The "Wild West" Collection. William MacLeod Raine
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of the committee organized to investigate.
They all appeared to be waiting for Dan. Lyster did not by any means fill his place, simply because Lyster's interest in 'Tana was too apparent, and there was little of the cool quality of reason in his attitude toward the mysterious case. He did not believe the ring she wore had belonged to Holly, though she refused to tell the source from which it had reached her. He did not believe the man who said he heard that war of words at her cabin in the evening--at least, when others were about, he acted as if he did not believe it. But when he and 'Tana chanced to be alone, she felt the doubt there must be in his mind, and a regret for him touched her. For his sake she was sorry, but not sorry enough to clear the mystery at the expense of that other man she thought she was shielding.
Captain Leek had been dispatched with all speed to the lake works, that Seldon, Haydon, and Overton might be informed of the trouble in camp, and hasten back to settle it. To send for them was the only thing Lyster thought of doing, for he himself felt powerless against the lot of men, who were not harsh or rude in any way, but who simply wanted to know "why"--so many "whys" that he could not answer.
Not less trying to him were the several who persisted in asserting that she had done a commendable thing--that the country ought to feel grateful to her, for the man had made trouble along the Columbia for years. He and his confederates had done ugly work along the border, etc., etc.
"Sorry you asked me, Max?" she said, seeing his face grow gloomy under their cheering (?) assertions.
He did not answer at once, afraid his impatience with her might make itself apparent in his speech.
"No, I'm not sorry," he said, at last; "but I shall be relieved when the others arrive from the lake. Since you utterly refuse to confide even in me, you render me useless as to serving you; and--well--I can't feel flattered that you confide in me no more than in the strangers here."
"I know," she agreed, with a little sigh, "it is hard on you, and it will be harder still if the story of this should ever creep out of the wilderness to the country where you come from--wouldn't it?" and she looked at him very sharply, noting the swift color flush his face, as though she had read his thoughts. "Yes--so it's lucky, Max, that we haven't talked to others about that little conditional promise, isn't it? So it will be easier to forget, and no one need know."
"You mean you think me the sort of fellow to break our engagement just because these fools have mixed you up with this horror?" he asked, angrily. "You've no right to think that of me; neither have you the right--in justice to me as well as yourself--to maintain this very suggestive manner about all things connected with the murder. Why can you not tell more clearly where your time was spent last evening? Why will you not tell where the ring came from? Why will you see me half-frantic over the whole miserable affair, when you could, I am sure, easily change it?"
"Oh, Max, I don't want to worry you--indeed I don't! But--" and she smiled mirthlessly. "I told you once I was a 'hoodoo.' The people who like me are always sure to have trouble brewing for them. That is why I say you had better give me up, Max; for this is only the beginning."
"Don't talk like that; it is folly," he said, in a sharp tone. "'Hoodoo!' Nonsense! When Overton and the others arrive, they will find a means of changing the ideas of these people, in spite of your reticence; and then maybe old Akkomi may find words, too. He sits outside the door as impassive as the clay image you gave me and bewitched me with."
She smiled faintly, thinking of those days--how very long ago they seemed, yet it was this same summer.
"I feel as if I had lived a long time since I played with that clay," she said, wistfully; "so many things have been made different for me."
Then she arose and walked about the little room restlessly, while the eyes of Harris never left her. Into the other room she had not gone at all, for in it was the dead stranger.
"When do you look for your uncle and Mr. Haydon?" she asked, at last, for the silences were hardest to endure.
She would laugh, or argue, or ridicule--do anything rather than sit silent with questioning eyes upon her. She even grew to fancy that Harris must accuse her--he watched her so!
"When do we look for them? Well, I don't dare let myself decide. I only hope they may have made a start back, and will meet the captain on his way. As to Dan--he had not so very much the start, and they ought to catch up with him, for there were the two Indian canoeists--the two best ones; and when they are racing over the water, with an object, they surely ought to make better time than he. I can't see that he had any very pressing reason for going at all."
"He doesn't talk much about his reasons," she answered.
"No; that's a fact," he agreed, "and less of late than when I knew him first. But he'll make Akkomi talk, maybe, when he arrives--and I hope you, too."
"When he arrives!"
She thought the words, but did not say them aloud. She sat long after Max had left her, and thought how many hours must elapse before they discovered that Dan had not followed the other men to the lake works. She felt sure that he was somewhere in the wilderness, avoiding the known paths, alone, and perhaps hating her as the cause of his isolation, because she would not confess what the man was to her, but left him blindly to keep his threat, and kill him when found in her room.
Ah! why not have trusted him with the whole truth? She asked herself the question as she sat there, but the mere thought of it made her face grow hot, and her jaws set defiantly.
She would not--she could not! so she told herself. Better--better far be suspected of a murder--live all her life under the blame of it for him--than to tell him of a past that was dead to her now, a past she hated, and from which she had determined to bar herself as far as silence could build the wall. And to tell him--him--she could not.
But even as she sat, with her burning face in her hands, quick, heavy steps came to the door, halted, and looking up she found Dan before her.
"Oh! you should not," she whispered, hurriedly. "Why did you come back? They do not suspect; they think I did it--and so--"
"What does this all mean?--what do you mean?" he asked. "Can't you speak?"
It seemed she could not find any more words, she stared at him so helplessly.
"Max, come here!" he called, to hasten steps already approaching. "Come, all of you; I had only a moment to listen to the captain when he caught up with me. But he told me she is suspected of murder--that a ring she wore last night helped the suspicion on. I didn't wait to hear any more, for I gave the little girl that snake ring--gave it to her weeks ago. I bought it from a miner, and he told me he got it from an Indian near Karlo. Now are you ready to suspect me, too, because I had it first?"
"The ring wasn't just the most important bit of circumstantial evidence, Mr. Overton," answered the man named Saunders; "and we are all mighty glad you've got here. It was in her room the man was found, and a knife she borrowed from you was what killed him; and of where she was just about the time the thing happened she won't say anything."
His face paled slightly as he looked at her and heard the brief summing up of the case.
"My knife?" he said, blankly.
"Yes, sir. When some one said it was your knife, she spoke up and said it was, but that you had not had it since noon, for she borrowed it then to cut a stick; but beyond that she don't tell a thing."
"Who is the man?"
"The renegade--Lee Holly."
"Lee Holly!" He turned a piercing glance on Harris, remembering the deep interest he had shown in that man Lee Holly and his partner, "Monte."
Harris met his gaze without flinching, and nodded his head as if in assent.
And that was the man found dead in her room!
The faces of the people seemed for a moment an indistinct blur before his eyes; then he rallied and turned to her.
"'Tana, you never did it," he said, reassuringly; "or if you did, it has been justifiable, and I know it. If