pity to let
that sort of a boy be lost."

"You think a heap of that--of personal bravery--don't you? I notice you
gauge every one by that."

"Maybe I do. I know I hate a coward," she said, indifferently.

Then, as the canoe ran in to the shore, she for the first time saw
Overton, who was standing there waiting for them. She looked at him with
startled alertness as his eyes met hers. He looked like a statue--a
frontier sentinel standing tall and muscular with folded arms and gazing
with curious intentness from one to the other of the canoeists.

In the bottom of the boat a string of fish lay, fine speckled fellows, to
delight the palate of an epicure. She stooped and picking up the fish,
walked across the sands to him.

"Look, Dan!" she said, with unwonted humility. "They're the best I could
find, and--and I'm sorry enough for being ugly yesterday. I'll try not to
be any more. I'll do anything you want--yes, I will!" she added,
snappishly, as he smiled dubiously, she thought unbelievingly. "I'd--dress
like a boy, and go on the trails with you, paddle your canoe, or feed your
horse--I would, if you like."

Lyster, who was following, heard her words, and glanced at Overton with
curious meaning. Overton met the look with something like a threat in his
own eyes--a sort of "laugh if you dare!"

"But I don't like," Dan said, briefly, to poor 'Tana, who had made such a
great effort to atone for ugly words spoken to him the day before.

She said no more; and Lyster, walking beside her, pulled one of her unruly
curls teasingly, to make her look at him.

"Didn't I tell you it was better to give your smiles to me instead of to
Overton?" he asked, in a bantering way, as he took the string of fish. "I
care a great deal more about your good opinion than he does."

"Oh--you--" she began, and shrugged her shoulders for a silent finish to
her thought, as though words were useless.

"Oh, _me_! Of course, me. Now, if you had offered to paddle a canoe for
me, I'd--"

"You'd loll in the bottom of the boat and let me," she flashed out. "Of
course you would; you're made just that way."

"Sh--h, 'Tana," said Overton, while to himself he smiled in an indulgent
way, and thought: "That is like youth; they only quarrel when there is a
listener." Then turning to the girl, he said aloud:

"You know, 'Tana, I want you to learn other things besides paddling a
canoe. Such things are all right for a boy; but--"

"I know," she agreed; b