ll you do it with this here? he demanded,
grasping the whip more tightly and lifting it to strike--but before it
could descend, Fairchilds wrenched it out of his hand.

"Yes," he responded, "if you dare to touch that child again, you
shameless dog!"

Tillie, with anguished eyes, stood motionless as marble, while Absalom,
with clenched fists, awaited his opportunity.

"If I dare!" roared Getz. "If I have dare to touch my own child!" He
turned to Tillie. "Come along," he exclaimed, giving her a cuff with
his great paw; and instantly the whip came down with stinging swiftness
on his wrist. With a bellow of pain, Getz turned on Fairchilds, and at
the same moment, Absalom sprang on him from behind, and with one blow
of his brawny arm brought the teacher to the ground. Getz sprawled over
his fallen antagonist and snatched his whip from him.

"Come on, Absalom--we'll learn him oncet!" he cried fiercely. "We'll
learn him what horsewhippin' is! We'll give him a lickin' he won't
forget!"

Absalom laughed aloud in his delight at this chance to avenge his own
defeat at the hands of the teacher, and with clumsy speed the two men
set about binding the feet of the half-senseless Fairchilds with
Absalom's suspenders.

Tillie felt herself spellbound, powerless to move or to cry out.

"Now!" cried Getz to Absalom, "git back, and I'll give it to him!"

The teacher, stripped of his two coats and bound hand and foot, was
rolled over on his face. He uttered no word of protest, though they all
saw that he had recovered consciousness. The truth was, he simply
recognized the uselessness of demurring.

"Warm him up, so he don't take cold!" shouted Absalom--and even as he
spoke, Jake Getz's heavy arm brought the lash down upon Fairchilds's
back.

At the spiteful sound, life came back to Tillie. Like a wild thing, she
sprang between them, seized her father's arm and hung upon it. "Listen
to me! Listen! Father! If you strike him again, I'LL MARRY ABSALOM
TO-MORROW!"

By inspiration she had hit upon the one argument that would move him.

Her father tried to shake her off, but she clung to his arm with the
strength of madness, knowing that if she could make him grasp, even in
his passionate anger, the real import of her threat, he would yield to
her.

"I'll marry Absalom! I'll marry him to-morrow!" she repeated.

"You darsent--you ain't of age! Let go my arm, or I'll slap you ag'in!"

"I shall be of age in three months! I'll marry