Dan stood silently, wondering what he ought to say. He knew that Meg had given the old Indian money, and he realized that was why she had been at home to save his life.
“I shall be glad to have you walk back with me, Mr. Heger,” he said.
Dan wanted to be alone with the mountaineer. When they had started down the mountain road, the man at Dan’s side was silent, a frown gathering on his leathery forehead. Suddenly he blurted out: “This here business has got to stop. That slinkin’ ol’ Ute’s got to prove that my Meg is his gal. In the courts, he’s got to prove it, or I’ll have him strung up. Jail’s too good for him. Pesterin’ a little gal to get her to give up her savin’s that she’s been puttin’ by this five year past, meanin’ to go to school in the big city and larn to be a teacher. That’s what Meg’s figgerin’ on, and that skulkin’ Ute drainin’ it away from her little by little. I made her pack a gun, an’ tol’ her to shoot him on sight, but I reckon she ain’t got the heart to take a life, though I’d sooner trap him than I would a—well, a coyote that he’s named arter.”
Dan could be quiet no longer. “Mr. Heger,” he said, “it was about that very Indian that I came up here to talk to you this morning. I saw him in hiding near our cabin. Yesterday afternoon he frightened the children, although he did not come out into the open; then about two hours later we saw him hiding behind boulders on the road below us. He waylaid your daughter, just as you fear. Also she gave him money.” While the boy had been talking, the man’s great knotted hands had closed and unclosed and cords swelled out on his reddening face. “I knew it,” he cried. “Dan Abbott, I want you to help me catch that Ute. Meg won’t. She ain’t sure but what he is her pa, an’ it’s agin nature to ask her to harm him. I won’t let on that you tol’ me, but, Dan, we’ve got to trap him. You needn’t be afraid of him. He won’t harm you or your family. He’s too cowardly for that. What’s more, he’s paralyzed in one arm; it’s all shriveled up so he can’t hold a gun.”
Dan felt greatly relieved upon hearing this, and wishing to change the conversation to something pleasanter, he inquired how soon Meg expected to be able to go away to school. But the subject evidently was not pleasant to the old man. “Next fall’s the time, an’ me and ma can’t bring ourselves to think on it. Snowed in all winter without Meg’s ’bout as pleasin’ as bein’ shet in a tomb.” The anger had all died out of the leathery, wrinkled face and in the blue eyes there shone that wonderful love-light that is the most beautiful thing the world holds. “Queer, now, ain’t it, how a slip of a baby girl could fill up two lives the way Meg did our’n from the start. An’ she cares for us jest as much as we for her, I reckon. ’Pears like she does.” The old man’s voice had become tender as he spoke.
“I’m sure of it,” Dan said heartily. Then, after a pause, Pa Heger continued slowly: “That gal of our’n has the queerest notions. One’s the way she takes to flowers.” Then, looking up inquiringly, “Did Ma tell you how she earned the money she’s savin’ for her iddication?” Dan shook his head, and so the old man continued: “Teacher Bellows ’twas got her started on it. He’s what folks call a naturalist, an’ when he used to stay up to our cabin for weeks at a time an’ he’d take Meg wi’ him specimen huntin’. Seems like thar’s museum places all over this here country that wants specimens of flowers growin’ high up in the Rockies. So Teacher Bellows and Meg would hunt for days, startin’ early every mornin’ and late back in the arternoon, till they had a set of specimens. They’d press ’em till they was dry as paper, then mount ’em, as they call it, an’ send ’em off to a museum, and along come a check. Arter Teacher Bellows went back to his school, Meg kept right on doin’ it by herself, him helpin’ now an’ then, an’ she’s saved nigh enough for the two years’ schoolin’ she’ll need to be a low grade schoolmarm. She’s got another queer notion, Meg has. I wonder if Ma tol’ you about that?” The old man looked up inquiringly, and Dan, finding himself very much interested in the notions of this girl whom he did not know, said that he would very much like to hear about it.
The old man removed his fur cap and scratched his gray head again. His voice grew even more tender. “You know what it says in that good book Preacher Bellows is allays readin’ out of, how a little child shall lead. Wall, that’s sartin what Meg’s done for me and Ma Heger. When she was about six year old, or maybe, now, she was seven, it was curious how friendly even the skeeriest little wild critters was toward her. She could feed ’em out of her hand, arter a little coaxin’, an’ how she loved ’em! You see, they was all the playmates she’s ever had. Then ’twas she started her horspital for hurt critters, an’ she’s kept it goin’ ever sence. Got one now, but, plague it, I can’t remember what kind of patients she’s got into it. She won’t keep nothin’ captive arter they’re well enough to fight for themselves out in the forest. Wall, as I was sayin’ back a piece, Meg was about seven as I recollect, when she sort of sudden like seemed to realize how ’twas I made my livin’, trappin’ wild animals and sellin’ their skins at the tradin’ post.
“But even then, she didn’t fully sense what it meant, seemed like, till the day we couldn’t find her nowhar. She’d never gone far into the mountains afore that, but when she didn’t come home at noonday, Ma asked me to go an’ hunt for her. It was late arternoon afore I come upon her, an’ I’ll never forget that sight as long as I’m livin’.
“My habit was to set them powerful steel traps to catch mountain lions and the fur animals I wanted for pelts. Then, every few days, I’d go the round and shoot the critters that had been caught in ’em. Wall, as I was goin’ toward whar one of them big traps was. I heard sech a pitiful cryin’. Good God, but I was wild wi’ fear, an’ I ran like wolves was arter me. I’d a notion our baby gal was catched in it. An’ thar she was, sure enough, but not hurt. Instead she was down on the ground wi’ her arms around a little black bear cub that had been catched hours before and was all torn and bleedin’.
“The fight was gone out o’ him, but he wa’n’t dead yet. It was our little Meg who was doin’ the cryin’. Clingin’ to the little fellow, not heedin’ the blood, her sobbin’ was pitiful to hear. I picked her up, an’ I ain’t ’shamed to be tellin’ you that I was cryin’ myself along about that time.