Meg of Mystery Mountain Part 12

He rapped on the closed front door, but a voice from outside called to him. "Whoever 'tis, come around here. I'm washin'."

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.

"Pshaw, that's queer now!" Pa Heger scratched his gray head back of one ear, which Dan was to learn was a habit with him when he was puzzled.

"You say the mountain lion was crouched to spring at you? Then it must o'

been that she had some young near. They're cowards when it comes to humans, them lions are. They kill sheep an' calves an' deer, an' all the little wild critters, but they don't often attack a man. They'll trail 'em for hours, curious, sort of, I reckon, keepin' out of sight. Makes you feel mighty uncomfortable to know one of them big critters is prowlin' arter you, whatever his intentions may be. But that 'un, now, you was mentionin', I'll walk back wi' you, when you go, an' take a look at it. Thar's a bounty paid for 'em by the ranchers. An' if young air near by, there'll be no time better for puttin' an end to 'em."

Ma Heger glanced often toward the wooded mountain beyond Meg's "Bot'ny Gardens." Then to her husband she said: "I reckon Meg knows thar's company, an' that's why she's stayin' so long. She said to me, 'Ma, I ain't agoin' to school today,' says she. 'I reckon I'll get some more specimens.'"

At that the man looked up quickly, evident alarm in his clear blue eyes.

"Did she say anything about havin' seen that skulkin' Ute? Has he been pesterin' her? The day arter she's given him money, she don' dare go to school, fearin' he'll be rarin' drunk wi' fire-water an' waylay her. If ever I come up wi' that coyote, I'll--I'll----"

The wife tried to quiet the increasing anger of her spouse.

"Pa Heger," she said, "you're alarmin' yerself needless. That Ute knows the sheriff gave you power to jail him, an' he's mos' likely gone to whar his tribe is."

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 G.o.d, 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.

"'Take him out, Pa,' my little gal was beggin'. 'Maybe he'll get well, Pa.'

"So I opened the great steel jaws of that trap and took out the little cub bear. He was too small to be worth anything for a pelt, an' we fetched him home, but he died soon arter, and Meg, she had me bury him.

But she couldn't get over what she had seen. She had a ragin' fever for days. I sot up every night holdin' her little quiverin' body close in my arms, an' prayin' G.o.d if he'd let my little gal live, I'd never set another of them cruel steel traps to catch any of His critters as long as I'd breath in my body.

"Wall, boy, sort of a miracle took place. That little gal of mine had fallen asleep while I sat holdin' her, but jest as I made that promise, silent to G.o.d, she lifted up her little hand and put it soft like on my face, an' says, still asleep, seemed like--'I love you, Pa Heger.' An'

when she woke up next mornin', the fever was gone, and she was well as ever.