his hand and
stroked it with a sort of sympathy. "Joe, can you forgive him now?" she
whispered.

He made her no reply; only closed his eyes as before.

"You can't, then? and I can't ask you to, though I suppose I ought to.
Margaret would," and she smiled strangely. "You don't know Margaret, do
you? Well, neither do I. But I guess she is the sort of girl I ought to
be. Joe, I can't stay in camp any longer. Maybe I'll leave for the Ferry
to-day. Will you miss me? Yes, I know you will," she added, "and I will
miss you, too. Do you know--can you tell when Dan will come back?"

He shook his head, and an hour later she said to Max:

"Take me away from here, back to the Ferry--any place. Mrs. Huzzard will,
maybe, come for a few days--or Miss Slocum. Ask them, and let me go
soon."

And an hour after they had started, another canoe went slowly over the
water toward the Kootenai River, a canoe guided by Akkomi; and in it lay
the blanket-draped figure of the man whose death was yet a mystery to the
camp. He was at least borne to his resting place by a friend, though what
the reason for Akkomi's faithfulness, no one ever knew; for some favor in
the past, no doubt. Seldon knew that 'Tana would rather Akkomi should be
the one to cover his grave, though where it was made, no white man ever
knew.

CHAPTER XXV.

ON MANHATTAN ISLAND.

"What do you intend to make of your life, Montana, since you avoid all
questions of marriage? You will not go to school, and care nothing about
fitting yourself for the society where by right you should belong."

A whole winter had gone, and the springtime had come again; and over all
the Island of Manhattan, and on the heights back from the rivers, the
green of the leaves was creeping over the boughs from which winter had
swept all signs of life months ago.

In a very lovely little room, facing a park where the glitter of a tiny
lake could be seen, 'Tana lounged and stared at the waving branches and
the fettered water.

Not just the same 'Tana as when, a year ago, she had breasted the cold
waves of the Kootenai. No one, to look at her now, would connect the
taller, stylishly dressed figure, with that little half-savage who had
scowled at Overton in the lodge of Akkomi. Her hair was no longer short
and boyish in its arrangement. A silver comb held it in place, except
where the tiny curls crept down to cluster about her neck. A gown of soft
white wool was caught at her waist by a flat w