Marah Ryan - That Girl Montana

“She is one of the most strongly interesting girls of her age I have ever seen,” he decided. “Girls of that age generally lack character. She does not; it impresses itself on a man though she never speak a word to him. Wish she’d favor me with as much of her attention as she gives that hulking redskin.”

“It’s a ’case,’ isn’t it?” asked his friend. “You’ll be wanting to use her as a centerpiece for your next novel; but you can’t make an orthodox heroine of her, for there must have been some reason for the suspicion that she helped him ’over the range,’ as they say out here. There must have been something socially and morally wrong about the fact that he was found dead in her cabin. No, Harvey; you’d better write up the inert, inoffensive red man on his native heath, and let this remarkable young lady enjoy her thousands in modest content – if the ghosts let her.”

“Nonsense!” said the other man, with a sort of impatience. “You jump too quickly to the conclusion that there must be wrong where there is suspicion. But you have put an idea into my mind as to the story. If I can ever learn the whole history of this affair, I will make use of it, and I’m not afraid of finding my pretty girl in the wrong, either.”

“I knew from the moment we heard who she was that your impressionable nature would fall a victim, but you can’t write a story of her alone; you will want your hero and one or two other people. I suppose, now, that very handsome young fellow with the fastidious get-up will about suit you for the hero. He does look rather lover-like when he addresses your girl with the history. Will you pair them off?”

“I will let you know a year from now,” returned the man called Harvey. “But just now I am going to pay my respects to the very well-fed looking elderly gentleman. He seems to be the chaperon of the party. I have acquired a taste for trailing things during our thirty days hunt in these hills, and I’m going to trail this trio, with the expectation of bagging a romance.”

His friend watched him approach the elder gentleman, and was obviously doubtful of the reception he would get, for the portly, prosperous-looking individual did not seem to have been educated in that generous Western atmosphere, where a man is a brother if he acts square and speaks fair. Conservatism was stamped in the deep corners of his small mouth, on the clean-shaven lips, and the correctly cut side-whiskers that added width to his fat face.

But the journalist proper, the world over, is ever a bit of a diplomat. He has won victories over so many conservative things, and is daunted by few. When Harvey found himself confronted by a monocle through which he was coolly surveyed, it did not disturb him in the least (beyond making it difficult to retain a grave demeanor at the lively interest shown by the Indians in that fashionable toy).

“Yes, sir – yes, sir; I am T. J. Haydon, of Philadelphia,” acknowledged he of the glass disc, “but I don’t know you, sir.”

“I shall be pleased to remedy that if you will allow me,” returned the other, suavely, producing a card which he offered for examination. “You are, no doubt, acquainted with the syndicate I represent, even if my name tells you nothing. I have been hunting here with a friend for a month, and intend writing up the resources of this district. I have a letter of introduction to your partner, Mr. Seldon, but did not follow the river so far as to reach your works, though I’ve heard a good deal about them, and imagine them interesting.”

“Yes, indeed; very interesting – very interesting from a sportsman’s or mineralogist’s point of view,” agreed the older man, as he twirled the card in a disturbed, uncertain way. “Do you travel East, Mr. – Mr. Harvey? Yes? Well, let me introduce Mr. Seldon’s nephew – he’s a New Yorker – Max Lyster. Wait a minute and I’ll get him away from those beastly Indians. I never can understand the attraction they have for the average tourist.”

But when he reached Lyster he said not a word of the despised reds; he had other matters more important.

“Here, Max! A most annoying thing has happened,” he said, hurriedly. “Those two men are newspaper fellows, and one is going East on our train. Worse still – the one knows people I know. Gad! I’d rather lose a thousand dollars than meet them now! And you must come over and get acquainted. They’ve been here a month, and are to write accounts of the life and country. That means they have been here long enough to hear all about ’Tana and that Holly. Do you understand? You’ll have to treat them well, – the best possible – pull wires even if it costs money, and fix it so that a record of this does not get into the Eastern papers. And, above and beyond everything else, so long as we are in this depraved corner of the country, you must keep them from noticing that girl Montana.”

The young man looked across at the girl, and smiled doubtfully.

“I’m willing to undertake any possible thing for you,” he said; “but, my dear sir, to keep people from noticing ’Tana is one of the things beyond my power. And if she gives notice to all the men who will notice her, I’ve an idea jealousy will turn my hair gray early. But come on and introduce your man, and don’t get in a fever over the meeting. I am so fortunate as to know more of the journalistic fraternity than you, and I happen to be aware that they are generally gentlemen. Therefore, you’d better not drop any hints to them of monetary advantages in exchange for silence unless you want to be beautifully roasted by a process only possible in printer’s ink.”

The older man uttered an exclamation of impatience, as he led his young companion over to the sportsmen, who had joined each other again; and as he effected the introduction, his mind was sorely upset by dread of the two gentlemanly strangers and ’Tana.

’Tana was most shamelessly continuing her confidences with the tall Indian, despite the fact that she knew it was a decided annoyance to her principal escort. Altogether the evening was a trying one to Mr. T. J. Haydon.

The sun had passed far to the west, and the shadows were growing longer under the hills there by the river. Clear, red glints fell across the cool ripples of the water, and slight chill breaths drifted down the ravines and told that the death of summer was approaching.

Some sense of the beauty of the dying October day seemed to touch the girl, for she walked a little apart and picked a spray of scarlet maple leaves and looked from them to the hills and the beautiful valley, where the red and the yellow were beginning to crowd out the greens. Yes, the summer was dying – dying! Other summers would come in their turn, but none quite the same. The girl showed all the feeling of its loss in her face. In her eyes the quick tears came, as she looked at the mountains. The summer was dying; it was autumn’s colors she held in her hand, and she shivered, though she stood in the sunshine.

As she turned toward the group again, she met the eyes of the stranger to whom Max was talking. He seemed to have been watching her with a great deal of interest, and her hand was raised to her eyes, lest a trace of tears should prove food for curiosity.

“It was to one of Akkomi’s relations I was talking,” she remarked to Mr. Haydon, when he questioned her. “His little grandson is sick, and I would like to send him something. I haven’t money enough in my pocket, and wish you would get me some.”

After taking some money out of his purse for her, he eyed the tall savage with disfavor.

“He’ll buy bad whisky with it,” he grumbled.

“No, he will not,” contradicted the girl. “If a person treats these Indians square, he can trust them. But if a lie is told them, or a promise broken – well, they get even by tricking you if they can, and I can’t say that I blame them. But they won’t trick me, so don’t worry; and I’m as sure the things will go to that little fellow safely as though I took them.”