A lighted match threw a flickering light over the page, on which he said:
“Joe is worse. He wants you. Will you come back?
“Dan Overton.”
She folded it up and held it tight in her hand under the cloak she wore. He had sent for her! Ah! how long the night would be, for not until dawn could she answer his message.
“We will go on,” she said. “Can’t you spare us a boatman? Mr. McCoy has outstripped our Indian extras who have our outfit, and he needs a little rest, though he won’t own up.”
“Why, of course! Our errand is over, too, so we’ll turn back with you. I just passed Akkomi a few miles back. He is coming North with the season, as usual. I thought the old fellow would freeze out with the winter; but there he was drifting North to a camping-place he wanted to reach before stopping. I suppose we’ll have him for a neighbor all summer again.”
The girl, remembering his antipathy to all of the red race, laughed and raised in her arms the child, that had awakened.
“All I needed to perfect my return to the Kootenai country was the presence of Akkomi,” she confessed. “I should have missed him, for he was my first friend in the valley. And it may be, Mr. McCoy, that if he is inclined to be friendly to-night, I may ask him to take me the rest of the way. I want to talk to him. He is an old friend.”
“Certainly,” agreed McCoy; but he evidently thought her desire was a very peculiar one.
“But you will have a friend at court just the same—whether 347 I go all the way with you or not,” she said and smiled across at him knowingly.