."

Just inside the door Harris sat straining his ears to catch every word,
and Akkomi's assumption of bland ignorance brought a rather sardonic smile
to his face, while his lips moved in voiceless mutterings of anger.
Impatience was clearly to be read in his face as he waited for Overton to
question further, and his right hand opened and closed in his eagerness.

But no other questions were asked just then; for Overton suddenly walked
away, leaving the crafty-eyed Akkomi alone in his apparent innocence of
Joe's past or Joe's partner.

The old fellow looked after him kindly enough, but shook his head and
smoked his dirty black pipe, while an expression of undivulged knowledge
adorned his withered physiognomy.

"No, Dan, no," he murmured. "Akkomi good friend to little sick squaw and
to you; but he not tell--not tell all things."

Then his ears, not so keen as in years gone by, heard sounds on the water,
sounds coming closer and closer. But Dan's younger ears had heard them
first, and it was to learn the cause that he had left so abruptly and
walked to the edge of the stream.

It was the doctor and the Indian boatman who came in sight first around
the bend of the creek. Back of them was another canoe, but a much larger,
much more pretentious one. In this was Lyster and a middle-aged
gentleman of rather portly build, who dressed in a fashion very fine when
compared with the average garb of the wilderness.

Overton watched with some surprise the approach of the man, who was an
utter stranger to him, and yet who bore a resemblance to some one seen
before. A certain something about the shape of the nose and general
contour of the face seemed slightly familiar. He had time to notice, also,
that the hair was auburn in color, and inclined to curl, and that back of
him sat a female form. By the time he had made these observations, their
boat had touched the shore, and Lyster was shaking his hand vigorously.

"I got your letter, telling me of your big strike. It caught me before I
was quite started for Helena, so I just did some talking for you where I
thought it would do the most good, old fellow, and turned right around and
came back. I've been wild to hear about 'Tana. How is she? This is my
friend, Mr. T. J. Haydon, my uncle's partner, you know. He has made this
trip to talk a little business with you, and when I learned you were not
at the settlement, but up here in camp, I thought it would be all right to
fetch him a