silent partner; while Mr. Seldon--my relation, you know--has been the active member in the mining deals. They have been friends this long time. I have heard that Seldon was to have married Haydon's sister years ago. Wedding day set and all, when the charms of a handsome employee of theirs proved stronger than her promise, and she was found missing one morning; also the handsome clerk, as well as a rather heavy sum of money, to which the clerk had access. Of course, they never supposed that the girl knew she was eloping with a thief. But her brother--this one here--never forgave her. An appeal for help came to him once from her--there was a child then--but it was ignored, and they never heard from her again. Haydon was very fond of her, I believe--fond and proud, and never got over the disgrace of it. Seldon never married, and he did what he could to make her family forgive her, and look after her. But it was no use, though their regard for him never lessened. So you see they are partners from away back; and while Haydon is considerable of an expert in mineralogy, this is the first visit he has ever made to their works up in the Northwest. In fact, he had not intended coming so far north just now; he was waiting for Seldon, who was down in Idaho. But when I got your letter, and impressed on his mind the good business

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