! is that the way I
get snubbed, because I grow enthusiastic over your artistic modeling and
your most charming voice, Miss 'Tana?"

She flashed one sulky, suspicious look at him, and paddled on in silence.

"What a stormy shadow lurks somewhere back of your eyes," he continued,
lazily. "One moment you are all sugar and cream to a fellow, and the next
you are an incipient tornado. I think you might distribute your frowns a
little among the people you know, and not give them all to me. Now,
there's Overton--"

"Don't you talk about him," she commanded, sharply. "You do a lot of
making fun about folks, but don't you go on making fun of him, if that's
what you're trying to do. If it's _me_--pooh!" and she looked at him,
saucily. "I don't care much what you think about me; but Dan--"

"Oh! Dan, then, happens to-day to be one of the saints in your calendar,
and plain mortals like myself must not take his name in vain--is that
it? What a change from this time yesterday!--for I don't think you sent
him to the hills in a very angelic mood. And you!--well, I found you with
a clay Indian crumbled to pieces in your destroying hands; so I don't
imagine Dan's talk to you left a very peaceful impression."

He laughed at her teasingly, expecting to see her show temper again, but
she did not. She only bent her head a little lower, and when she lifted
it, she looked at him with a certain daring.

"He was right, and I was silly, I guess. He was good--so good, and I'm
mostly bad. I was bad to him, anyway, but I ain't too much of a baby to
say so. And if he's mad at me when he comes back, I'll just pack my traps
and take another trail."

"Back to Akkomi?" he asked, gaily. "Now, you know we would not hear to
that."

"It ain't your affair, only Dan's."

"Oh, excuse me for living on the same earth with you and Dan! It is not my
fault, you know. I suppose now, if you did desert us, it would be to act
as a sort of guardian angel to the tribes along the river, turn into a
whole life-saving service yourself, and pick up the superfluous reds who
tumble into the rivers. I wondered for a whole day why you made so strong
a swim for so unimportant an article."

"His mother thought he was important," she answered. "But I didn't know he
had a mother just then; all I thought as I started for him was that he was
so plucky. He tried his little best to save himself, and he never said one
word; that was what I liked about him. It would have been a