r; "for I am convinced that anything human
would in your eyes suffer by such a comparison. Great is Dan in the camp
of the Kootenais!"

Mrs. Huzzard only laughed at his words, but Miss Lavina did not. She even
let her eyes wander again to Akkomi, in order to show her disapproval of
frivolous comment on Mr. Overton; a fact Lyster perceived and was
immensely amused by.

"She has set her covetous maidenly eyes on him, and if she doesn't marry
him before the year is over, he will have to be clever," he decided, as he
left them and went to look up Haydon. "Serves Dan right if she did, for he
never gives any other fellow half a chance with the old ladies. The rest
of us have to be content with the young ones."

CHAPTER XVI.

THROUGH THE NIGHT.

The soft dusk of the night had fallen over the northern lands, and the
pale stars had gleamed for hours on the reflecting waves of mountain
streams. It was late--near midnight, for the waning sickle of the moon was
slipping from its dark cover in the east and hanging like a jewel of gold
just above the black crown of the pines. Breaths from the heights sifted
down through the vast woods, carrying sometimes the dreary twitter of a
bird disturbed, or the mellow call of insects singing to each other of the
summer night. All sounds of the wilderness were as echoes of rest and
utter content.

And in the camp of the Twin Springs, shadows moved sometimes with a
silence that was scarce a discord in the wood songs of repose. A camp fire
glimmered faintly a little way up from the stream, and around it slept the
Indian boatman, the squaw, and old Akkomi, who, to the surprise of
Overton, had announced his intention of remaining until morning, that he
might know how the sickness went with the little "Girl-not-Afraid."

A dim light showed through the chinks of 'Tana's cabin, where Miss Lavina,
the doctor, and Lyster were on guard for the night. The doctor had grown
sleepy and moved into Harris' room, where he could be comfortable on
blankets. Lyster, watching the girl, was trying to make himself think that
their watching was all of no use; her sleep seemed so profound, so
healthfully natural, that he could not bring himself to think, as Dan did,
that the doctor's worst prophecy could come true--that out of that sleep
she might awake to consciousness, or that, on the other hand, she might
drift from sleep to lethargy and thus out of life.

Outside a man stood peering in through a chi