"I didn't," returned Overton, who was the one addressed, "though it may be so. He's a very slippery specimen and full of schemes, from what I hear. But he doesn't seem to range over this territory, so I've never run across him. It would be like him, though, to play dead when the Government men grew warm on his trail, and he'd no doubt get plenty of help from his Indian allies." Harris was watching him keenly, and the careless honesty of the speaker's face and tone evidently perplexed him, for he turned with a baffled look to the girl, who stood with down-dropped eyes, and twisted a spray of leaves nervously around her fingers. He noticed one quick, troubled glance she gave Overton, but even to his suspicious eyes it did not seem a regard given a fellow-conspirator. "I believe it was the doctor I heard speak of the rumor that Holly was yet above ground," said Lyster. "The mail came up yesterday, and perhaps he found it in the papers. Don't think I had heard of the man before. Is he one of the important people up here?" "Rather," remarked Overton, "an accomplished crook who has dabbled in several trades in the Columbia River region. The latest was a wholesale horse steal from a ranch over in Washington--Indian work, with him as leader. The regulars from the fort got after them, there was an ugly fight, and the reds reported Holly as killed. That is the last I heard of him. You were asking me yesterday if he ever prospected in our valley, didn't you?" he asked, turning to Harris. "A man made undue importance of by the stupid Indians," declared Captain Leek. "He humored their superstitions and played medicine man with them, I've heard; and he had a boy for a partner--a young slip the gamblers called 'Monte' down in Coeur d'Alene. Some said it was his son." "A fine instructor for youth," observed Lyster. "Who could expect anything but vice from a man who had such a boyhood?" "But you would," said 'Tana, suddenly, "if you knew that boy when he grew to be a man. If he was bad, you'd want him to get off the earth where you walked; and you never once would stop to ask if he was brought up right or not--you know you wouldn't--nobody does, I guess. I don't know why it is, but it seems all wrong to me. Maybe, though, when I go to school, and learn things, I will think like the rest, and not care." Lyster shrugged his shoulders and looked after her as she vanished into the regions where Mrs. Huzzard was concocting dishes for the mid-day meal. "I doubt if she thinks like the rest," he remarked. "How fiery she is, and how independent in her views of things." But Overton smiled at her curt speech.