that was a year ago, and he had just asked another girl to marry him--a girl who did not look at him at all, but whose eyes were on the swift-flowing current--troubled eyes, that made him long to take care of her.
"Won't you speak to me at all?" he asked. "I will do anything to help you, 'Tana--anything at all."
She nodded her head slowly.
"Yes--now," she answered. "So would Mr. Haydon, Max."
"'Tana! do you mean--" His face flushed hotly, and he looked at her for the first time with anger in his face.
She put out her hand in a tired, pleading way.
"I only mean that now, when I have been lucky enough to help myself, it seems as if every one thinks I need looking after so much more than they used to. Maybe because I am not strong yet--maybe so; I don't know." Then she smiled and looked at him curiously.
"But I made a mistake when I said 'every one,' didn't I? For Dan never comes near me any more."
Then the strange canoes came in sight and very close to them, as they turned a bend in the creek. There were three large boats--one carrying freight, one filled with new men for the works, and in the other--the foremost one--was Mr. Haydon, and a tall, thin, middle-aged stranger.
"Uncle Seldon!" exclaimed Lyster, with animation, and held the canoe still in the water, that the other might come close, and in a whisper he said:
"The one to the right is Mr. Haydon."
He glanced at her and saw she was making a painful effort at self-control.
"Don't worry," he whispered. "We will just speak, and drift on past them."
But when they called greeting to each other, and the Indian boatman was told to send their craft close to the little camp canoe, she raised her head and looked very levelly across the stranger, who had hair so like her own, and spoke to the Indian who paddled their boat as though he were the only one there to notice.
"Plucky!" decided Mr. Haydon, "and stubborn;" but he kept those thoughts to himself, and said aloud: "My dear young lady, I am indeed pleased to see you so far recovered since my last visit. I presume you know who I am," and he looked at her in a smiling, confidential way.
"Yes, I know who you are. Your name is Haydon, and--there is a piece of your letter."
She picked up a fragment of paper that had fallen at her feet, and flung it out from her on the water. Mr. Haydon affected not to see the pettish act, but turned to his companion.
"Will you allow me, Miss Rivers, to introduce another member of our firm? This is Mr. Seldon. Seldon, this is the young girl I told you of."
"I knew it before you spoke," said the other man, who looked at her with a great deal of interest, and a great deal of kindness. "My child, I was your mother's friend long ago. Won't you let me be yours?"
She reached out her hand to him, and the quick tears came to her eyes. She trusted without question the earnest gray eyes of the speaker, and turned from her own uncle to the uncle of Max.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE MAN IN AKKOMI'S CLOAK.
"My dear fellow, there is, of course, no way of thanking you sufficiently for your care of her; but I can only say I am mighty glad to know a man like you."
It was Mr. Seldon who said so, and Dan Overton looked embarrassed and deprecating under the praise he had to accept.
"It is all right for you to make a fuss over it, Seldon," he returned; "but you know, as well as you know dinner time, that you would have done no less if you had found a young girl anywhere without a home--and especially if you found her in an Indian camp."
"Did she give you any information as to how she came to be there?"
Overton looked at him good-naturedly, but shook his head.
"I can't give you any information about that," he answered. "If you want to know anything of her previous to meeting her here, she will have to tell you."
"But she won't. I can't understand it; for I can see no need of mystery. I knew her mother when she was a girl like 'Tana, and--"
"You did?"
"Yes, I did. So now, perhaps, you will understand why I take such an interest in her--why Mr. Haydon takes an interest in her. Simply because she is his niece."
"Oh, she is--is she? And he came here, found her dying, or next door to it, and never claimed her."
"No; that is a little way of his," acknowledged his partner. "If she had really died, he never would have said a word about it, for it would have caused him a lot of troublesome explanation at home. But I guess he knew I would be likely to come across her. She is the very image of what her mother was. He told me the whole story of how he found her here, and all. And now he wants to do the proper thing and take her home with him."
"The devil he does!" growled Overton. "Well, why do you come to me about it?"
"Your influence with her was one thing," answered Mr. Seldon, with a dubious smile at the dark face before him. "This _protge_ of yours has a will of her own, it seems, and refuses utterly to acknowledge her aristocratic relations, refuses to be a part of her uncle's household; and we want your influence toward changing her mind."
"Well, you'll never get it," and the tone was decided as the words. "If she says she is no relation to anybody, I'll back her up in it, and not ask her her reasons, either. If she doesn't want to go with Mr. Haydon, she is the only one I will allow to decide, unless he brings a legal order from some court, and I might try to hinder him even then. She willingly came under my guardianship, and when she leaves it, it must be willingly."
"Oh, of course there will be no coercion about the matter," explained Mr. Seldon, hastily. "But don't you, yourself, think it would be a decided advantage for her to live for a while with her own relatives?"
"I am in no position to judge. I don't know her relatives. I don't know why it is that she has not been taken care of by them long ago; and I am not asking any questions. She knows, and that is enough; and I am sure her reasons for not going would satisfy me."
"Well, you are a fine specimen to come to for influence," observed the other. "She has a grudge against Haydon, that is the obstacle--a grudge, because he quarreled with her mother long ago. I thought that as you have done so much for her, your word might have weight in showing her the folly of it."
"My word would have no more weight than yours," he answered, curtly. "All I have done for her amounts to nothing; and I've an idea that if she wanted me to know her family affairs, she would tell me."
"Which, interpreted, means that I had better be at other business than gossiping," said Mr. Seldon, with much good humor. "Well, you are a fine pair, and something alike, too--you goldfinders! She snubbed Max for trying to persuade her, and you snub me. As a last resort, I think I shall try to get that old Indian into our lobbying here. He is her next great friend, I hear."
"I haven't seen him in camp to-day, for a wonder; but he is sure to be around before night."
"But, you see, we are to go on up to the new works on the lake to-day, and be back day after to-morrow. I wish you, too, could go up to-morrow, for I would like your judgment about some changes we expect to make. Could you leave here for twenty-four hours?"
"I'll try," promised Overton. "But the new men from the Ferry will be up to-day or to-morrow, so I may not reach there until you are about ready to start back."
"Come anyway, if you can, I don't seem to get much chance to talk to you here in camp--maybe I could on the river. You may be in a more reasonable mood about 'Tana by that time, and try to influence her to partake of civilization."
"'Civilization!' Oh, yes, of course, you imagine it all lies east of the Appalachian range," remarked Overton, slightingly. "I expect that from a man of Haydon's stamp, but not from you."
Seldon only laughed.
"One would think