The "Wild West" Collection. William MacLeod Raine
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cabin.
But it was not Akkomi, though it was the cloak of Akkomi that fell from his shoulders.
It was a man dressed as an Indian, but his speech was the speech of a white man, as he frowned on her white, startled face.
"So, my fine lady, I've found you at last, even if you have got too high and mighty to come when I sent for you," he said, growlingly. "But I'll change your tune very quick for you."
"Don't forget that I can change yours," she retorted. "A word from me, and you know there is not a man in this camp wouldn't help land you where you belong--in a prison, or at the end of a rope."
"Oh, no," and he grimaced in a sardonic way. "I'm not a bit afraid of that--not a bit in the world. You can't afford it. These high-toned friends you've been making might drop off a little if they heard your old record."
"And who made it for me?" she demanded. "You! You've been a curse to every one connected with you. In that other room is a man who might be strong and well to-day but for you. And there is that girl buried over there by the picture rocks of Arrow Lake. Think of my mother, dragged to death through the slums of 'Frisco! And me--"
"And you with a gold mine, or the price of one," he concluded--"plenty of money and plenty of friends. That is about the facts of your case--friends, from millionaires down to that digger I saw you with the other night."
"Don't you dare say a word against him!" she exclaimed, threateningly.
"Oh, that's the way the land lies, is it?" he asked, with an ugly leer at her. "And that is why you were playing 'meet me by moonlight alone,' that night when I saw you together at the spring. Well, I think your money might help you to some one besides a married man."
"A married man?" she gasped. "Dan!"
"Dan, it is," he answered, insolently. "But you needn't faint away on that account. I have other use for you--I want some money."
"You are telling that lie about him because you think it will trouble me," she said, regarding his painted face closely and giving no heed to his demand. "You know it is not true."
"About the marriage? I'll swear--"
"I would not believe your oath for anything."
"Oh, you wouldn't? Well, now, what if I prove to you, right in this camp, that I know his wife?"
"His wife?" She sat down on the side of the couch, and all the cabin seemed whirling around her.
"Well--a girl he married. You may call her what you please. She had been called a good many things before he picked her up. Humph! Now that he has struck it rich, some one ought to let her know. She'd make the dollars fly."
"It is not true! It is not _true_!" she murmured to herself, as if by the words she could drive away the possibility of it.
He appeared to enjoy the sensation he had created.
"It is true," he answered--"every word of it, and he has been keeping quiet about it, has he? Well, see here. You don't believe me--do you? Now, while I was waiting there at the door, a man came in to put your paralyzed partner to bed. The man was Jake Emmons--used to hang out at Spokane. He knew Lottie Snyder before this Overton did--and after Overton married her, too, I guess. You ask him anything you want to know of it. He can tell you--if he will."
She did not answer. She feared, as he talked, that it was true; and she longed for him to go away, that she could think alone. The hot blood burned in her cheeks, as she remembered that night by the Twin Springs. The humiliation of it, if it proved true!
"But, see here, 'Tana. I didn't come here to talk about your virtuous ranger. I want some money--enough to cut the country. It ain't any more than fair, anyway, that you divide with me, for if it hadn't been for that sneaking hound in the other room, half of this find would have been mine a year ago."
"It will do more good where it is," she answered. "He did right not to trust you. And if he were able to walk, you would not be allowed to live many minutes within reach of him."
"Oh, yes; I know he was trailing me," he answered, indifferently, "but it was no hard trick to keep out of his road. I suppose you let him know you approve of his feelings toward me."
"Yes, I would load a gun for him to use on you if he were able to hold it," she answered, and he seemed to think her words amusing.
"You have mighty little regard for your duty to me," he observed.
"Duty? I can't owe you any duty when I never received any from you. I am nearly seventeen, and in all the years I remember you, I can't recall any good act you have ever done for me."
"Nearly seventeen," and he smiled at her in the way she hated. "Didn't your new uncle, Haydon, tell you better than that? You are nearly eighteen years old."
"Eighteen!" and she rose in astonishment. "I?"
"You--though you don't look it. You always were small for your age, so I just told you a white lie about it in order to manage you better. But that is over; I don't care what you do in the future. All I want of you is money to get to South America; so fix it up for me."
"I ought to refuse, and call them in to arrest you."
"But you won't," he rejoined. "You can't afford it."
He watched her, though, with some uncertainty, as she sat silent, thinking.
"No, I can't afford it," she said, at last. "I will be doing wrong to help you, just as if I let a poison snake loose where people travel--for that is what you are. But I am not strong enough to let these friends go and start over again; so I will help you away this once."
He drew a breath of relief, and gathered up his blanket.
"That is the way to talk. You've got a level head--"
"That will do," she said, curtly. "I don't want praise from a coward, a thief, or a murderer. You are all three. I have no money here. You will have to come again for it to-morrow night."
"A trick--is it?"
"It is no trick. I haven't got it, that is all. Maybe I can't get it in money, but I will get it in free gold by to-morrow at dusk. I will put it here under the pillow, and will manage to keep the rest away at that time. You can come as you came this evening, and get it; but I will neither take it nor send it to you. You will have to risk your freedom and your life to come for it. But while I can't quite decide to give you up or to kill you, myself, I hope some one else will."
"Hope what you please," he returned, indifferently. "So long as you get the dust for me, I can stand your opinion. And you will have it here?"
"I will have it here."
"I trust you only because I know you can't afford to go back on me," he said, as he wrapped the blanket around him, and dropped his taller form to the height of Akkomi. "It is a bargain, then, my dear. Good-night."
"I don't wish you a good-night," she answered. "I hope I shall never see you alive again."
And she never did.
CHAPTER XX.
'TANA'S ENGAGEMENT
"And she wants a thousand dollars in money or free gold--a thousand dollars to-day?"
"No use asking me what for, Dan, for I don't know," confessed Lyster. "I can't see why she don't tell you herself; but you know she has been a little queer since the fever--childish, whimsical, and all that. Maybe as she has not yet handled any specie from your bonanza, she wants some only to play with, and assure herself it is real."
"Less than a thousand in money and dust would do for a plaything," remarked Overton. "Of course she has a right to get what she wants; but that amount will be of no use to her here in camp, where there is not a thing in the world to spend it for."
"Maybe she wants to pension off some of her Indian friends before she leaves," suggested Max--"old Akkomi and Flap-Jacks, perhaps. I am a little like Miss Slocum in my wonder as to how she endures them, though, of course, the squaw is a