all three. I have no money here. You will
have to come again for it to-morrow night."

"A trick--is it?"

"It is no trick. I haven't got it, that is all. Maybe I can't get it in
money, but I will get it in free gold by to-morrow at dusk. I will put it
here under the pillow, and will manage to keep the rest away at that time.
You can come as you came this evening, and get it; but I will neither take
it nor send it to you. You will have to risk your freedom and your life to
come for it. But while I can't quite decide to give you up or to kill you,
myself, I hope some one else will."

"Hope what you please," he returned, indifferently. "So long as you get
the dust for me, I can stand your opinion. And you will have it here?"

"I will have it here."

"I trust you only because I know you can't afford to go back on me," he
said, as he wrapped the blanket around him, and dropped his taller form to
the height of Akkomi. "It is a bargain, then, my dear. Good-night."

"I don't wish you a good-night," she answered. "I hope I shall never see
you alive again."

And she never did.

CHAPTER XX.

'TANA'S ENGAGEMENT

"And she wants a thousand dollars in money or free gold--a thousand
dollars to-day?"

"No use asking me what for, Dan, for I don't know," confessed Lyster. "I
can't see why she don't tell you herself; but you know she has been a
little queer since the fever--childish, whimsical, and all that. Maybe as
she has not yet handled any specie from your bonanza, she wants some only
to play with, and assure herself it is real."

"Less than a thousand in money and dust would do for a plaything,"
remarked Overton. "Of course she has a right to get what she wants; but
that amount will be of no use to her here in camp, where there is not a
thing in the world to spend it for."

"Maybe she wants to pension off some of her Indian friends before she
leaves," suggested Max--"old Akkomi and Flap-Jacks, perhaps. I am a little
like Miss Slocum in my wonder as to how she endures them, though, of
course, the squaw is a necessity."

"Oh, well, she was not brought up in the world of Miss Slocum--or your
world, either," answered Overton. "You should make allowance for that."

"Make allowance--I?" and Lyster looked at him curiously. "Are you trying
to justify her to me? Why, man, you ought to know by this time what keeps
me here a regular lounger around camp, and there is no need to make
excuses for her to me. I thought you