As she turned toward the group again, she met the eyes of the stranger to whom Max was talking. He seemed to have been watching her with a great deal of interest, and her hand was raised to her eyes, lest a trace of tears should prove food for curiosity.
“It was to one of Akkomi’s relations I was talking,” she remarked to Mr. Haydon, when he questioned her. “His little grandson is sick, and I would like to send him something. I haven’t money enough in my pocket, and wish you would get me some.”
After taking some money out of his purse for her, he eyed the tall savage with disfavor.
“He’ll buy bad whisky with it,” he grumbled.
“No, he will not,” contradicted the girl. “If a person treats these Indians square, he can trust them. But if a lie is told them, or a promise broken—well, they get even by tricking you if they can, and I can’t say that I blame them. But they won’t trick me, so don’t worry; and I’m as sure the things will go to that little fellow safely as though I took them.”
She was giving the money and some directions to the Indian, when a word from a squaw drew her attention to the river.
A canoe had just turned the bend not a quarter of a mile away, and was skimming the water with the swiftness of a swallow’s dart. Only one man was in it, and he was coming straight for the landing.
“Some miner rushing down to see the train go by,” remarked Mr. Haydon; but the girl did not answer. Her face grew even more pale, and her hands clasped each other nervously.
“Yes,” said the Indian beside her, and nodded to her assuringly. Then the color swept upward over her face 11 as she met his kindly glance, and drawing herself a little straighter, she walked indifferently away.
The stolid red man did not look at all snubbed; he only pocketed the money she had given him, and looked after her with a slight smile, accented more by the deepening wrinkles around his black eyes than by any change about the lips.