The "Wild West" Collection. William MacLeod Raine

      "But you never did me any harm, Joe."

      "Yes, I did--lots. You didn't know--but I did. That's why I wanted you to come so bad. I wanted to square things--before I had to go."

      "But you are all right, Joe. You are not going to die. You are much better than when I saw you last."

      "Because I can talk, you think so," he answered. "But I am cold to my waist--I know what that means; and I ain't grumbling. It's all right, now that you have come. Queer that all the time we've known each other, this is the first time I've talked to you! 'Tana, you must let me tell Dan Overton all--"

      "All! All what?"

      "Where I saw you first, and--"

      "No--no, I can't do that," she said, shrinking back. "Joe, I've tried often to think of it--of telling him, but I never could. He will have to trust or distrust me, but I can't tell him."

      "I know how you feel; but you wrong yourself. Any one would give you credit instead of blaming you--don't you ever think of that? And then--then, 'Tana, I tried to tell him down at the Ferry, because I thought you were in some game against him. I managed to tell him you were Holly's partner, but hadn't got any farther when the paralysis caught me. I hadn't time to tell him that Holly was your father, and that he made you go where he said; or that you dressed as a boy and was called 'Monte,' because that disguise was the only safety possible for you in the gambling dens where he took you. Part of it I didn't understand clearly at that time. I didn't know you really thought he was dead, and that you tramped alone into this region in your boy's clothes, so you could get a new start where no white folks knew you. I told him just enough to wrong you in his eyes, and then could not tell him enough to right you again. Now do you know why I want you to let me tell him all--while I can?"

      It had taken him a long time to say the words; his articulation had grown indistinct at times, and the excitement was wearing on him.

      Once the door into the room where the child lay swung open noiselessly, and he had turned his eyes in that direction; but the girl's head was bowed on the arm of his chair, and she did not notice it.

      "And then--there are other things," he continued. "He don't know you were the boy Fannie spoke of in that letter; or that she gave you the plot of this land; or, more--far more to me!--that you took care of her till she died. All that must give him many a worried thought, 'Tana, that you never counted on, for he liked you--and yet all along he has been made to think wrong of you."

      "I know," she assented. "He blamed me for--for a man being in my cabin that night, and I--I wanted him to--think well of me; but I could not tell him the truth, I was ashamed of it all my life. And the shame has got in my blood till I can't change it. I want him to know, but I can't tell him."

      "You don't need to," said a voice back of her, and she arose to see Overton standing in the door. "I did not mean to listen; but I stopped to look at the child, and I heard. I hope you are not sorry," and he came over to her with outstretched hand.

      She could not speak at first. She had dreamed of so many ways in which she would meet him--of what she would say to him; and now she stood before him without a word.

      "Don't be sorry, 'Tana," he said, and tightened his hand over her own. "I honor you for what I heard just now. You were wrong not to tell me; I might have saved you some troubles."

      "I was ashamed--ashamed!" she said, and turned away.

      "But it is not to me all this should be told," he said, more coldly. "Max is the one to know; or, maybe, he does know."

      "He knows a little--not much. Seldon and Haydon recognized--Holly. So the family knew that, but no more."

      It was so hard for her to talk to him there, where Harris looked from one to the other expectantly.

      And then the child slipped from the couch and came toddling into the light and to the girl.

      "Tana--bek-fas!" she lisped, imperatively. "Bek-fas."

      "Yes, you shall have your breakfast very soon," promised the girl. "But come and shake hands with these gentlemen."

      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 backward like; but maybe this time--"

      "Oh, you must cure him of that," laughed the girl. "He is a splendid fellow, and I won't forgive you if you don't marry him before the summer is over."

      At that instant Overton opened the door.

      "If you are ready now to see me--" he began, and she nodded her head and went toward him, her face a little pale and visibly embarrassed.

      Then she turned and went back.

      "Come, Toddles," she said; "you come with 'Tana."

      A faint flush was tingeing the east, and over the water-courses a silvery mist was spread. She looked out from the window and then up the mountain.

      "Let us go out--up on the bluff," she suggested. "I have been shut up in houses so long! I want to feel that the trees are close to me again."

      He assented in silence and the child, having appeased its hunger, was disposed to be more gracious, and the little hands were reached to him while she said:

      "Up."

      He lifted her to his shoulder, where she laughed down in high glee at the girl who walked beside in silence. It was so much easier to plan, while far away from him, what she would say, than to say it.

      But he himself broke the silence.

      "You call her Toddles," he remarked. "It is not a pretty name for so pretty