“Good-by. I am dying miserably, and I deserve it. I can’t even tell you where to write me; only we are with Indians camped by a big river. Not far away is a wall of rock, like a hill, beside the river, and Indian writing is cut on the wall, and holes and things are cut all along it.”
“The Arrow lakes of the Columbia!” interrupted Overton—
“If the boy comes, and is to be trusted at all, he may tell me more; that is my only hope of this reaching you. If you are not able to make another plan (and he says your hands are powerless) remember, I have the one you did make. If you can send me one word—one name of a friend—I will try—try so hard. He would kill me if he knew, and I would be glad of it, if I could only help you first. I feel that I will never see you again.
“Fannie.”
Mrs. Huzzard was crying and whispering, “Poor dear!—poor child!” and even the voice of Lyster was not quite steady as he read. Those straggling, weak pencil marks had a pathos of their own to him. The letter, crossed and recrossed by the lines, was on two pages, evidently torn from the back of a book.
“It seems a sacrilege to dive into a man’s feelings and secrets like this,” he said, ruefully. “It is! My only consolation is that I did it with good intent.”
“And, after all, not a plain trail found that will help us locate this man or his friends,” decided Overton—“not a name we can really fasten to but the name on the 137 envelope—Joe Hammond. It is too bad. Why, ’Tana! Good God! ’Tana!”
For the girl, who had uttered no word, but had listened to that last letter with whitened face and staring eyes, leaned against the wall at its close, and a little gasp from her drew their attention.
She fell forward on her face ere Overton could reach her.
“Tana, my girl, what is it? Speak!” he entreated.