Part 12 (1/2)

He rapped on the closed front door, but a voice from outside called to him. ”Whoever 'tis, come around here. I'm was.h.i.+n'.”

Dan did as he was told and saw a thin, angular woman, who stood up very straight and looked at him out of keen blue eyes, as she wiped her sudsy hands on her gingham ap.r.o.n. Then she brushed back her graying locks.

Her smile was a friendly one. ”You're Dan Abbott's son, ain't you?” she began at once. ”Hank Wallace, him as drives the stage, stopped in for dinner to our place yesterday and he told us all about having fetched you up. Pa and I knew your pa, and your ma, too, years back, afore any of you children was living, and long afore I had Meg.” The woman nodded toward the wooded mountain beyond. ”Meg's out studyin' some fandangled thing she calls bot'ny.” Then she waved a bony hand toward the glowing gardens.

”Them's what she calls her specimens. Queer things they get to larnin' in schools nowadays. I didn't have much iddication. None at all is more like the real of it. But pa, he went summers for a spell, and learned readin', writin' and 'rithmetic. All a person needs to know in these mountains; but Meg, now, she's been goin' ever since she could talk, seems like.

Notion Pa Heger took. He got talked into doin' it by Preacher Bellows.”

Then, before saying more, the woman cautiously scanned the woods and the road. Feeling sure that there was no one near enough to hear her, she confided: ”You see, we ain't dead sure who Meg is. She was about three when one of the Ute squaw women fetched her, all done up in one of them bright-colored blankets they make. It was a terrible stormy night.

There'd been a cloudburst, and the thunder made this old mountain shake for true. Pa Heger said he heard someone at the door, and I said 'twas the wind. He said he knew better, and he went to see. There stood a Ute squaw, and she grunted something and held out the blanket bundle. Pa took it, bein' as he heard a cry inside of it. That squaw didn't stop. She shuffled away and Pa shut the door quick to keep the storm out.

”'Well, Ma,' he says, turning to me, 'what d' s'pose we've got here?'

”'Some Indian papoose,' I reckoned 'twas.

”'Well, if 'tis,' said he, 'I can't throw it out into this awful storm.

We'll have to keep it till it clears, an' then I'll pack it back to the Utes.'

”They was over at the Crazy Creek camp then, but when that storm let up, and Pa did go over, there wa'n't a hide or hair left of that Ute tribe.

They'd gone to better huntin' grounds, the way they allays do, and we've never seen 'em since. None of 'em 'cept ol' Slinkin' Coyote. It's queer the way he sticks to it that he's Meg's pa, but my man won't listen to it. Gets mad as anythin' if I as much as say maybe it's true. He'll rave, Pa will, an' say: 'Look at our Meg! Does she look like a young 'un of that skulkin' old wildcat?' Pa says, an' I have to agree she don't. But he pesters her, askin' for money. That is, he used to afore Pa Heger set the law on him. Pa has a paper from the sheriff, givin' him the right to arrest that ol' Ute if he ever sets eyes on him.

”But I declare to it! Here comes Pa Heger himself. He'll be glad to meet you, bein' as he knew your pa so well.”

The lad turned eagerly. He was always glad to meet someone who had known his father in the long ago years, when he had come West, just after leaving college, hoping to win a fortune.

Then, as the boy waited for the man to come up, he wondered why Meg did not return. Didn't she care to make his acquaintance?

”Pa Heger,” as he liked to be called, was a pleasant-faced man whose deeply wrinkled, leathery countenance showed at once that he had weathered wind and storm through many a long year in the mountains.

As Ma Heger had done, he seemed to know intuitively who the visitor was.

But before he could speak, his talkative spouse began:

”Pa, ain't this boy the splittin' image of Danny Abbott, him as used to come over to set by our fire and hear you spin them trappin' yarns o'

yourn? That was afore he went away an' got married. 'Arter that he wa'n't alone when he come climbin' up the mountain, but along of him was the sweetest purtiest little creature I'd ever sot my eyes on. The two of 'em were a fine lookin' pair.”

Dan shook hands with the silent man, who showed his pleasure more with his smiling eyes than with words. He was quite willing to let his wife do most of the talking. The lad was pleased with the praise given his father and mother, when they were young, and he at once told Mrs. Heger that his sister Jane, who was with him, very closely resembled that bride of long ago.

”Wall, now,” the good woman exclaimed, ”how I'd like to see the gal.

She'n my Meg ought to get on fine, if she's anyhow as friendly as her ma was. Mis' Abbott used to come right out to my kitchen. She'd been goin'

to some fandangly cookin' school, the while she was gettin' ready to be married, and she larned me a lot of things to make kitchen work easier.

I'm doin' some of 'em yet, and thinkin' of her often.”

Dan did not comment on the possibility of his proud sister becoming an intimate friend of the mountain girl, but, for himself, he found that he very much wanted to know more about their adopted daughter.

”Mr. Heger,” he turned to the man, who stood shyly twirling his fur cap, ”your daughter has just saved my life.”

His listeners both looked very much surprised.

”Why, how come that?” Mrs. Heger inquired. ”You didn't say as how you'd seen Meg, all the time I was talkin' about her.”

Dan might have replied that he had not had an opportunity to say much of anything. But to an interested audience he related the recent occurrence.