So they had watched her for days, and toward the evening of the eighth Overton was keeping an ever-watchful ear for the Indian and the doctor who had gone personally to fetch needed medicines from the settlement. 183
Akkomi was there as usual. Each day he would come, sit in the doorway of the Harris cabin for hours, and contemplate the helpless man there. When evening arrived he would enter his canoe and go back to his own camp, which at that time was not more than five miles away.
Overton, fearing that Harris would be painfully annoyed by the presence of this self-invited visitor, offered to entertain him in his own tent, if Harris preferred. But while Harris looked with no kindly eye on the old fellow, he signified that the Indian should remain, if he pleased. This was a decision so unexpected that Overton asked Harris if he had ever met Akkomi before.
He received an affirmative nod, which awakened his curiosity enough to make him question the Indian.
The old fellow nodded and smoked in silence for a little while before making a reply; then he said:
“Yes, one summer, one winter ago, the man worked in the hills beyond the river. Our hunters were there and saw him. His cabin is there still.”
“Who was with him?”
“White man, stranger,” answered Akkomi briefly. “This man stranger, too, in the Kootenai country—stranger from away somewhere there,” and he pointed vaguely toward the east. “Name—Joe—so him called.”
“And the other man?”
“Other man stranger, too—go way—never come back. This one go away, too; but he come back.”