Plague take the Pymeuts, root and branch! She had shuffled her feet into her snow-shoe straps, and moved off in the dimness. But for the sound of sobbing, he could not have told just where, in the softly-falling snow, Muckluck's figure was fading into the dusk. He hurried after her, conscience-stricken, but most unwilling.
"Look here," he said, when he had caught up with her, "I'm sorry you came all this way in the cold—very sorry." Her sobs burst out afresh, and louder now, away from the Colonel's restraining presence. "But, see here: I can't send you off like this. You might die on the trail."
"Yes, I think me die," she agreed.
"No, don't do that. Come back, and we'll tell the Colonel you're going to stay by the fire till morning, and then go home."
She walked steadily on. "No, I go now."
"But you can't, Muckluck. You can't find the trail."
"I tell you before, I not like your girls. I can go in winter as good as summer. I can hunt!" She turned on him fiercely. "Once I hunt a owel. Ketch him, too!" She sniffed back her tears. "I can do all kinds."
"No, you can't hunt Orange Groves," he said, with a severity that might seem excessive. "But I can't let you go off in this snowstorm—"
"He soon stop. Goo'-bye."
Never word of sweeter import in his ears than that. But he was far from satisfied with his conduct all the same. It was quite possible that the Pymeuts, discovering her absence, would think he had lured her away, and there might be complications. So it was with small fervour that he said: "Muckluck, I wish you'd come back and wait till morning."