."

She surveyed them each with baby scrutiny, and refused. "Bek-fas" was all
the world contained that she would give attention to just then.

"You with a baby, 'Tana?" said Harris. "Have you adopted one?"

"Not quite," and she wished--how she wished it was all over! "Her mother,
who is dead, gave her to me. But she has a father. I have come up here to
see what he will say."

"Up here!"

"Yes. But I must go and find some one to get her breakfast. Then--Dan--I
would like to see you."

He bowed and started to follow her, but Harris called him back.

"This spurt of strength has about done for me," he said. "The cold is
creeping up fast. I want to tell you something else. Don't tell her till I
am gone, for she wouldn't touch my hand if she knew it. I killed Lee
Holly!"

"You didn't--you couldn't!"

"I did. I was able to walk long before you knew it, but I lay low. I knew
if he was living, he would come where she was, sooner or later, and I knew
the gold would fetch him, so I waited. I could hardly keep from killing
him as he left her cabin that first night, but she had told him to come
back, and I knew that would be my time. She thought once it might be me,
but changed her mind. Don't tell her till I am gone, Dan. And--listen! You
are everything to her, and you don't know it. I knew it before she left,
but--Oh, well, it's all square now, I guess. She won't blame me--after
I'm dead. She knows he deserved it. She knew I meant to kill him, if ever
I was able."

"But why?"

"Don't you know? He was the man--my partner--who took Fannie away. Don't
you--understand?"

"Yes," and Overton, after a moment, shook hands with him.

"I didn't want 'Tana to go back on me--while I lived," he whispered. It
was his one reason for keeping silence--the dread that she could never
talk to him freely, nor ever clasp his hand again; and Overton promised
his wish should be regarded.

When he went to find 'Tana, Mrs. Huzzard had possession of her, and the
two women were seeing that the baby got her "bek-fas," and doing some
talking at the same time.

"And he's got his new boat, has he?" she was saying. "Well, now! And it's
to be a new house next, and a fine one, he says, if he can only get the
right woman to live in it," and she smoothed her hair complacently. "He
thinks a heap of fine manners in a woman, too; and right enough, for he'll
have an elegant home to put one in and she never to wet her hands in
dish-water! But he is so