ty for her when he gets his tie-money
from the Government, an' he paid me fifty down," he said. "It'll help
pay for the brat's board these last ten years--an' mebby, when it comes
to a show-down, I can stick him for a thousand."

The woman made no answer. She was, in a way, past answering with a mind
of her own. The man, as he stood there, was wicked and cruel, every
line in his ugly face and angular body a line of sin. The woman was
bent, broken, a wreck. In her face there was no sign of a living soul.
Her eyes were dull, her heart burned out, her hands gnarled with toil
under the slavedom of a beast. Yet even Peter, quiet as a mouse where
he lay, sensed the difference between them. He had seen the girl and
this woman sobbing in each other's arms. And often he had crawled to
the woman's feet, and occasionally her hand had touched him, and
frequently she had given him things to eat. But it was seldom he heard
her voice when the man was near.

The man was biting off a chunk of black tobacco. Suddenly he asked,

"How old is she, Liz?"

And the woman answered in a strange and husky voice.

"Seventeen the twelfth day of this month."

The man spat.

"Mooney ought to pay a thousand. We've had her better'n ten years--an'
Mooney's crazy as a loon to git her. He'll pay!"

"Jed--" The woman's voice rose above its hoarseness. "Jed--it ain't
right!"

The man laughed. He opened his mouth wide, until his yellow fangs
gleamed in the sun, and the girl with the axe paused for a moment in
her work, and flung back her head, staring at the two before the cabin
door.

"Right?" jeered the man. "Right? That's what you been preachin' me
these last ten years 'bout whiskey-runnin,' but it ain't made me stop
sellin' whiskey, has it? An' I guess it ain't a word that'll come
between Mooney and me--not if Mooney gits his thousand." Suddenly he
turned upon her, a hand half raised to strike. "An' if you whisper a
word to her--if y' double-cross me so much as the length of your little
finger--I'll break every bone in your body, so help me God! You
understand? You won't say anything to her?"

The woman's uneven shoulders drooped lower.

"I won't say ennything, Jed. I--promise."

The man dropped his uplifted hand with a harsh grunt.

"I'll kill y' if you do," he warned.

The girl had dropped her axe, and was coming toward them. She was a
slim, bird-like creature, with a poise to her head and an up-tilt to
her chin which warned that th