CHAPTER XXIV.
LEAVING CAMP.
Afterward, 'Tana never could remember clearly the incidents of the fewdays that followed. Only once more she entered the cabin of death, andthat was when Mr. Haydon and Mr. Seldon returned with all haste to thecamp, after meeting with Captain Leek and the Indian boatman.
Then, as some of the men offered to go with them to view the remains ofthe outlaw, she came forward.
"No. I will take them," she said.
When Mr. Haydon demurred, feeling that a young girl should be kept as muchas possible from such scenes, she had laid her hand on Seldon's arm.
"Come!" she said, and they went with her.
But when inside the door, she did not approach the blanket-covered formstretched on the couch; only pointed toward it, and stood herself like aguard at the entrance.
When Seldon lifted the Indian blanket from the face, he uttered a startledexclamation, and looked strangely at her. She never turned around.
"What is it?" asked Mr. Haydon.
No one replied, and as he looked with anxiety toward the form there, hisface grew ashen in its horror.
"Lord in heaven!" he gasped; "first her on that bed and now _him_! I--Ifeel as if I was haunted in this camp. Seldon, is it--is it--"
"No mistake possible," answered the other man, decidedly. "I could swearto the identity. It is George Rankin!"
"And Holly, the renegade!" added Haydon, in consternation; "and Lord onlyknows how many other aliases he has worn. Oh, what a sensation the paperswould make over this if they got hold of it all. My! my! it would beawful! And that girl, Montana, as she calls herself, she has been cleverto keep it quiet as she has, for--Oh, Lord!"
"What is the matter now? You look fairly sick," said the other,impatiently. "I didn't fancy you'd grieve much over his death."
"No, it isn't that," said Haydon, huskily. "But that girl--don't you seeshe was accused of this? And--well seeing who he is, how do we know--"
He stopped awkwardly, unable to continue with the girl herself so near andwith Seldon's warning glance directed to him.
She leaned against the wall, and apparently had not heard their words.Seldon's face softened as he looked at her; and, going over, he put hishand kindly on her hair.
"I am going to be your uncle, now," he said in a caressing tone. "You havekept up like a soldier under some terrible things here; but we will try tomake things brighter for you now."
She smiled in a dreary way without looking at him. His knowledge of theterrible things she had endured seemed to her very limited.
"And you will go now with us--with Mr. Haydon--back to your mother's oldhome, won't you?" he said, in a persuasive way. "It is not good, you know,for a little girl not to know any of her relations, or to bear suchshocking grudges," he added, in a lower tone.
But she gave him no answering smile.
"I will go to your house if you will have me," she said. "You and Max aremy friends. I will go only with people I like."
"You know, my dear," said Mr. Haydon, who heard her last words. "You knowI offered you a home in my house until such time as you got to school,and--and of course, I'll stick to it."
"Though you are a little afraid to risk it, aren't you?" she asked, withan unpleasant smile. "Haven't you an idea that I might murder you all inyour beds some fine night? You know I belong to a country where they dosuch things for pastime. Aren't you afraid?"
"That is a very horrible sort of pleasantry," he answered, and moved awayfrom the dead face he had been staring at. "I beg you will not indulge init, especially when you move in a society more refined than these miningcamps can afford. It will be a disadvantage to you if you carry with youcustoms and memories of this unfinished section. And after all, you do notbelong here, your family was of the East. When you go back there, it wouldbe policy for you to forget that you had ever lived anywhere else."
Mr. Haydon had never made so long a speech to her before, and it wasdelivered with a certain persistence, as if it was a matter of consciencehe would be relieved to have off his mind.
"I think you are mistaken when you say I do not belong here," sheanswered, coolly. "Some of my family have been a good many things Idon't intend to be. I was born in Montana; and I might have starved todeath for any help my 'family' would have given me, if I hadn't struckluck and helped myself here in Idaho. So I think I belong out here, and ifI live, I will come back again--some day."
She turned to Seldon and pointed to the dead form.
"They will take him away to-day--I heard them say so," she said quietly."Let it be somewhere away from the camp--not near--not where I can see."
"Can't you forget--even now, 'Tana?"
"Does anybody ever forget?" she asked. "When people say they can forgetand forgive, I don't trust them, for I don't believe them."
"Have you any idea who killed him?" he asked. "It is certainly a strangeaffair. I thought you might suspect some one these people know nothingof."
But she shook her head. "No," she said. "There were several who would haveliked to do it, I suppose--people he had wronged or ruined; for he had fewfriends left, or he would not have come across to these poor reds to hide.Give old Akkomi part of that gold; he was faithful to me--and to him, too.No, I don't know who did it. I don't care, now. I thought I knew once; butI was wrong. This way of dying is better than the rope; and that is whatthe law would have given him. He would have chosen this--I know."
"Did you ever in your life hear such cold-blooded words from a girl?"demanded Haydon, when she left them and went to Harris. "Afraid of her?Humph! Well, some people would be. No wonder they suspected her when sheshowed such indifference. Every word she says makes me regret more andmore that I acknowledged her. But how was I to know? She was ill, andmade me feel as if a ghost had come before me. I couldn't sleep till I hadmade up my mind to take the risk of her. Max sung her praises as if shewas some rare untrained genius. Nothing gave me an idea that she wouldturn out this way."
"'This way' has not damaged you much so far," remarked Mr. Seldon, dryly."And as she is not likely to be much of a charge on your hands, you hadbetter not borrow trouble on that score."
"All very well--all very well for you to be indifferent," returned Mr.Haydon, with some impatience. "You have no family to consider, no matterwhat wild escapade she would be guilty of, you would not be touched by thedisgrace of it, because she doesn't belong in any way to your family."
"Maybe she will, though," suggested Seldon.
Mr. Haydon shrugged his shoulders significantly.
"You mean through Max, don't you?" he asked. "Yes, I was simple enough tobuild on that myself--thought what a nice, quiet way it would be ofarranging the whole affair; but after a talk with this ranger, Overton,whom you and Max unite in admiring, I concluded he might be in the way."
"Overton? Nonsense!"
"Well, maybe; but he made himself very autocratic when I attempted todiscuss her future. He seemed to show a good deal of authority concerningher affairs."
"Not a bit more than he does over the affairs of their paralyzed partnerin there," answered Seldon. "If she always makes as square friends as DanOverton, I shan't quarrel with her judgment."
When 'Tana left them and went into the other cabin, she stood looking atHarris a long time in a curious, scrutinizing way, and his face changedfrom doubt to dread before she spoke.
"I am hardly able to think any more, Joe," she said at last, and her tiredeyes accented the truth of her words; "but something like a thought keepshammering in my head about you--about you and--" She pointed to the nextroom. "If you could walk, I should know you did it. If you could talk, Ishould know you had it done. I wouldn't tell on you; but I'd be glad I wasgoing where I would not see you, for I never could touch your hand again.I am going away, Joe; won't you tell me true whether you know who did it?Do you?"
He shook his head with his eyes closed. He, too, looked pale and worn, andnoticing it, she asked if he would not rather move to some other dwelling,since--
He nodded his head with a sort of eagerness. All of the two days and thenight he had sat there, with only the folds of a blanket to separate himfrom the room where his dead foe lay.
"I will speak to them about it right away." She lifted his hand andstroked it with a sort of sympathy. "Joe, can you forgive him now?" shewhispered.
He made her no reply; only closed his eyes as before.
"You can't, then? and I can't ask you to, though I suppose I ought to.Margaret would," and she smiled strangely. "You don't know Margaret, doyou? Well, neither do I. But I guess she is the sort of girl I ought tobe. Joe, I can't stay in camp any longer. Maybe I'll leave for the Ferryto-day. Will you miss me? Yes, I know you will," she added, "and I willmiss you, too. Do you know--can you tell when Dan will come back?"
He shook his head, and an hour later she said to Max:
"Take me away from here, back to the Ferry--any place. Mrs. Huzzard will,maybe, come for a few days--or Miss Slocum. Ask them, and let me gosoon."
And an hour after they had started, another canoe went slowly over thewater toward the Kootenai River, a canoe guided by Akkomi; and in it laythe blanket-draped figure of the man whose death was yet a mystery to thecamp. He was at least borne to his resting place by a friend, though whatthe reason for Akkomi's faithfulness, no one ever knew; for some favor inthe past, no doubt. Seldon knew that 'Tana would rather Akkomi should bethe one to cover his grave, though where it was made, no white man everknew.