“Well, whether you can or not, I am glad I told you what I did. Maybe it won’t worry me so much now; for sometimes, just when I’m almost happy, the ghost of that bad hate seems to whisper, whisper, and there ain’t any more good times for me. I’m glad I told you. I would not have, though, if you could talk like other folks, but you can’t.”
She got him a drink of water, slipped their first find of the gold into his pocket, and then stood at the tent door, watching for Overton.
But he did not come, and after a little she picked up the pan again and started for the small stream where she had left him.
The man in the chair watched her go, and when she was out of sight, that right hand was again slowly raised from the chair.
“C—an’t I?” he whispered, in a strange, indistinct way. “Poor lit—tle girl! poor little—girl!”
CHAPTER XIII.
THE TRACK IN THE FOREST.
Their camp was about a mile from the Kootenai River, and close to a stream of depth sufficient to carry a canoe; while, a little way north of their camp, a beautiful spring of clear water gurgled out from under a little bank, and added its portion to the larger stream that flowed eastward to the river.