The "Wild West" Collection. William MacLeod Raine
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was gathering himself up with a great deal of dignity.
"Good-morning, Mrs. Huzzard," he said, looking with an unapproachable air across Dan's tousled head. "If my stepson at times forgets what is due a gentleman in your house, do not fancy that I reflect on you in the slightest for it. I regret that he entertains such ideas, as they are totally at variance with the rules by which he was reared. Good-morning, madame."
Mrs. Huzzard clasped her hands and gazed with reproach at Overton, but at the same time she could not repress a sigh of relief.
"Well, now, he is good-natured to take it like that, and speak so beautiful," she exclaimed, admiringly; "and you surely did try any man's patience, Mr. Dan. Shame on you!"
But Dan only laughed and held up his finger warningly.
"You'll marry that man some day, if I don't put a stop to this little mutual admiration society I find here on my return," he said, and caught her sleeve as she tried to pass him. "Now don't you do it, Mrs. Huzzard. You are too nice a woman and too much of a necessity to this camp for any one man to build up a claim for you. Just think what will happen if you do marry him! Why, you'll be my stepmother! Doesn't the prospect frighten you?"
"Oh, stop your nonsense, Mr. Dan! I declare you do try a body's patience. You are too big to send to bed without your supper, or I vow I'd try it and see if it would tame you any. The captain is surely righteous mad."
"Then let him attend to his postoffice instead of interfering with your good cooking. Jim Hill said yesterday he guessed the postoffice had moved to your hotel, and the boys all ask me when the wedding is to be."
She blushed with a certain satisfaction, but tossed her head provokingly.
"Well, now, you can just tell them it won't be this week, Mr. Dan Overton; so you can quit your plaguing. Who knows but they may be asking the same about you, if you keep fetching such pretty girls into camp? Oh, I guess you don't like bein' plagued any more than other folks."
For Overton's smile had vanished at her words, and a tiny wrinkle crept between his brows. But when she commented on it, he recovered himself, and answered carelessly:
"But I don't think I will keep on bringing pretty girls into camp--that is, I scarcely think it will grow into a steady habit," he said, and met her eyes so steadily that she dismissed all idea of any heart interest in the girl. "But I'd rather 'Tana didn't hear any chaff of that sort. You know what I mean. The boys, or any one, is like enough to joke about it at first; but when they learn 'for keeps,' that I'm not a marrying man, they'll let up. As she grows older, there'll be enough boys to bother her in camp without me. All I want is to see that she is looked after right; and that's what I'm in here to talk about this morning."
"Well, now, I'm right glad to help you all I can--which ain't much, maybe, for I never did have a sight of schooling. But I can learn her the milliner trade--though it ain't much use at the Ferry yet; but it's always a living, anyway, for a woman in a town. And as to cookin' and bakin'--"
"Oh, yes; they are all right; she will learn such things easily, I think! But I wanted to ask about that cousin of yours--the lady who, you said, wanted to come out from Ohio to teach Indians and visit you. Is she coming?"
"Well, she writes like it. She is a fine scholar, Lavina is; but I kind o' let up on asking her to come after I struck this camp, for she always held her head high, I hear, and wouldn't be noways proud of me as a relation, if she found me doing so much downright kitchen work. I hain't seen her since she was grow'd up, you know, and I don't know how she'd feel about it."
"If she's any good, she'll think all the more of you for having pluck to tackle any honest work that comes," said Overton, decidedly. "We all do--every man in the settlement. If I didn't, I wouldn't be asking you to look after this little girl, who hasn't any folks--father or mother--to look after her right. I thought if that lady, teacher would just settle down here, I would make it worth her while to teach 'Tana."
"Well, now, that would be wise," exclaimed Mrs. Huzzard, delightedly. "An' I'll write her a letter this very night. Or, no--not to-night," she added, "for I'll be too busy. To-night the dance is to be."
"What dance?"
"Well, now, I clean forgot to tell you about that. But it was Mr. Lyster planned it out after you left yesterday. As he's to go back East in a few days, he is to give a supper and a dance to the boys, and I just thought if they were going to have it, they might as well have it right and so it's to be here."
Overton twisted his hat around in silence for a few moments.
"What does 'Tana think of it?" he asked, at last.
"She? Why, land's sakes! She's tickled a heap over it. Indeed, to go back to the commencement, I guess it was to please her he got it up. At least, that's the way it looked to me, for she no sooner said she'd like to see a dance with this crowd at the Ferry than he said there should be one, and I should get up a supper. I tell you that young chap sets store by that little girl of yours, though she does sass him a heap. They're a fine-looking young couple, Mr. Dan."
Mr. Dan evidently agreed, for he nodded his head absently, but did not speak. He did not look especially pleased over the announcement of the dance.
"Well, I suppose she's got to learn soon or late whom to meet and whom to let alone here," he said at last, in a troubled way, "and she might as well learn now as later. Yet I wish Max had not been in such a hurry. And he promised to take good care of her on the river, did he?" he added, after another pause. "Well, he's a good fellow; but I reckon she can guide him in most things up here."
"No, indeed," answered Mrs. Huzzard, with promptness, "I heard her say myself that she had never been along this part of the Kootenai River before."
"Maybe not," he agreed. "I'm not speaking of this immediate locality. I mean that she has good general ideas about finding ways, and trails, and means. She's got ideas of outdoor life that girls don't often have, I reckon. And if she can only look after herself as well in a camp as she can on a trail, I'll be satisfied."
Mrs. Huzzard looked at him as he stared moodily out of the window.
"I see how it is," she said, nodding her head in a kindly way. "Since she's here, you're afraid some of the folks is most too rough to teach her much good. Well, well, don't you worry. We'll do the best we can, and that dead partner o' yours--her father, you know--will know you do your best; and no man can do more. I had a notion about her associates when I let her go out on the river this morning. 'Just go along,' thought I, 'if you get into the way of making company out of real gentlemen, you'll not be so like to be satisfied with them as ain't--"
"Good enough," Dan assented, cheerily. "You have been doing a little thinking on your own account, Mrs. Huzzard? That's all right, then. I'll know that you are a conscientious care-taker, no matter how far out on a trail I am. There's another thing I wanted to say; it's this: Just you let her think that the help she gives you around the house more than pays for her keeping, will you?"
"Why, of course I will; and I'm willing enough to take her company in change for boarding, if that's all. You know I didn't want to take the money when you did pay it."
"I know; that's all right. I want you to have the money, only don't let her know she is any bill of expense to me. Understand! You see, she said something about it yesterday--thought she was a trouble to me, or some such stuff. It seemed to bother her. When she gets older, we can talk to her square about such things. But now, till she gets more used to the thought of being with us, we'll have to do some pious cheating in the matter. I'll take the responsibilities of the lies, if we have to tell any. It--it seems the only way out, you see."
He spoke a little clumsily, as though uttering a speech prepared beforehand and by one not used to memorizing, and he did not look at Mrs. Huzzard as he talked to her.
But she looked at him and then let her hand fall kindly on his shoulder. She had not read romances for nothing. All at once she fancied she had found a romance in the life of Dan Overton.
"Yes, I see, as plain as need be," she said. "I see that you've brought care for yourself with that little mischief in her Indian