“I guess the camp will have to be big enough for you and me, too, a few days longer. I haven’t made up my mind as to when I want to go.”
“But the summer will not last long, now. You must commence to think of where you want to go; for when the cold weather comes, ’Tana, you can’t remain here.”
“I can if I want to,” she answered.
After one troubled, helpless look at her pale face, he walked out of the cabin; and Lyster, who had wanted to ask the result of the interview, could not find him all that evening. He had gone somewhere alone, up on the mountain.
She had answered him with a great deal of cool indifference; but when the two cousins entered her room, she was on the bed with her face buried in the pillows, weeping in an uncontrollable manner that filled them with dismay. The doctor decided that while Dan was a good fellow in most ways, he evidently had not a soothing influence on ’Tana, possibly not realizing the changed mental condition laid on her by her sickness. The doctor further made up his mind that, without hurting Dan’s feelings, he must find some other mouthpiece for his ideas concerning her or reason with her himself.
But, so far, she would only say she was not ready to go yet. Dan, wishing to make her stay comfortable as possible, went quietly to all the settlements within reach for luxuries in the way of house-furnishing, and had 229 Mrs. Huzzard use them in ’Tana’s cabin. But when he had done all this, she never asked a question as to where the comforts came from—she, who, a short month before, had valued each kind glance received from him.
Mrs. Huzzard was sorely afraid that it was pride, the pride of newly acquired wealth, that changed her from the gay, saucy girl into a moody, dreamy being, who would lie all alone for hours and not notice any of them coming and going. The good soul had many a heartache over it all, never guessing that it was an ache and a shame in the heart of the girl that made the new life that was given her seem a thing of little value.
’Tana had watched the squaw wistfully at times, as if expecting her to say something to her when the others were not around, but she never did. When ’Tana heard the ladies ask Lyster to go with them to a certain place where beautiful mosses were to be found, she waited with impatience until their voices left the door.
The squaw shook her head when asked in that whispering way of their departure; but when she had carried out the parasol and watched the party disappear beyond the numerous tents now dotting the spaces where the grass grew rank only a month before, then she slipped back and stood watchful and silent inside the door.
“Come close,” said the girl, motioning with a certain nervousness to her. She was not the brave, indifferent little girl she had been of old. “Come close—some one might listen, somewhere. I’ve been so sick—I’ve dreamed so many things that I can’t tell some days what is dream and what is true. I lie here and think and think, but it will not come clear. Listen! I think sometimes you and I hunted for tracks—a white man’s tracks—across there where the high ferns are. You showed them to me, 230 and then we came back when the moon shone, and it was light like day, and I picked white flowers. Some days I think of it—of the tracks, long, slim tracks, with the boot heel. Then my head hurts, and I think maybe we never found the tracks, maybe it is only a dream, like—like other things!”