“I did. I was able to walk long before you knew it, but I lay low. I knew if he was living, he would come where she was, sooner or later, and I knew the gold would fetch him, so I waited. I could hardly keep from killing him as he left her cabin that first night, but she had told him to come back, and I knew that would be my time. She thought once it might be me, but changed her mind. Don’t tell her till I am gone, Dan. And—listen! You are everything to her, and you don’t know it. I knew it before she left, but—Oh, well, it’s all 353 square now, I guess. She won’t blame me—after I’m dead. She knows he deserved it. She knew I meant to kill him, if ever I was able.”
“But why?”
“Don’t you know? He was the man—my partner—who took Fannie away. Don’t you—understand?”
“Yes,” and Overton, after a moment, shook hands with him.
“I didn’t want ’Tana to go back on me—while I lived,” he whispered. It was his one reason for keeping silence—the dread that she could never talk to him freely, nor ever clasp his hand again; and Overton promised his wish should be regarded.
When he went to find ’Tana, Mrs. Huzzard had possession of her, and the two women were seeing that the baby got her “bek-fas,” and doing some talking at the same time.
“And he’s got his new boat, has he?” she was saying. “Well, now! And it’s to be a new house next, and a fine one, he says, if he can only get the right woman to live in it,” and she smoothed her hair complacently. “He thinks a heap of fine manners in a woman, too; and right enough, for he’ll have an elegant home to put one in and she never to wet her hands in dish-water! But he is so backward like; but maybe this time—”
“Oh, you must cure him of that,” laughed the girl. “He is a splendid fellow, and I won’t forgive you if you don’t marry him before the summer is over.”
At that instant Overton opened the door.
“If you are ready now to see me—” he began, and she nodded her head and went toward him, her face a little pale and visibly embarrassed.