“And that is all you know of them?”
“All. Joe not like Indian friends,” and the old fellow’s eyes wrinkled up in the semblance of laughter; “too much tenderfoot, maybe.” 184
“But Joe’s partner,” persisted Overton, “he was not tenderfoot? He had Indian friends on the Columbia River.”
“Maybe,” agreed the old fellow, and his sly, bead-like eyes turned toward his questioner sharply and were as quickly withdrawn, “maybe so. They hunt silver over there. No good.”
Just inside the door Harris sat straining his ears to catch every word, and Akkomi’s assumption of bland ignorance brought a rather sardonic smile to his face, while his lips moved in voiceless mutterings of anger. Impatience was clearly to be read in his face as he waited for Overton to question further, and his right hand opened and closed in his eagerness.
But no other questions were asked just then; for Overton suddenly walked away, leaving the crafty-eyed Akkomi alone in his apparent innocence of Joe’s past or Joe’s partner.
The old fellow looked after him kindly enough, but shook his head and smoked his dirty black pipe, while an expression of undivulged knowledge adorned his withered physiognomy.
“No, Dan, no,” he murmured. “Akkomi good friend to little sick squaw and to you; but he not tell—not tell all things.”
Then his ears, not so keen as in years gone by, heard sounds on the water, sounds coming closer and closer. But Dan’s younger ears had heard them first, and it was to learn the cause that he had left so abruptly and walked to the edge of the stream.
It was the doctor and the Indian boatman who came in sight first around the bend of the creek. Back of them was another canoe, but a much larger, much more 185 pretentious one. In this was Lyster and a middle-aged gentleman of rather portly build, who dressed in a fashion very fine when compared with the average garb of the wilderness.