n into Idaho. I'm
not asking the name of the man you hate so; but if I am to acknowledge him
as an old acquaintance of mine, you had better tell me what business he
was in. You see, it might save complications if any one should run across
us some day and know."

"No one will know me," she said, decidedly. "If I didn't know that, I'd
stay right here, I think. And as to him, my fond parent," and she made a
grimace--"I guess you can call him a prospector and speculator--either of
those would be correct. I think they called him Jim, when he was
christened."

"Akkomi said last night you had been on the trail hunting for some one.
Was it a friend, or--or any one I could help you look for?"

"No, it wasn't a friend, and I'm done with the search and glad of it. Did
you," she added, looking at him darkly, "ever put in time hunting for any
one you didn't want to find?"

Without knowing it, Miss Rivers must have touched on a subject rather
sensitive to her guardian, for his face flushed, and he gazed at her
with a curious expression in his eyes.

"Maybe I have, little girl," he said at last. "I reckon I know how to let
your troubles alone, anyway, if I can't help them. But I must tell you,
Max--Max Lyster, you know--will be the only one very curious about your
presence here--as to the route you came, etc. You had better be prepared
for that."

"It won't be very hard," she answered, "for I came over from Sproats'
Landing, up to Karlo, and back down here."

"Over from Sproats--you?" he asked, looking at her nervously. "I heard
nothing of a white girl making that trip. When, and how did you do it?"

"Two weeks ago, and on foot," was the laconic reply. "As I had only a
paper of salt and some matches, I couldn't afford to travel in high style,
so I footed it. I had a ring and a blanket, and I traded them up at Karlo
for an old tub of a dugout, and got here in that."

"You had some one with you?"

"I was alone."

Overton looked at her with more of amazement than she had yet inspired in
him. He thought of that indescribably wild portage trail from the Columbia
to the Kootenai. When men crossed it, they preferred to go in company, and
this slip of a girl had dared its loneliness, its dangers alone. He
thought of the stories of death, by which the trail was haunted; of
prospectors who had verged from that dim path and had been lost in the
wilderness, where their bones were found by Indians or white hunters long
after; of stra