Akkomi was there as usual. Each day he would come, sit in the doorway of the Harris cabin for hours, and contemplate the helpless man there. When evening arrived he would enter his canoe and go back to his own camp, which at that time was not more than five miles away. Overton, fearing that Harris would be painfully annoyed by the presence of this self-invited visitor, offered to entertain him in his own tent, if Harris preferred. But while Harris looked with no kindly eye on the old fellow, he signified that the Indian should remain, if he pleased. This was a decision so unexpected that Overton asked Harris if he had ever met Akkomi before. He received an affirmative nod, which awakened his curiosity enough to make him question the Indian. The old fellow nodded and smoked in silence for a little while before making a reply; then he said: "Yes, one summer, one winter ago, the man worked in the hills beyond the river. Our hunters were there and saw him. His cabin is there still." "Who was with him?" "White man, stranger," answered Akkomi briefly. "This man stranger, too, in the Kootenai country--stranger from away somewhere there," and he pointed vaguely toward the east. "Name--Joe--so him called." "And the other man?" "Other man stranger, too--go way--never come back. This one go away, too; but he come back." "And that is all you know of them?" "All. Joe not like Indian friends," and the old fellow's eyes wrinkled up in the semblance of laughter; "too much tenderfoot, maybe." "But Joe's partner," persisted Overton, "he was not tenderfoot? He had Indian friends on the Columbia River." "Maybe," agreed the old fellow, and his sly, bead-like eyes turned toward his questioner sharply and were as quickly withdrawn, "maybe so. They hunt silver over there. No good." Just inside the door Harris sat straining his ears to catch every word, and Akkomi's assumption of bland ignorance brought a rather sardonic smile to his face, while his lips moved in voiceless mutterings of anger. Impatience was clearly to be read in his face as he waited for Overton to question further, and his right hand opened and closed in his eagerness. But no other questions were asked just then; for Overton suddenly walked away, leaving the crafty-eyed Akkomi alone in his apparent innocence of Joe's past or Joe's partner. The old fellow looked after him kindly enough, but shook his head and smoked his dirty black pipe, while an expression of undivulged knowledge adorned his withered physiognomy. "No, Dan, no," he murmured. "Akkomi good friend to little sick squaw and to you; but he not tell--not tell all things." Then his ears, not so keen as in years gone by, heard sounds on the water, sounds coming closer and closer. But Dan's younger ears had heard them first, and it was to learn the cause that he had left so abruptly and walked to the edge of the stream.