“Yes,” assented Bill. “She's a leetle swift.” Then, as if fearing he had been apologizing for her, he added, with the air of one settling the question: “But she's good stock! She suits me!”
The Duke helped me to another side of her character.
“She is a remarkable child,” he said, one day. “Wild and shy as a coyote, but fearless, quite; and with a heart full of passions. Meredith, the Old Timer, you know, has kept her up there among the hills. She sees no one but himself and Ponka's Blackfeet relations, who treat her like a goddess and help to spoil her utterly. She knows their lingo and their ways—goes off with them for a week at a time.”
“What! With the Blackfeet?”
“Ponka and Joe, of course, go along; but even without them she is as safe as if surrounded by the Coldstream Guards, but she has given them up for some time now.”
“And at home?” I asked. “Has she any education? Can she read or write?”
“Not she. She can make her own dresses, moccasins and leggings. She can cook and wash—that is, when she feels in the mood. And she knows all about the birds and beasts and flowers and that sort of thing, but—education! Why, she is hardly civilized!”
“What a shame!” I said. “How old is she?”
“Oh, a mere child; fourteen or fifteen, I imagine; but a woman in many things.”
“And what does her father say to all this? Can he control her?”