That Girl Montana

“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 dress; an’ you take all the care on your shoulders as though it was a blessed privilege. And she’s never to know what she owes you. Well, there’s my hand. I’m your friend, Dan Overton. But don’t waste your days with too much care about this new pet you’ve brought home. That’s all I’ve got to say. She’ll never think more of you for it. Girls don’t; they are as selfish as young wolves.”