She noticed Akkomi outside the door, but did not speak to him. She heard the miner enter the other cabin and assist Harris to his couch and then depart. She wondered a little that the old Indian still sat there smoking, instead of spreading his blanket, as Overton had invited him to do.
A book of poems, presented to her by Lyster, was so engrossing, however, that she forgot the old fellow, until a movement at the door aroused her, and she turned to find the silent smoker inside her cabin.
But it was not Akkomi, though it was the cloak of Akkomi that fell from his shoulders.
It was a man dressed as an Indian, but his speech was the speech of a white man, as he frowned on her white, startled face.
“So, my fine lady, I’ve found you at last, even if you have got too high and mighty to come when I sent for you,” he said, growlingly. “But I’ll change your tune very quick for you.”
“Don’t forget that I can change yours,” she retorted. “A word from me, and you know there is not a man in this camp wouldn’t help land you where you belong—in a prison, or at the end of a rope.”
“Oh, no,” and he grimaced in a sardonic way. “I’m not a bit afraid of that—not a bit in the world. You can’t afford it. These high-toned friends you’ve been making might drop off a little if they heard your old record.” 253
“And who made it for me?” she demanded. “You! You’ve been a curse to every one connected with you. In that other room is a man who might be strong and well to-day but for you. And there is that girl buried over there by the picture rocks of Arrow Lake. Think of my mother, dragged to death through the slums of ’Frisco! And me—”
“And you with a gold mine, or the price of one,” he concluded—“plenty of money and plenty of friends. That is about the facts of your case—friends, from millionaires down to that digger I saw you with the other night.”
“Don’t you dare say a word against him!” she exclaimed, threateningly.