The "Wild West" Collection. William MacLeod Raine

child!" exclaimed Mrs. Huzzard, totally scandalized. "A murder! Of course it is a crime--the greatest."

      "I don't think so. It is a greater crime to bring a soul into the world and then neglect it--let it drift into any hell on earth that nets it--than it is to send a soul out of the world, to meet heaven, if it deserves it. There are times when murder is justifiable, but there are certain other crimes that nothing could ever justify."

      "Why, 'Tana!" and Mrs. Huzzard looked at her helplessly. But Miss Slocum gave the girl a more understanding regard.

      "You speak very bitterly for a young girl; as if you had thought a great deal on this question."

      "I have," she acknowledged, promptly; "you think it is not a very nice question for girls to study about, don't you? Well, it isn't nice, but it's true. I happen to be one of the souls dragged into life by people who didn't think they had responsibilities. Miss Slocum, maybe that is why I am extra bitter on the subject."

      "But not--not against your parents, 'Tana?" said Mrs. Huzzard, in dismay.

      The girl's mouth drew hard and unlovely at the question.

      "I don't know much about religion," she said, after a little, "and I don't know that it matters much--now don't faint, Mrs. Huzzard! but I'm pretty certain old married men who had families were the ones who laid down the law about children in the Bible. They say 'spare the rod and spoil the child,' and then say 'honor your father and mother.' They seem to think it a settled thing that all fathers and mothers are honorable--but they ain't; and that all children need beating--and they don't."

      "Oh, 'Tana!"

      "And I think it is that one-sided commandment that makes folks think that all the duty must go from children to the parents, and not a word is said of the duty people owe to the souls they bring into the world. I don't think it's a square deal."

      "A square deal! Why, 'Tana!"

      "Isn't it so?" she asked, moodily. "You think a girl is a pretty hard case if she doesn't give proper respect and duty to her parents, don't you? But suppose they are the sort of people no one can respect--what then? Seems to me the first duty is from the parent to the children--the duty of caring for them, loving them, and teaching them right. A child can't owe a debt of duty when it never received the duties it should have first. Oh, I may not say this clearly as I feel it."

      "But you know, 'Tana," said Miss Slocum, "that if there is no commandment as to parents giving care to their children, it is only because it is so plainly a natural thing to do that it was unnecessary to command it."

      "No more natural than for a child to honor any person who is honorable, or to love the parent who loves him, and teaches him rightly. Huh! If a child is not able to love and respect a parent, it is the child who loses the most."

      Miss Slocum looked at her sadly.

      "I can't scold you as I would try to scold many a one in your place," she said, "for I feel as if you must have traveled over some long, hard path of troubles, before you could reach this feeling you have. But, 'Tana, think of brighter things; young girls should never drift into those perplexing questions. They will make you melancholy if you brood on such things."

      "Melancholy? Well, I think not," and she smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "Seems to me I'm the least gloomy person in camp this morning. All the rest of you look as though Mr. Holly had been your bosom friend."

      She talked recklessly--they thought heartlessly--of the murder, and the two women were strongly inclined to think the shock of the affair had touched her brain, for she showed no concern whatever as to her own position, but treated it as a joke. And when she realized that she was to a certain extent under guard, she seemed to find amusement in that, too. Her expressions, when the cousins grew pitiful over the handsome face of Holly, were touched with ridicule.

      "I wonder if there was ever a man too low and vile to get woman's pity, if he only had a pretty face," she said, caustically. "If he was an ugly, old, half-decent fellow, you wouldn't be making any soft-hearted surmises as to what he might have been under different circumstances. He has spoiled the lives of several tenderhearted women like you--yet you pity him!"

      "'Tana, I never knew you to be so set against any one as you are against that poor dead man," declared Mrs. Huzzard. "Not so much wonder the folks think you know how it happened, for you always had a helping word for the worst old tramp or beggarly Indian that came around; but for this man you have nothing but unkindness."

      "No," agreed the girl, "and you would like to think him a romantic victim of somebody, just because he is so good-looking. I'm going to talk to Harris. He won't sympathize with the wrong side, I am sure."

      He looked up eagerly as she entered, his eyes full of anxious question. She touched his hand kindly and sat close beside him as she talked.

      "You want to know all about it, don't you?" she asked, softly. "Well, it is all over. He was alive, after all, and I would not believe it. But now you need never trail him again, you can rest now, for he is dead. Somebody else has--has owed him a grudge, too. They think I am the somebody, but you don't believe that?"

      He shook his head decidedly.

      "No," she continued; "though for one moment, Joe, I thought that it might have been you. Yes, I did; for of course I knew it was only weakness would keep you from it, if you were in reach of him. But I remembered at once that it could not be, for the hand that struck him was strong."

      He assented in his silent way, and watched her face closely, as if to read the shadows of thought thrown on it by her feelings.

      "It's awful, ain't it?" she whispered. "It is what I said I hoped for, and just yet I can't be sorry--I can't! But, after this stir is all over, I know it will trouble me, make me sorry because I am not sorry now. I can't cry, but I do feel like screaming. And see! every once in a while my hands tremble; I tremble all over. Oh, it is awful!"

      She buried her face in her hands. Only to him did she show any of the feeling with which the death of the man touched her.

      "And you can't tell me anything of how it was done?" she said, at last. "You so near--did you see any one?"

      She longed to ask if he had seen Overton, but dared not utter his name, lest he might suspect as she did. Each hour that went by was an added gain to her for him. Of course he had struck, not knowing who the man was. If he had known, it would have been so easy to say, "I found him robbing the cabin. I killed him," and there would have been no further question concerning it.

      "But if all the other bars were beaten down between us, this one would keep me from ever shaking hands with him again. Why should it have been he out of all the camp? Oh, it makes my heart ache!"

      While she sat thus, with miserable thoughts, others came to the door, and looking up, she saw Akkomi, who looked on her with keen, accusing eyes.

      "No--it is not true, Akkomi," she said, in his own jargon. "Keep silent for a little while of the things these people do not know--a little while, and then I can tell you who it is I am shielding, but not yet."

      "Him!" and the eyes of the Indian turned to the paralytic.

      "No--not him; truly not," she said, earnestly. "It is some one you would want to help if you knew--some one who is going fast on the path from these people. They will learn soon it is not I; but till then, keep silence."

      "Dan--where?" he asked, laconically, and her face paled at the question.

      Had he any reason to suspect the dread in her own mind? But a moment's thought reassured her. He had asked simply because Overton seemed always to him the controlling spirit of the camp, and Overton was the one he would have speech with, if any.

      "Overton left last night for the lake," explained Lyster, who had entered and heard the name of Dan and the interrogative tone. Then the blanket was brought to Akkomi--his blanket, in which the man had died.

      "I sold it to the white man--that is all," he answered through 'Tana; and more than that he would not say except to inform them he would wait for Dan. Which was, in fact, the general desire