The other man laughed in a spasmodic, contemptuous fashion.
"For me?" he said. "You can't. I thought you could, but I was on a blind trail--you can't. I can give you a lift, though--yes, I can. It's about--about that girl. You--you tried to guard her last night, as if she was a flower the rough wind must not blow on. I know--I watched you. I've been there, and know."
"Know what? You're an infernal fool!" burst out Dan, with all his good nature out of sight. "No hints about the girl, or--or anything else! I won't have it!"
"It's no hint; facts are all I'd mention to you, and I'd do that just because I think you're square. And they--they are playing you. See? For he ain't dead. I don't know what their game is with you, but he ain't dead; and there--there's no telling what scheme he's got her into this--this territory for. So I want you to know. I don't want you to be caught in any trap of theirs. She--she looks all right; but he's a devil--a thing infernal--a--"
Overton caught him by one arm, and swung him around like a child.
"Speak clear. No more of your blasted stuttering or beating away from points; who is the man you talk of? Who is playing with me? Now speak."
"Why, Monte, the girl; Monte and Lee Holly. He's somewhere alive--that's what I'm trying to tell you. I was hunting for him when I found her laying low here, don't you understand? You stare so. It is Lee Holly and-- Ah--my--God!"
The last words were gurgled in his throat; his face whitened, and he sank to the ground as though his bones had suddenly been converted into jelly--a strange, shapeless heap of humanity as he lay at Overton's feet. Overton bent over him, and after a moment of blank amaze, lifted the helpless head, and almost dropped it again, when the eyes, appealing and keenly conscious, met his own. There was a queer chuckling sound in the man's throat; he was trying to speak, but could not. The secret he was trying to tell was buried back of those speechless lips, and one more stroke of the doom he feared had overtaken him.
'Tana sat alone in her room a few hours later, and from the window watched the form of Ora Harrison disappear along the street. The latter had been sent by her father with some medicine for the paralyzed stranger, and the girls had chatted of the school 'Tana was to attend, and of the schools Ora had gone to and all the friends she remembered there, who now sent her such kind letters. Ora told 'Tana of the lovely time she expected to have when the steamers would come up from Bonner's Ferry to the Kootenai Lake region, for then her friends were to come in the summers, and the warm months were to be like holidays.
