beside the girl, who never knew one from the other, but who talked of
gold--gold that was too heavy a load for her to carry--gold that ran in
streams where she tried to find water to drink and could not--gold that
Dan thought was better than friends or their pretty camp. And over those
woes she would moan until frightened from them by ghosts, the ghosts she
hated, and which she begged them so piteously to keep out of her sight.

So they had watched her for days, and toward the evening of the eighth
Overton was keeping an ever-watchful ear for the Indian and the doctor who
had gone personally to fetch needed medicines from the settlement.

Akkomi was there as usual. Each day he would come, sit in the doorway of
the Harris cabin for hours, and contemplate the helpless man there. When
evening arrived he would enter his canoe and go back to his own camp,
which at that time was not more than five miles away.

Overton, fearing that Harris would be painfully annoyed by the presence of
this self-invited visitor, offered to entertain him in his own tent, if
Harris preferred. But while Harris looked with no kindly eye on the old
fellow, he signified that the Indian should remain, if he pleased. This
was a decision so unexpected that Overton asked Harris if he had ever met
Akkomi before.

He received an affirmative nod, which awakened his curiosity enough to
make him question the Indian.

The old fellow nodded and smoked in silence for a little while before
making a reply; then he said:

"Yes, one summer, one winter ago, the man worked in the hills beyond the
river. Our hunters were there and saw him. His cabin is there still."

"Who was with him?"

"White man, stranger," answered Akkomi briefly. "This man stranger, too,
in the Kootenai country--stranger from away somewhere there," and he
pointed vaguely toward the east. "Name--Joe--so him called."

"And the other man?"

"Other man stranger, too--go way--never come back. This one go away, too;
but he come back."

"And that is all you know of them?"

"All. Joe not like Indian friends," and the old fellow's eyes wrinkled up
in the semblance of laughter; "too much tenderfoot, maybe."

"But Joe's partner," persisted Overton, "he was not tenderfoot? He had
Indian friends on the Columbia River."

"Maybe," agreed the old fellow, and his sly, bead-like eyes turned toward
his questioner sharply and were as quickly withdrawn, "maybe so. They hunt
silver over there. No good