Tess of the Storm Country Part 54

Another flash.... She was closer, her white face and her staring eyes frightening him. He raised one great boot to ward her off, but she was at his side before it touched her. A large wave lifted one oar from the lock and bore it away on its crest. The boat, without pilot power, tipped dangerously. Loosening her hand from the side of the boat, Myra wound one arm about the knees of the squatter.

"Ben Letts," she cried, shrieking the words into his ear, "kiss yer brat afore he dies with ye, will ye? Ye ain't so much as ever touched him."

A dark storm-cloud broke directly over their head--one brilliant sheet flared the sky from the north to the south. The child, sleeping heavily under the drug, was close to the squatter's face. A revulsion of feeling overwhelmed Ben--approaching death aided the ghosts of his past bad deeds in their attack upon his wretched, over-wrought soul.... With a sob, he laid his lips upon the slumbering babe. A long kiss followed the first; another, and then another.

Myra gasped, and drew the boy back to her. The boat reared high in the boiling, seething waves, and the next whitecap wrenched the child from her hands, s.n.a.t.c.hing it into the water.

"Ben Letts, our brat air gone!... There he be!... G.o.d!... There! There!"

Through a sudden, resplendent flood of light, they saw the babe poised for one brief instant on a huge, foaming shoulder of the lake. In her frenzy the squatter woman was murmuring over and over strange, inarticulate words which Ben did not heed. Their arms were locked tightly about each other. Ben Letts slowly fixed his cold, shivering lips on those of the girl, drawing her closer and closer into his embrace. The majesty of death was upon them, this squatter father and mother. Another glare of light showed them still clinging together, but the one following failed to reveal either man, woman or boat.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

Professor Young knocked at the Skinner hut. Tess smiled at him from between the tatters of the curtain, and unlocked the door, standing, as her friend took the wooden rocker.

"Daddy air a-comin' home," she breathed timidly.

"Soon. Sit down, child. I have much to say to you.... We have discovered the murderer of the gamekeeper. We have positive proof that it was not your father."

Tess squatted on the floor, crossed her legs, and waited.

"Who were it?" she asked presently, as if afraid to speak.

"Ben Letts."

"The d.a.m.n bloke!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, a dangerous light gathering in her eyes. "And he were a-lettin' Daddy be hung for his own dirty work! He air a wicked cuss, he air!"

"Ezra Longman saw him when he committed the murder," Young told her, watching the interest gather in the eager face. "Letts used your father's gun. That accounts for his having been accused."

Tess nodded her head.

"Ezy were here last night," she commented quietly. "He were sick."

"He was under my care for a long time," explained Young, "and last night escaped and walked home through the rain.... He is dead."

"Dead!" gasped Tess. "Dead!"

Impetuously she bent toward him, and finished:

"Ezy Longman ain't dead!"

"Yes, he is," replied Young. "He died in his father's hut, last night. I have just left there, and I feel heartily sorry for them both."

"Myry?... Did ye see Myry?"

"She's gone with Ben Letts."

"Gone where?"

"We don't know, but the officers are looking for them. I think the boy heard me tell the nurse that he would be held as a witness in your father's next trial. He must have warned Letts upon his arrival home, for--"

"He knowed Myry loved Ben," broke in Tess.

"That's what I thought," Young answered. "I found Longman and the mother mourning over the boy. They hope to hear from the girl soon."

"If Myry and Ben was in the storm last night--" began Tess.

"They may be dead," ended Young gravely. "Myra took her child with her.

I found this note on the dead boy's bed, and brought it away with me. I would have liked to have put the boy on the witness-stand. Nevertheless, I hope to release your father on the evidence I have, without a trial."

For several moments silence reigned in the hut. The sun streamed through the window, and a steamer sent a shrill whistle over the lake, the sound echoing among the rocks. Tessibel was thinking of Ezra Longman; Professor Young was thinking of her.

Presently she leaned over, and took the letter from the man's hand, spelling out Myra's written message.

"Myry air a-writin' so dum well," she observed, handing it back, "that I can't make it out. What air she a-sayin'? You read it."

Young read the badly-spelled note.

"I knowed the brat was Ben Letts'," she said, after the man's voice had died away. "He were a cute kid."

"We hope to find them all," interposed Young thoughtfully. "But, if we don't, the evidence I already have--this note, and the fact that the fisherman is a fugitive--will liberate your father. I shall go to Albany to-morrow to see the Governor. I am sure he will consider the evidence I have. Then we shall know."

"You think the man at Albany will give him to me?"

"Yes, indeed, I do! I would not raise your hopes if I did not. If you persuade your father to leave here--" He stopped and looked at her with a questioning glance.

"I tells him that the hut ain't his'n," she a.s.serted abruptly.

"If you do go away, I shall try to get your father steady work in the city. Would you like that?"

"Yep," replied Tess, in a thick voice. "He wouldn't have to net no more.

And he wouldn't have no more froze toes."

"Neither would you, Tess," answered Young.

Suddenly Tess saw the man staring at her arm, where several blue stripes, mingling with red, ran long from her shoulder.

"Heavens! child, what's the matter with your arm?"

The brown eyes clouded. Tess swept her jacket over the marks, and muttered,

"It ain't nothin'. I scratched it on some thorns."

Professor Young leaned forward, and tilted the little chin upward. Still the eyes remained upon the floor.