A moment later he reached the lodge of the old chief and, without ceremony, walked in to the center of it.
A slight fire was there,—just enough to kill the dampness of the river’s edge, and over it the old squaw of Akkomi bent, raking the dry sticks, until the flames fluttered upward and outlined the form of the chief, coiled on a pile of skins and blankets against the wall.
He nodded a welcome, said “Klehowyeh,” and motioned with his pipe that his visitor should be seated on another pile of clothing and bedding, near his own person.
Then it was that Overton discovered a fourth person in the shadows opposite him—the white woman he had been curious about.
And it was not a woman at all,—only a girl of perhaps sixteen years instead—who shrank back into the gloom, and frowned on him with great, dark, unchildlike eyes, and from under brows wide and straight as those of a 36 sculptor’s model for a young Greek god; for, if any beauty of feature was hers, it was boyish in its character. As for beauty of expression, she assuredly did not cultivate that. The curved red mouth was sullen and the eyes antagonistic.
One sharp glance showed Overton all this, and also that there was no Indian blood back of the rather pale cheek.
“So you got out of the water alive, did you?” he asked, in a matter of fact way, as though the dip in the river was a usual thing to see.
She raised her eyes and lowered them again with a sort of insolence, as though to show her resentment of the fact that he addressed her at all.
“I rather guess I’m alive,” she answered, curtly, and the visitor turned to the chief.
“I saw to-day your child’s child in the waters of the Kootenai. I saw the white friend lifting him up out of the river, and fighting with death for him. It would have been a good thing for a man to do, Akkomi. I crossed the water to-night, to see if your boy is well once more, or if there is any way I can do service for the young white squaw who is your friend.”