That Girl Montana. Ryan Marah Ellis
Max. He was gathering up some robes and satchels when the older man joined him.
“We are not going to make the trip to Chicago in the car with those fellows if it can be helped, Max,” he insisted, fussily; “we’ll wait and see what car they are booked for, and I’ll arrange for another. Sorry I did not get a special, as I first intended.”
“But see here; they are first-class fellows – worth one’s while to meet,” protested Max; but the other shook his head.
“Look after the baggage while I see the conductor. ’Tana is in one of the cars – don’t know which. We’ll go for her when we get settled. Now, don’t argue. Time is too precious.”
And ’Tana! She seated herself rather sulkily, as she was told, and looked at once toward the river.
The canoe was landing, and the man jumped to the shore. With quick, determined strides, he came across the land to the train. She tried to follow him with her eyes, but he crossed to the other side of the track.
There was rather a boisterous party in the car – two men and two women. One of the latter, a flaxen-haired, petite creature, was flitting from one side of the car to the other, making remarks about the Indians, admiring particularly one boy’s beaded dress, and garnishing her remarks with a good deal of slang.
“Say, Chub! that boy’s suit would be a great ’make-up’ for me in that new turn – the jig, you know; new, too. There isn’t a song-and-dance on the boards done with Indian make-up. Knock them silly in the East, where they don’t see reds. Now sing out, and tell me if it wouldn’t make a hit.”
“Aw, Goldie, give us a rest on shop talk,” growled the gentleman called Chub. “If you’d put a little more ginger into the good specialty you have, instead of depending on wardrobe, you’d hit ’em hard enough. It ain’t plans that count, girlie – it’s work.”
The “girlie” addressed accepted the criticism with easy indifference, and her fair, dissipated face was only twisted in a grimace, while she held one hand aloft and jingled the bangles on her bracelets as though poising a tambourine.
“Better hustle yourself into the smoker again, Chubby dear. It will take a half-dozen more cigars to put you in your usual sweet frame of mind. Run along now. Ta-ta!”
The other woman seemed to think their remarks very witty, especially when Chub really did arise and make his way toward the smoker. Goldie then went back to the window, where the Indians were to be seen. The quartet were, to judge by their own frank remarks, a party of variety singers and dancers who had been doing the Pacific circuit, and were now booked for some Eastern houses, of which they spoke as “solid.”
Some of the passengers had got out and were buying little things from the Indians, as souvenirs of the country. ’Tana saw Mr. Haydon among them, in earnest conversation with the conductor; saw Max, with his hand full of satchels, suddenly reach out the other hand with a great deal of heartiness and meet the man of the canoe.
He was not so handsome a man as Max, yet would have been noticeable anywhere – tall, olive-skinned, and dark-haired. His dress had not the fashionable cut of the young fellow he spoke to. But he wore his buckskin jacket with a grace that bespoke physical strength and independence; and when he pushed his broad-brimmed gray hat back from his face, he showed a pair of dark eyes that had a very direct glance. They were serious, contemplative eyes, that to some might look even moody.
“There is a fellow with a great figure,” remarked the other woman of the quartet; “that fellow with the sombrero; built right up from the ground, and looks like a picture; don’t he, Charlie?”
“I can’t see him,” complained Goldie, “but suppose it’s one of the ranchmen who live about here.” Then she turned and donated a brief survey to ’Tana. “Do you live in this region?” she asked.
After a deliberate, contemptuous glance from the questioner’s frizzed head to her little feet, ’Tana answered:
“No; do you?”
With this curt reply, she turned her shoulder very coolly on the searcher for information.
Vexation sent the angry blood up into the little woman’s face. She looked as though about to retort, when a gentleman who had just taken possession of a compartment, and noted all that had passed, came forward and addressed our heroine.
“Until your friends come in, will you not take my seat?” he asked, courteously. “I will gladly make the exchange, or go for Mr. Lyster or Mr. Haydon, if you desire it.”
“Thank you; I will take your seat,” she agreed. “It is good of you to offer it.”
“Say, folks, I’m going outside to take in this free Wild West show,” called the variety actress to her companions. “Come along?”
But they declined. She had reached the platform alone, when, coming toward the car, she saw the man of the sombrero, and shrank back with a gasp of utter dismay.
“Oh, good Heaven!” she muttered, and all the color and bravado were gone from her face, as she shrank back out of his range of vision and almost into the arms of the man Harvey, who had given the other girl his seat.
“What’s up?” he asked, bluntly.
She only gave a muttered, unintelligible reply, pushed past him to her own seat, where her feather-laden hat was donned with astonishing rapidity, a great cloak was thrown around her, and she sank into a corner, a huddled mass of wraps and feathers. Any one could have walked along the aisle without catching even a glimpse of her flaxen hair.
’Tana and the stranger exchanged looks of utter wonder at the lightning change effected before their eyes.
At that moment a tap-tap sounded on the window beside ’Tana, and, looking around, she met the dark eyes of the man with the sombrero gazing kindly upward at her.
The people were getting aboard the train again – the time was so short – so short! and how can one speak through a double glass? The fingers were all unequal to the fastening of the window, and she turned an imploring, flushed face to the helpful stranger.
“Can you – oh, will you, please?” she asked, breathlessly. “Thank you, I’m very much obliged.”
Then the window was raised, and her hand thrust out to the man, who was bareheaded now, and who looked very much as though he held the wealth of the world when he clasped only ’Tana’s fingers.
“Oh, it is you, is it?” she asked, with a rather lame attempt at careless speech. “I thought you had forgotten to say good-by to me.”
“You knew better,” he contradicted. “You knew – you know now it wasn’t because I forgot.”
He looked at her moodily from under his dark brows, and noticed the color flutter over her cheek and throat in an adorable way. She had drawn her hand from him, and it rested on the window – a slim brown hand, with a curious ring on one finger – two tiny snakes whose jeweled heads formed the central point of attraction.
“You said you would not wear that again. If it’s a hoodoo, as you thought, why not throw it away?” he asked.
“Oh – I’ve changed my mind. I need to wear it so that I will be reminded of something – something important as a hoodoo,” she said, with a strange, bitter smile.
“Give it back to me, ’Tana,” he urged. “I will – No – Max will have something much prettier for you. And listen, my girl. You are going away; don’t ever come back; forget everything here but the money that will be yours for the claim. Do you understand me? Forget all I said to you when – you know. I had no right to say it; I must have been drunk. I – I lied, anyway.”
“Oh, you lied, did you?” she asked, cynically, and her hands were clasped closely, so close the ring must have hurt her. He noticed it, and kept his eyes on her hand as he continued, doggedly:
“Yes. You see, little girl, I thought I’d own up before you left, so you wouldn’t be wasting any good time in being sorry about the folks back here. It wasn’t square for me to trouble you as I did.