"No, I can't afford it," she said, at last. "I will be doing wrong to help you, just as if I let a poison snake loose where people travel--for that is what you are. But I am not strong enough to let these friends go and start over again; so I will help you away this once." He drew a breath of relief, and gathered up his blanket. "That is the way to talk. You've got a level head--" "That will do," she said, curtly. "I don't want praise from a coward, a thief, or a murderer. You are all three. I have no money here. You will have to come again for it to-morrow night." "A trick--is it?" "It is no trick. I haven't got it, that is all. Maybe I can't get it in money, but I will get it in free gold by to-morrow at dusk. I will put it here under the pillow, and will manage to keep the rest away at that time. You can come as you came this evening, and get it; but I will neither take it nor send it to you. You will have to risk your freedom and your life to come for it. But while I can't quite decide to give you up or to kill you, myself, I hope some one else will." "Hope what you please," he returned, indifferently. "So long as you get the dust for me, I can stand your opinion. And you will have it here?" "I will have it here." "I trust you only because I know you can't afford to go back on me," he said, as he wrapped the blanket around him, and dropped his taller form to the height of Akkomi. "It is a bargain, then, my dear. Good-night." "I don't wish you a good-night," she answered. "I hope I shall never see you alive again." And she never did. CHAPTER XX. 'TANA'S ENGAGEMENT "And she wants a thousand dollars in money or free gold--a thousand dollars to-day?" "No use asking me what for, Dan, for I don't know," confessed Lyster. "I can't see why she don't tell you herself; but you know she has been a little queer since the fever--childish, whimsical, and all that. Maybe as she has not yet handled any specie from your bonanza, she wants some only to play with, and assure herself it is real." "Less than a thousand in money and dust would do for a plaything," remarked Overton. "Of course she has a right to get what she wants; but that amount will be of no use to her here in camp, where there is not a thing in the world to spend it for." "Maybe she wants to pension off some of her Indian friends before she leaves," suggested Max--"old Akkomi and Flap-Jacks, perhaps. I am a little like Miss Slocum in my wonder as to how she endures them, though, of course, the squaw is a necessity." "Oh, well, she was not brought up in the world of Miss Slocum--or your world, either," answered Overton. "You should make allowance for that." "Make allowance--I?" and Lyster looked at him curiously. "Are you trying to justify her to me? Why, man, you ought to know by this time what keeps me here a regular lounger around camp, and there is no need to make excuses for her to me. I thought you knew." "You mean you--like her?"