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.