"She has set her covetous maidenly eyes on him, and if she doesn't marry him before the year is over, he will have to be clever," he decided, as he left them and went to look up Haydon. "Serves Dan right if she did, for he never gives any other fellow half a chance with the old ladies. The rest of us have to be content with the young ones."
The soft dusk of the night had fallen over the northern lands, and the pale stars had gleamed for hours on the reflecting waves of mountain streams. It was late--near midnight, for the waning sickle of the moon was slipping from its dark cover in the east and hanging like a jewel of gold just above the black crown of the pines. Breaths from the heights sifted down through the vast woods, carrying sometimes the dreary twitter of a bird disturbed, or the mellow call of insects singing to each other of the summer night. All sounds of the wilderness were as echoes of rest and utter content.
And in the camp of the Twin Springs, shadows moved sometimes with a silence that was scarce a discord in the wood songs of repose. A camp fire glimmered faintly a little way up from the stream, and around it slept the Indian boatman, the squaw, and old Akkomi, who, to the surprise of Overton, had announced his intention of remaining until morning, that he might know how the sickness went with the little "Girl-not-Afraid."
A dim light showed through the chinks of 'Tana's cabin, where Miss Lavina, the doctor, and Lyster were on guard for the night. The doctor had grown sleepy and moved into Harris' room, where he could be comfortable on blankets. Lyster, watching the girl, was trying to make himself think that their watching was all of no use; her sleep seemed so profound, so healthfully natural, that he could not bring himself to think, as Dan did, that the doctor's worst prophecy could come true--that out of that sleep she might awake to consciousness, or that, on the other hand, she might drift from sleep to lethargy and thus out of life.
Outside a man stood peering in through a chink from which he had stealthily pulled the moss. He could not see the girl's face, but he could see that of Lyster as he bent over, listening to her breathing, and he watched it as if to glean some reflected knowledge from the young fellow's earnest glances.