going to telegraph me? What for?" and the lightness of her heart
was chased away by fear. "Is--is any one hurt?"

"Hurt? Not a bit of it. But Harris thinks he is worse and wanted you,
until Dan concluded to ask you to come. I have the message here
somewhere," and he drew out a pocket-book.

"Dan asked me to come? Let me see it, please," and she unfolded the paper
and read the words he had written--the only time she had ever seen his
writing in a message to her.

A lighted match threw a flickering light over the page, on which he said:

"Joe is worse. He wants you. Will you come back?

"DAN OVERTON."

She folded it up and held it tight in her hand under the cloak she wore.
He had sent for her! Ah! how long the night would be, for not until dawn
could she answer his message.

"We will go on," she said. "Can't you spare us a boatman? Mr. McCoy has
outstripped our Indian extras who have our outfit, and he needs a little
rest, though he won't own up."

"Why, of course! Our errand is over, too, so we'll turn back with you. I
just passed Akkomi a few miles back. He is coming North with the season,
as usual. I thought the old fellow would freeze out with the winter; but
there he was drifting North to a camping-place he wanted to reach before
stopping. I suppose we'll have him for a neighbor all summer again."

The girl, remembering his antipathy to all of the red race, laughed and
raised in her arms the child, that had awakened.

"All I needed to perfect my return to the Kootenai country was the
presence of Akkomi," she confessed. "I should have missed him, for he was
my first friend in the valley. And it may be, Mr. McCoy, that if he is
inclined to be friendly to-night, I may ask him to take me the rest of the
way. I want to talk to him. He is an old friend."

"Certainly," agreed McCoy; but he evidently thought her desire was a very
peculiar one.

"But you will have a friend at court just the same--whether I go all the
way with you or not," she said and smiled across at him knowingly.

Captain Leek heard the words, too, and must have understood them, for he
stared stonily at the big, good-looking miner. Their greeting had been
very brief; evidently they were not congenial spirits.

"Is that a--a child?" asked the captain, as the little creature drooped
drowsily with its face against 'Tana's neck; "really a child?"

"Really a child," returned the girl, "a