But he moved Harris' tent on to one of the claims, and he cut small timber, and in a day and a half had a little log house of two rooms put up and chinked with dry moss and roofed with bark, that 'Tana might have a home of her own, and have it close to where the ore streaked with gold had been found. Then he sent the Indians up the river again, and did with his own hands all labor needed about the camp.
"You'll be sick yourself, Overton," growled the doctor, who slept in the tent with him, and knew that scarce an hour of the night passed that he was not at the door of 'Tana's cabin, to learn if any help was needed, or merely to stand without and listen to her voice as she spoke.
"For mercy's sake, Mr. Dan, do be a little careful of yourself," entreated Mrs. Huzzard; "for if you should get used up, I don't know what I ever would do here in this wilderness, with 'Tana and the paralyzed man and you to look after--to say nothing of the fear I'm in every hour because o' that nasty beast of an Indian that you say is a chief. He is here constant!"
"Proof of your attractive powers," said Overton, reassuringly. "He comes to admire you, that is all."
"And enough, too! And if it wasn't for you that's here to protect me, the good Lord only knows whether I'd ever see a milliner shop or a pie again, as long as I lived. So I am set on your taking more care of yourself--now won't you?"
"Wait until you have cause, before you worry," he advised, "I don't look like a sick man, do I?"
"You don't look like a well one, anyway," she said, looking at him carefully; "and you don't look as I ever saw you look before. You are as hollow eyed as though you had been sick yourself for a month. Altogether, I think your coming out here to camp in the wild woods has been a big mistake."
"It looks like it just now," he agreed, and his eyes, tired and troubled, looked past her into the cabin where 'Tana lay. "Does she seem better?"
"Just about the same. Eight days now since she was took down; and the doctor, he said to-morrow would be the day to hope for a change, either for the better or--"
But the alternative was not a thing easy for the good soul to contemplate, and she left the sentence unfinished and disappeared into the cabin again, while the man outside dropped his head in his hands, feeling the most helpless creature in all the world.