But the girl only whispered: “I know now! Joe—Joe Hammond!” and fainted dead away at the feet of the paralyzed man.
CHAPTER XI.
’TANA AND JOE.
“Just like a part in a play, captain—that’s just the way it struck me,” said Mrs. Huzzard, recounting the affair for the benefit of the postmaster of Sinna Ferry. “The man a-sitting there like a statue, with only his eyes looking alive, and that poor, scared dear a-falling down on the floor beside him, and looking as white as milk! I never had a notion she was so easy touched by people’s troubles. It surely was a sorry story read from them three letters. I tell you, sir, men leave women with aching hearts many’s the time,” and she glanced sentimentally toward her listener; “though if there is one place more heart-rending to be deserted in than another, I think an Indian village would be the very worst. Just to think of that poor dear dying there in a place she didn’t even know the name of.”
“Humph! I’ve an idea you are giving your sympathy to the wrong individual,” decided the captain. “It must be easier even to die in some unknown corner than for a living soul to be shut up in a dead body, after the manner of this Harris, or Hammond, or whatever his name is. I guess, from the looks of things, he must have collapsed when that second letter reached him; had a bad stroke, and was just recovering somewhat when he strayed into this camp. Yes, madame, I’ve an idea he’s 139 had a harder row to hoe than the girl; and, then, it doesn’t look as though he’d deserved it so much.”
“Mr. Dan is mightily upset over it, ain’t he?”
“Mr. Dan is just as likely to get upset over any other vagabond who strays in his direction,” grumbled the captain. “Folks are always falling in his way to be looked after. He has the worst luck! He never did a bit of harm to this stranger—nothing but drop a hand on his shoulder; and all at once the man falls down helpless. And Dan feels in duty bound to take care of him. Then the girl ’Tana has to flop over in the same way, just when I thought we were to get rid of her. And she’s another charge to look after. He’ll be wanting to hire your house for a hospital next thing, Mrs. Huzzard.”
“And welcome he’d be to it for ’Tana,” declared Mrs. Huzzard, valiantly. “She’s been a bit saucy to you at times, and I know it; but, indeed, it’s only because she fancies you don’t like her.”