active part in them in her middle age.

And so, with the help of the doctor and Mrs. Huzzard, they commenced the
nursing of 'Tana back to consciousness and health. Night after night Dan
walked alone in the waning moonlight, his heart filled with remorse and
blame for which he could find no relief. The gathering of the gold had no
longer allurements for him.

But he moved Harris' tent on to one of the claims, and he cut small
timber, and in a day and a half had a little log house of two rooms put up
and chinked with dry moss and roofed with bark, that 'Tana might have a
home of her own, and have it close to where the ore streaked with gold
had been found. Then he sent the Indians up the river again, and did with
his own hands all labor needed about the camp.

"You'll be sick yourself, Overton," growled the doctor, who slept in the
tent with him, and knew that scarce an hour of the night passed that he
was not at the door of 'Tana's cabin, to learn if any help was needed, or
merely to stand without and listen to her voice as she spoke.

"For mercy's sake, Mr. Dan, do be a little careful of yourself," entreated
Mrs. Huzzard; "for if you should get used up, I don't know what I ever
would do here in this wilderness, with 'Tana and the paralyzed man and you
to look after--to say nothing of the fear I'm in every hour because o'
that nasty beast of an Indian that you say is a chief. He is here
constant!"

"Proof of your attractive powers," said Overton, reassuringly. "He comes
to admire you, that is all."

"And enough, too! And if it wasn't for you that's here to protect me, the
good Lord only knows whether I'd ever see a milliner shop or a pie again,
as long as I lived. So I am set on your taking more care of yourself--now
won't you?"

"Wait until you have cause, before you worry," he advised, "I don't look
like a sick man, do I?"

"You don't look like a well one, anyway," she said, looking at him
carefully; "and you don't look as I ever saw you look before. You are as
hollow eyed as though you had been sick yourself for a month. Altogether,
I think your coming out here to camp in the wild woods has been a big
mistake."

"It looks like it just now," he agreed, and his eyes, tired and troubled,
looked past her into the cabin where 'Tana lay. "Does she seem better?"

"Just about the same. Eight days now since she was took down; and the
doctor, he said to-morrow would be the day to hope for a change, either
for the b