But Overton looked at him suspiciously. It was impossible that he could have heard of her illness so soon, though he might have heard of her presence there.
“Were any of your people here at nightfall yesterday?” he asked. The old fellow shook his head.
“No, none of my people,” he said briefly; then he puffed away at his pipe, and looked approvingly at Mrs. Huzzard, who tried to pass him without turning her back to him at all, and succeeded in making a circuit bearing some relation to progress made before a throne, though the relationship was rather strained. His approving eyes filled her with terror; for, much as she had reveled in Indian romances (on paper) in her youth, she had no desire to take any active part in them in her middle age.
And so, with the help of the doctor and Mrs. Huzzard, they commenced the nursing of ’Tana back to consciousness and health. Night after night Dan walked alone in the waning moonlight, his heart filled with remorse and blame for which he could find no relief. The gathering of the gold had no longer allurements for him.
But he moved Harris’ tent on to one of the claims, and he cut small timber, and in a day and a half had a little log house of two rooms put up and chinked with dry moss and roofed with bark, that ’Tana might have a home of her own, and have it close to where the ore 180 streaked with gold had been found. Then he sent the Indians up the river again, and did with his own hands all labor needed about the camp.
“You’ll be sick yourself, Overton,” growled the doctor, who slept in the tent with him, and knew that scarce an hour of the night passed that he was not at the door of ’Tana’s cabin, to learn if any help was needed, or merely to stand without and listen to her voice as she spoke.
“For mercy’s sake, Mr. Dan, do be a little careful of yourself,” entreated Mrs. Huzzard; “for if you should get used up, I don’t know what I ever would do here in this wilderness, with ’Tana and the paralyzed man and you to look after—to say nothing of the fear I’m in every hour because o’ that nasty beast of an Indian that you say is a chief. He is here constant!”
“Proof of your attractive powers,” said Overton, reassuringly. “He comes to admire you, that is all.”
“And enough, too! And if it wasn’t for you that’s here to protect me, the good Lord only knows whether I’d ever see a milliner shop or a pie again, as long as I lived. So I am set on your taking more care of yourself—now won’t you?”
“Wait until you have cause, before you worry,” he advised, “I don’t look like a sick man, do I?”