te thief, so I tell you.
Me tell Dan?"

"Wait," answered the girl; and, kneeling down, she studied the slender
outline of the foot attentively. "Any more tracks?"

"No more--only leaves stirred nearer to camp; he go that way."

The full moon rose clear and warm in the east, while yet the sun's light
lingered over the wilderness. Beautiful flowers shone white and pink and
yellow in the opaline light of the evening; and 'Tana mechanically plucked
a few that touched her as she passed, but she gave little notice to their
beauty. All her thought was on the slender footprint of the man in the
woods, and her face looked troubled.

They walked on, looking to right and left in any nook where deep shadows
lay, but never a sign could they see of aught that was human besides
themselves, until they neared the springs again, when the squaw laid her
hand on the arm of the girl.

"Dan," she said, in her low, abrupt way.

The girl, looking up, saw him a little way ahead of them, standing there
straight, strong, and surely to be trusted; yet her first impulse was to
tell him nothing.

"Take the water and go," she said to the Indian, and the woman disappeared
like a mere wraith of a woman in the pale shadows.

"Don't go so far next time when you want to pick flowers in the evening,"
said Overton, as 'Tana came nearer to him. "You make me realize that I
have nerves. If you had not come in sight the instant you did, I should
have been after you."

"But nothing will harm us; I am not afraid, and it is pretty in the woods
now," she answered lamely, and toyed with the flowers. But the touch of
her fingers was nervous, and the same quality trembled in her voice. He
noticed it and reaching out took her hand in his very gently, and yet with
decision that forced her to look up at him.

"Little girl--what is it? You are sick?"

She shook her head.

"No, I am not--I am not sick," and she tried to free her hand, but could
not.

"'Tana," and his teeth closed for a moment on his lip lest he say all the
warm words that leaped up from his heart at sight of her face, which
looked startled and pale in the moonlight--"'Tana, you won't need me very
long; and when you go away, I'll never try to make you remember me. Do you
understand, little girl? But just now, while we are so far off from the
rest of the world, won't you trust me with your troubles--with the
thoughts that worry you? I would give half of my life to help you. Half of
it! Ah, g