“What do you intend to make of your life, Montana, since you avoid all questions of marriage? You will not go to school, and care nothing about fitting yourself for the society where by right you should belong.”

A whole winter had gone, and the springtime had come again; and over all the Island of Manhattan, and on the heights back from the rivers, the green of the leaves was creeping over the boughs from which winter had swept all signs of life months ago.

In a very lovely little room, facing a park where the glitter of a tiny lake could be seen, ’Tana lounged and stared at the waving branches and the fettered water.

Not just the same ’Tana as when, a year ago, she had breasted the cold waves of the Kootenai. No one, to look at her now, would connect the taller, stylishly dressed figure, with that little half-savage who had scowled at Overton in the lodge of Akkomi. Her hair was no longer short and boyish in its arrangement. A silver comb held it in place, except where the tiny curls crept down to cluster about her neck. A gown of soft white wool was caught at her waist by a flat woven belt of silver, and an embroidered shoe of silvery gleam peeped from under the white folds.

No, it was not the same ’Tana. And the little gray-haired lady, who slipped ivory knitting needles in and out of silky flosses, watched her with troubled concern as she asked:

“And what do you intend to make of your life, Montana?”

“You are out of patience with me, are you not, Miss Seldon?” asked the girl. “Oh, yes, I know you are; and I don’t blame you. Everything I have ever wanted in my life is in reach of me here – everything a girl should have; yet it doesn’t mean so much to me as I thought it would.”

“But if you would go to school, perhaps – ”

“Perhaps I would learn to appreciate all this,” and the girl glanced around at the fine fittings of the room, and then back to the point of her own slipper.

“But I do study hard at home. Doesn’t Miss Ackerman give me credit for learning very quickly? and doesn’t that music teacher hop around and wave his hands over my most excellent, ringing voice? They say I study well.”

“Yes, yes; you do, too. But at a school, my dear, where you would have the association of other girls, you would naturally grow more – more girlish yourself, if I may say so; for you are old beyond your years in ways that are peculiar. Your ideas of things are not the ideas of girlhood; and yet you are very fond of girls.”

“And how do you know that?” asked ’Tana.

“Why, my dear, you never go past one on the street that you don’t give her more notice than the very handsomest man you might see. And at the matinees, if the play does not hold you very close, your eyes are always directed to the young girls in the audience. Yes, you are fond of them, yet you will not allow yourself to be intimate with any.”

And the pretty, refined-looking lady smiled at her and nodded her head in a knowing way, as though she had made an important discovery.

The girl on the couch lay silent for a while, then she rose and went over to the window, gazing across to the park, where people were walking and riding along the green knolls and levels. Young girls were there, too, and she watched them a little while, with the old moody expression in her dark eyes.

“Perhaps it is because I don’t like to make friends under false pretenses,” she said, at last. “Your society is a very fine and very curious thing, and there is a great deal of false pretense about it. Individually, they would overlook the fact that I was accused of murder in Idaho – the gold mine would help some of them to do that! But if it should ever get in their papers here, they would collectively think it their duty to each other not to recognize me.”

“Oh, Montana, my dear child, why do you not forget that horrible life, and leave your mind free to partake of the advantages now surrounding you?” and Miss Seldon sighed with real distress, and dropped her ivory needles despairingly. “It seems so strange that you care to remember that which was surely a terrible life.”

“Much more so than you can know,” answered the girl, coming over to her and drawing a velvet hassock to her side. “And, my dear, good, innocent little lady, just so long as you all try to persuade me that I should go out among young people of my own age, just so long must I be forced to think of how different my life has been to theirs. Some day they, too, might learn how different it has been, and resent my presence among them. I prefer not to run that risk. I might get to like some of them, and then it would hurt. Besides, the more I see of people since I came here, the more I feel that every one should remain with their own class in life.”

“But, Montana, that is not an American sentiment at all!” said Miss Seldon, with some surprise. “But even that idea should not exclude from refined circles. By birth you are a lady.”

The girl smiled bitterly. “You mean my mother was,” she answered. “But she did not give me a gentleman for a father; and I don’t believe the parents of any of those lovely girls we meet would like them to know the daughter of such a man, if they knew it. Now, do you understand how I feel about myself and this social question?”

“You are foolishly conscientious and morbid,” exclaimed the older lady. “I declare, Montana, I don’t know what to do with you. People like you – you are very clever, you have youth, wealth, and beauty – yes, the last, too! yet you shut yourself up here like a young nun. Only the theaters and the art galleries will you visit – never a person – not even Margaret.”

“Not even Margaret,” repeated the girl; “and that is the crowning sin in your eyes, isn’t it? Well, I don’t blame you, for she is very lovely; and how much she thinks of you!”

“Yes!” sighed the little lady. “Mrs. Haydon is a woman of very decided character, but not at all given to loving demonstrations to children. Long ago, when we lived closer, little Margie would come to me daily to be kissed and petted. Max was only a boy then, and they were great companions.”

“Yes; and if he had been sensible, he would have fallen in love with her and made her Mrs. Lyster, instead of knocking around Western mining towns, and making queer friends,” said the girl, smiling at the old lady’s astonished face. “She is just the sort of girl to suit him.”

“My dear,” she said, solemnly, “do you really care for him a particle?”

“Who – Max? Of course I do. He is the best fellow I know, and was so good to me out there in the wilderness. There was no one out there to compare me with, so I suppose I loomed up big when compared with the average squaw. But everything is different here. I did not know how different. I know now, however, and I won’t let him go on making a mistake.”

“Oh, Montana!” cried the little lady, pleadingly.

Just then a maid entered with two cards, at which she glanced with a dismay that was comical.

“Margaret and Max! Why, is it not strange they should call at the same time, and at a time when – ”

“When I was pairing them off so nicely, without their knowledge,” added the girl. “Have them come up here, won’t you? It is so much more cozy than that very elegant parlor. And I always feel as if poor Max had been turned out of his home since I came.”

So they came to the little sitting room – pretty, dark-eyed Margaret, with her faultless manners and her real fondness for Miss Seldon, whom she kissed three times.

“For I have not seen you for three days,” she explained, “and those two are back numbers.” Then she turned to ’Tana and eyed her admiringly as they clasped hands.

“You look as though you had stepped from a picture of classic Greek,” she declared. “Where in that pretty curly head of yours do you find the ideas for those artistic arrangements of form and color? You are an artist, Montana, and you don’t know it.”

“I will begin to believe it if people keep telling me so.”

“Who else has told you?” asked Lyster, and she laughed at him.

“Not you,” she replied; “at least not since you teased me about the clay Indians I made on the shores of the Kootenai. But some one else has told me – Mr. Roden.”

“Roden, the sculptor! But how does he know?”

She glanced from one face to the other, and sighed with a serio-comic expression. “I might as well confess,” she said, at last. “I am so glad you are here, Miss Margaret, for I may need an advocate. I have been working two hours a day in Mr. Roden’s studio for over a month.”

“Montana!” gasped Miss Seldon, “but – how – when?”

“Before you were awake in the morning,” she said, and looked from one to the other of their blank faces. “You look as if it were a shock, instead of a surprise,” she added. “I did not tell you at first, as it would seem only a whim. But he has told me I have reason for the whim, and that I should continue. So – I think I shall.”

“But, my child – for you are a child, after all – don’t you know it is a very strange thing for a girl to go alone like that, and – and – Oh, dear! Max, can’t you tell her?”

But Max did not. There was a slight wrinkle between his brows, but she saw it and smiled.

“You can’t scold me, though, can you?” she asked. “That is right, for it would be no use. I know you would say that in your set it would not be proper for a girl to do such independent things. But you see, I do not belong to any set. I have just been telling this dear little lady, who is trying to look stern, some of the reasons why society life and I can never agree. But I have found several reasons why Art life and I should agree perfectly. I like the freedom of it – the study of it. And, even if I never accomplish much, I shall at least have tried my best.”

“But, Montana, it is not as though you had to learn such things,” pleaded Miss Seldon. “You have plenty of money.”

“Oh, money – money! But I have found there are a few things in this world money can not buy. Art study, little as I have attempted, has taught me that.”

Lyster came over and sat beside her by the window.

“’Tana,” he said, and looked at her with kindly directness, “can the Art study give you that which you crave, and which money can not buy?”

Her eyes fell to the floor. She could not but feel sorry to go against his wishes; and yet —

“No, it can not, entirely,” she said, at last. “But it is all the substitute I know of, and, maybe, after a while, it will satisfy me.”

Miss Seldon took Margaret from the room on some pretext, and Lyster rose and walked across to the other window. He was evidently much troubled or annoyed.

“Then you are not satisfied?” he asked. “The life that seemed possible to you, when out there in camp, is impossible to you now.”

“Oh, Max! don’t be angry – don’t. Everything was all wrong out there. You were sorry for me out there; you thought me different from what I am. I could never be the sort of girl you should marry – not like Margaret – ”

“Margaret!” and his face paled a little, “why do you speak of her?”

“I know, if you do not, Max,” she answered, and smiled at him. “I have learned several things since I came here, and one of them is Mr. Haydon’s reason for encouraging our friendship so much. It was to end any attachment between you and Margaret. Oh, I know, Max! If I had not looked just a little bit like her, you would never have fancied you loved me – for it was only a fancy.”

“It was no fancy! I did love you. I was honest with you, and I have waited patiently, while you have grown more and more distant until now – ”

“Now we had better end it all, Max. I could not make you happy, for I am not happy myself.”

“Perhaps I – ”

“No, you can not help me; and it is not your fault. You have been good to me – very good; but I can’t marry any one.”

“No one?” he asked, looking at her doubtfully. “’Tana, sometimes I have fancied you might have cared for some one else – some one before you met me.”

“No, I cared for no one before I met you,” she answered, slowly. “But I could not be happy in the social life of your people here. They are charming, but I am not suited to their life. And – and I can’t go back to the hills. So, in a month, I am going to Italy.”

“You have it all decided, then?”

“All – don’t be angry, Max. You will thank me for it some day, though I know our friends will think badly of me just now.”

“No, they shall not; you are breaking no promises. You took me only on trial, and it seems I don’t suit,” he said, with a grimace. “I will see that you are not blamed. And so long as you do not leave America, I should like you to remain here. Don’t let anything be changed in our friendship, ’Tana.”

She turned to him with tears in her eyes, and held out her hand.

“You are too good to me, Max,” she said, brokenly, “God knows what will become of me when I leave you all and go among foreign faces, among whom I shall not have a friend. I hope to work and – be contented; but I shall never meet a friend like you again.”

He drew her to him quickly.

“Don’t go!” he whispered, pleadingly. “I can’t let you go out into the world alone like that! I will love you – care for you – ”

“Hush!” and she put her hand on his face to push it away; “it is no use, and don’t do that – try to kiss me; you must not. No man has ever kissed me, and you – ”

“And I sha’n’t be the first,” he added, shrugging his shoulders. “Well, I confess I hoped to be, and you are a greater temptation than you know, Miss Montana. And you ought to pardon me the attempt.”

Her face was flushed and shamed. “I could pardon a great deal in you, Max,” she answered; “but don’t speak of it again. Talk to me of other things.”

“Other things? Well, I haven’t many other things in my mind just now. Still, I did see some one down town this morning whom you rather liked, and who asked after you. It was Mr. Harvey, the writer, whom we met first at Bonner’s Ferry, up in the Kootenai land. Do you remember him?”

“Certainly. We met him afterward at one of the art galleries, and I have seen him several times at Roden’s studio. They are great friends. He looked surprised to find me there, but, after I spoke to him, he talked to me a great deal. You know, Max, I always imagine he heard that suspicion of me up at the camp. Do you think so?”

“He never intimated it to me,” answered Max; “though Haydon nearly went into spasms of fear lest he would put it all in some paper.”

“I remember. He would scarcely allow me breathing space for fear the stranger would get near enough to speak to me again. I remember all that journey, because when I reached the end of it, the past seemed like a troubled dream, for this life of fineness and beauty and leisure was all so different.”

“And yet you are not contented?”

“Oh, don’t talk of that – of me!” she begged. “I am tired of myself. I just remembered another one on the train that journey – the little variety actress who had her dresses made to look cute and babyish – the one with bleached hair, and they called her Goldie. She looked scared to death when he – Overton – stopped at the window to say good-by. I often wondered why.”

“Oh, you know Dan was a sort of sheriff, or law-and-order man, up there. He might have known her unfavorably, and she was afraid of being identified by him, or something of that sort. She belonged to the rougher element, no doubt.”

“Max, it makes me homesick to think of that country,” she confessed. “Ever since the grass has commenced to be green, and the buds to swell, it seems to me all the woods are calling me. All the sluggish water I see here in the parks and the rivers makes me dream of the rush of the clear Kootenai, and long for a canoe and paddle. Contrive something to make me forget it, won’t you? Make up a party to go somewhere – anywhere. I will be cavalier to your lovely little aunt, and leave you to Margaret.”

“I asked you before why you speak of Margaret and me in that tone?” he said. “Are you going to tell me? You have no reason but your own fancy.”

“Haven’t I? Well, this isn’t fancy, Max – that I would like to see my cousin – you see, I claim them for this once – happy in her own way, instead of unhappy in the life her ambitious family are trying to arrange for her. And I promise to trade some surplus dust for a wedding present just as soon as you conclude to spoil their plans, and make yourself and that little girl and your aunt all happy by a few easily spoken words.”

“But I have just told you I love you.”

“You will know better some day,” she said, and turned away. “Now go and pacify your aunt, won’t you? She seemed so troubled about the modeling – bless her dear heart! I didn’t want to trouble her, but the work – some work – was a necessity to me. I was growing so homesick for the woods.”

After she was left alone, she drew a letter from her pocket, one she had got in the morning mail, and read over again the irregular lines sent by Mrs. Huzzard.

“I got Lavina to write you the letter at Christmas, because I was so tickled with all the things you sent me that I couldn’t write a straight line to save me; and you know the rheumatiz in my finger makes it hard work for me sometimes. But maybe hard work and me is about done with each other, ’Tana; though I’ll tell you more of that next time.

“I must tell you Mr. Harris has got better – can talk some and walk around; can’t move his left arm any yet. But Mr. Dan sent for two fine doctors, and they tried to help him with electricity. And I was scared for fear lightning might strike camp after that; but it didn’t. Lavina is here still, and likely to stay. She’s a heap of company; and she and Captain Leek are better friends than they was.

“There is a new man in camp now; he found a silver mine down near Bonner’s Ferry, and sold it out well. He was a farmer back in Indiana, and has been on a visit to our camp twice. Mr. Dan says it’s my cooking fetches him. Everything is different here now. Mr. Dan got sawed lumber, and put me up a nice little house; and up above the bluff he has laid out a place where he is going to build a stone house, just as if he intends to live and die here. He doesn’t ever seem to think that he has enough made now to rest all his days. Sometimes I think he ain’t well. Sometimes, ’Tana, I think it would cheer him up if you would just write him a few lines from time to time. He always says, ‘Is she well?’ when I get a letter from you; and about the time I’m looking for your letters he’s mighty regular about getting the mail here.

“That old Akkomi went south when winter set in, and we reckon he’ll be back when the leaves get green. His whole village was drunk for days on the money you had Mr. Seldon give him, and he wore pink feathers from some millinery store the last time I saw him. But Mr. Dan is always patient with him whether he is drunk or sober.

“I guess that’s all the news. Lavina sends her respects. And I must tell you that on Christmas they got some whisky, and all the boys drank your health – and drank it so often Mr. Dan had to give them a talking to. They think a heap of you. Yours with affection,

“Lorena Jane Huzzard.

“P. S. – William McCoy is the name of the stranger I spoke of. The boys call him Bill.”

CHAPTER XXVI.
OVERTON’S WIFE

A few hours later, ’Tana sat in a box at the theater; for the party she had suggested had been arranged, and pretty Miss Margaret was radiant over the evening planned for her, and ’Tana began to enjoy her rôle of matchmaker. She had even managed to tell Margaret, in a casual manner, that Miss Seldon’s idea of a decided engagement between herself and Max had never a very solid foundation, and now had none at all. He was her good friend – that was all, and she was to leave for Italy in a month.

And Margaret went up to her and kissed her, looking at her with puzzled, admiring eyes.

“They tried at home to make me think very differently,” she said. “But you are a queer girl, Miss Montana. You have told me this on purpose, and – ”

“And I want to hear over in Italy that you are going to make a boy I like very happy some of these days. Remember, Margaret, you are – or will be – a millionairess, while he has not more than a comfortable income; and boys – even when they are in love – can be proud. Will you think of that?”

Margaret only blushed and turned away, but the answer was quite satisfying to ’Tana, and she felt freer because her determination had been put into words, and the last bond connecting her with the old life was to be broken. Ever since the snows had gone, some cord of her heart-string had been drawing all her thoughts to those Northern hills, and she felt the only safety was to put the ocean between them and her.

The home Mr. Seldon had offered her with his sister was a very lovely one, but to it there came each week letters about the mines and the people there. Mr. Seldon had already gone out, and would be gone all summer. As he was an enthusiast over the beauties and the returns of the country, his letters were full of material that she heard discussed each day. Therefore, the only safety for herself lay in flight; and if she did not go across the ocean to the East, she would surely grow weaker and more homesick until she would have to turn coward entirely and cross the mountains to her West.

Realizing it all, she sat in her dainty array of evening dress and watched with thoughts far away the mimic scene of love triumphant on the stage before her. When, on the painted canvas, a far-off snow-crowned mountain rose to their view, her heart seemed to creep to her throat and choke her, and when the orchestra breathed softly of the winds, music, and the twittering of birds, the tears rose to her eyes and a great longing in her heart for all the wild beauty of her Kootenai land.

Then, just as the curtain went down on the second act, some one entered their box.

“You, Harvey?” said Max, with genuine pleasure. “Good of you to look me up. Let me introduce you to my aunt and Miss Haydon. You and Miss Rivers are old acquaintances.”

“Yes; and that fact alone has brought me here just now,” he managed to say to Lyster. “To confess the truth, I have been to see Miss Rivers at her home this evening, having got her address from Roden, and then had the assurance to follow her here. You may be sure I would not have spoiled your evening for any trivial thing, but I come because of a woman who is dying.”

“A woman who is dying?” repeated ’Tana, in wonder. “And why do you come to me?”

“She wants to see you. I think – to tell you something.”

“But who is it?” asked Lyster. “Some beggar?”

“She is a beggar now at least,” agreed Mr. Harvey – “a poor woman dying. She said only to tell Miss Rivers, and here is a line she sent.”

He gave her a slip of paper, and on it was written:

“Come and take some word to Dan Overton for me. I am dying.

Overton’s wife.”

She arose, and Margaret exclaimed at the whiteness of her face.

“Oh, my dear,” sighed Miss Seldon, “you know how I warned you not to give your charities individually among the beggars of a city. It is really a mistake. They have no consideration, and will send for you at all hours if you will go. It is so much better to distribute charity through some organization.”

But ’Tana was tying her opera cloak, and moving toward the entrance.

“I am going,” she said. “Don’t worry. Is it far, Mr. Harvey? If not, perhaps I can be back to go home with you when the curtain goes down.”

“It is not far,” he answered. “Will you come, Lyster?”

“No!” said ’Tana; “you stay with the others, Max. Don’t look vexed. Maybe I can be of some use, and that is what I need.”

Many heads turned to look at the girl whose laces were so elegant, and whose beautiful face wore such a startled, questioning expression. But she hurried out of their sight, and gave a little nervous shiver as she wrapped her white velvet cloak close about her and sank into a corner of the carriage.

“Are you cold?” Harvey asked, but she shook her head.

“No. But tell me all.”

“There is not much. I was with a doctor – a friend of mine – who was called in to see her. She recognized me. It is the little variety actress who came over the Great Northern, on our train.”

“Oh! But how could she know me?”

“She did not know your name; she only described you, remembering that I had talked with you and your friends. When I told her you were in the city, she begged so for you to come that I could not refuse to try.”

“You did right,” she answered. “But it is very strange – very strange.”

Then the carriage stopped before a dingy house in a row that had once belonged to a very fashionable quarter, but that was long ago. Boarding houses they were now, and their class was about number three.

“It is a horrible place to bring you to, Miss Rivers,” confessed her guide; “and I am really glad Miss Seldon did not accompany you, for she never would have forgiven either of us. But I knew you would not be afraid.”

“No, I am not afraid. But, oh, why don’t they hurry?”

He had to ring the bell the second time ere any one came to the door. Then, as the harsh jangle died away, steps were heard descending the stairs, and a man without a coat and with a pipe in his mouth, shot back the bolt with much grumbling.

“I’ll cut the blasted wire if some one in the shebang don’t tend to this door better,” he growled to a lady with a mug of beer, who just then emerged from the lower regions. “Me a-trying to get the lines of that new afterpiece in my head – chock-full of business, too! – and that bell clanging forever right under my room. I’ll move!”

“I wish you would,” remarked Harvey, when the door opened at last. “Move a little faster when you do condescend to open the door. Come, Miss Rivers – up this way.”

And the lady of the beer mug and the gentleman of the pipe stared at each other, and at the white vision of girlhood going up the dark, bad-smelling stairway.

“Well, that’s a new sort in this castle,” remarked the man. “Do you guess the riddle of it?”

The woman did not answer, but listened to the footsteps as they went along the hall. Then a door opened and shut.

“They’ve gone to Goldie’s room,” she said. “That’s queer. Goldie ain’t the sort to have very high-toned friends, so it can’t be a long-lost sister,” and she smiled contemptuously.

“She’s a beauty, anyway, and I’m going to see her when she makes her exit, if I have to sit up all night.”

“Oh! And what about the afterpiece?”

“To the devil with the afterpiece! It hasn’t any angels in it.”

Inside Goldie’s room, a big Dutch blonde in a soiled blue wrapper sat by the bed, and stared in open-mouthed surprise at the new-comers.

“Is it you she’s been askin’ for?” she asked, bluntly.

But ’Tana did not reply, and Harvey got the blonde to the door, and after a few whispered words, induced her to go out altogether, and closed the door behind her.

“I thought you’d come,” whispered the little woman on the bed. “I thought the note would bring you. I saw you talk to him, and I dropped to the game. You’re square, too, ain’t you? That’s the kind I want now. That swell who went for you is the right sort, too. I minded his face and yours. But tell him to go out for a minute. It won’t take long – to tell you.”

Harvey went, at a motion from ’Tana. She had not uttered a word yet. All she could do was to stare in wonder at the wreck of a woman before her – a painted wreck; for, even on her deathbed, the ghastly face was tinted with rouge.

“I can’t get well – doctor says,” she continued. “There was a baby; it died yesterday – three hours old; and I can’t get well. But there is another one I want to tell you of. You tell him. It is two years old. Here is the address. Maybe he will take care of it for me. He was good-hearted – that’s why he married me; thought I was only a little girl without a home. Any woman could fool him, for he thought all women were good. He thought I was only a little girl; and I had been married three years before.”

She smiled at the idea of that past deception, while ’Tana’s face grew hard and white.

“How you look!” said the dying woman. “Well, it’s over now. He never cared for me much, though – not so much as others did. He was never my real husband, you know, for I never had a divorce. He thought he was, though; and even after he left me, he sent me money regular for me to live quiet in ’Frisco, but it didn’t suit me. Then he got turned dead against me when I tried to make him think the child was his. He wouldn’t do anything for me after that; I had cheated him once too often.”

“And was it?” It was the first time ’Tana had spoken, and the woman smiled.

“You care, too, do you? Well, yes, it was. You tell him so; tell him I said so, and I was dying. He’ll take care of her, I think. She’s pretty, but not like me. He never saw her. She’s with a woman in Chicago, where I boarded. I haven’t paid her board now for months, but it’s all right; the woman’s a good soul. Dan Overton will pay when you tell him.”

“You write an order for that child, and tell the woman to give it to me,” said ’Tana, decidedly, and looked around for something to write with. A sheet of paper was found, and she went to Harvey for a pencil.

“’Most ready to go?” he asked, looking at her anxiously.

She nodded her head, and shut the door.

“But I can’t write now; my hands are too weak,” complained the woman. “I can’t.”

“You’ve got to!” answered the girl; and, taking her in her strong young hands, she raised her up higher on the pillow. “There is the paper and pencil – now write.”

“It will kill me to lay like this.”

“No matter if it does; you write.”

“You’re not a woman at all; you’re like iron – white iron,” whined the other. “Any woman with a heart – ” and the weak tears came in her eyes.

“No, I have no heart to be touched by you,” answered the girl. “You had a chance to live a decent life, and you wouldn’t take it. You had an honest man to trust you and take care of you, and you paid him with deceit. Don’t expect pity from me; but write that order.”

She tried to write but could not, and the girl took the pencil.

“I will write it, and you can sign it,” she said; “that will do as well.”

Thus it was accomplished, and the woman was again laid lower in the bed.