He smiled, for her tone told him she was yielding.
“Oh, no—not much,” he confessed, “but you can tell me, you know.”
“I know I can, but I won’t,” she said, doggedly. “So I guess you’ll just move on down to the ferry without me. He knows, and he says I can live here if I want to. I’m tired of the white people. A girl alone is as well with the Indians. I think so, anyway, and I guess I’ll try camping with them. They don’t ask a word—only what I tell myself. They don’t even care whether I have a name; they would give me one if I hadn’t.”
“A suitable name—and a nice Indian one—for you would be, ’The Water Rat’ or ’The Girl Who Swims.’ Maybe,” he added, “they will hunt you up one more like poetry in books (the only place one finds poetry in Indians), ’Laughing Eyes,’ or ’The One Who Smiles.’ Oh, yes, they’ll find you a name fast enough. So will I, if you have none. But you have, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I have, and it’s ’Tana,” said the girl, piqued into telling by the humorous twinkle in the man’s eyes.
“’Tana? Why, that itself is an Indian name, is it not? And you are not Indian.”
“It’s ’Tana, for short. Montana is my name.” 42
“It is? Well, you’ve got a big name, little girl, and as it is proof that you belong to the States, don’t you think you’d better let me take you back there?”
“I ain’t going down among white folks who will turn up their noses at me, just because you found me among these redskins,” she answered, scowling at him and speaking very deliberately. “I know how proud decent women are, and I ain’t going among any other sort and that’s settled.”
“Why, you poor little one, what sort of folks have you been among?” he asked, compassionately. Her stubborn antagonism filled him with more of pity than tears could have done; it showed so much suspicion, that spoke of horrible associations, and she was so young!