move in a society more refined than these mining
camps can afford. It will be a disadvantage to you if you carry with you
customs and memories of this unfinished section. And after all, you do not
belong here, your family was of the East. When you go back there, it would
be policy for you to forget that you had ever lived anywhere else."

Mr. Haydon had never made so long a speech to her before, and it was
delivered with a certain persistence, as if it was a matter of conscience
he would be relieved to have off his mind.

"I think you are mistaken when you say I do not belong here," she
answered, coolly. "Some of my family have been a good many things I
don't intend to be. I was born in Montana; and I might have starved to
death for any help my 'family' would have given me, if I hadn't struck
luck and helped myself here in Idaho. So I think I belong out here, and if
I live, I will come back again--some day."

She turned to Seldon and pointed to the dead form.

"They will take him away to-day--I heard them say so," she said quietly.
"Let it be somewhere away from the camp--not near--not where I can see."

"Can't you forget--even now, 'Tana?"

"Does anybody ever forget?" she asked. "When people say they can forget
and forgive, I don't trust them, for I don't believe them."

"Have you any idea who killed him?" he asked. "It is certainly a strange
affair. I thought you might suspect some one these people know nothing
of."

But she shook her head. "No," she said. "There were several who would have
liked to do it, I suppose--people he had wronged or ruined; for he had few
friends left, or he would not have come across to these poor reds to hide.
Give old Akkomi part of that gold; he was faithful to me--and to him, too.
No, I don't know who did it. I don't care, now. I thought I knew once; but
I was wrong. This way of dying is better than the rope; and that is what
the law would have given him. He would have chosen this--I know."

"Did you ever in your life hear such cold-blooded words from a girl?"
demanded Haydon, when she left them and went to Harris. "Afraid of her?
Humph! Well, some people would be. No wonder they suspected her when she
showed such indifference. Every word she says makes me regret more and
more that I acknowledged her. But how was I to know? She was ill, and
made me feel as if a ghost had come before me. I couldn't sleep till I had
made up my mind to take the risk of her. Max sung her praises as i