It was his one satisfaction to brood over the bereaved father and mother, delighting in his part of the tragedy and enjoying every evidence of it.  Never for a moment did he think gently of the children, but only of the woman sacrificed.  On this night she stood so close that, with a groan, he put out his hand.  His flesh tingled; for he felt that he could almost touch her, and his heart clamored for the warmth of the tender body he had never forgotten.

“God!” he moaned between his teeth, “if I could tech her once, jest for once, I’d let Flea stay to hum!”

“Did ye speak, Lon?” asked Granny Cronk.

“Nope; I were only a thinkin’.”

“Have ye changed yer mind ’bout Flea?”

“Nope, Mammy, and ye keep yer mouth shet if ye want me to stay to hum!  See?”

Granny Cronk grunted a reply, and passed into the back room.  Five minutes later the rope cot creaked under her weight.

Wrapped in his somber musings, Lon did not hear Flea approach him until she was at his elbow.  With her coming, the sweet phantom, to which he grimly held in his moments of solitude, fled back to its unknown grave.  Never had his loved one been so near, so real; never before had she touched his writhing nature in all its primeval strength.  The girl before him was so like the man who had withstood his agony that he clenched his fist and rose from his chair.  Flea was looking at him in mute appeal; but before she could speak he had lifted his fist and brought it down upon the lovely, beseeching face.  The blow stunned her; but only a smothered moan fell from her lips.

“I hate ye!” growled Lon.  “Get back to the loft afore I kill ye!”

Slowly Flea was regaining her senses, and the squatter’s curses struck her ears like a whiplash.  Bitter, scalding tears blinded her as, holding her thin skirt to her bleeding nose, she stumbled up the ladder.  With anger unappeased, Lon, staggering like one drunken, took his cap from the peg and went out.

* * * * *

When Lon called Flukey, Flea followed her brother into the night, while he arranged the thief’s tools in the boat.  There was a dull roar and rush of the wind, as it tossed the lake into gigantic whitecaps, which added to the girl’s suffering.  Her young soul was smarting beneath the scathing injustice.  As she watched Lem and Lon pull away, with Flukey at the rudder, Flea squatted on the beach, bent her head, and wept long and wildly.

A gentle, sympathetic touch of a warm tongue made her put out her arms and draw Snatchet into them.  It comforted her to feel the faithful heart beating against her own.  That Lon disliked to have her and Flukey about him, she knew; but she had not known until today that he hated her.  He had never before told her so.  Flea caught her breath in a gasp, and turned her eyes to a rift in a rock where the scow lay.  Only a dark line distinguished it in the shadows.  At the thought that it was to be forced upon her for a home, she cried again, and Snatchet, from his haven of rest, lifted his pointed yellow nose and wailed dismally, striving with all his dog’s soul to assuage her unusual grief.