you bet. I
don't want no other man palaverin' over my woman. I got--"

"An' you been makin' me mad lately, too, Sandy," Tess interrupted, "what
with runnin' after me an' makin' me fight to keep my own kisses, I don't
have no peace. Now, I'll tell ye what I'll do. You get busy an' find
Andy Bishop, an' git that five thousand, then ye come here again an'
ask me what ye just did, an' ye see what I say to ye. Eh? How'd that
suit ye?"

A scarlet flush rushed over Lett's swarthy skin.

"But ye got to promise me ye won't ever try fer no more kisses, till I
git married to ye, Sandy," Tess continued. "You said what you wanted;
now, I've said somethin', an' I mean it too."

Letts shifted one large boot along a crack in the floor. He was thinking
deeply.

"That's pretty tough on a feller when he air lovin' a girl the way I
love you, brat," he said after a while.

"But ye got to promise what I want ye to, Sandy, or mebbe I'll git
married to some 'un else."

"Ye'd better not, kid," he muttered darkly, "if ye don't want to git
yerself an' the other fellow into trouble."

"Then ye'd best promise 'bout the kisses," returned Tess, decidedly.

"I'd kiss ye now fer a two cent piece," he undertoned passionately, but
Daddy Skinner had his hand on the other man's arm before he could move
toward the cot.

"I wouldn't do nothin' like that, Sandy," he said, ominously. "No man
don't kiss my brat less'n she air wantin' his kisses. Tessibel said as
how when ye git Bishop an' the five thousand, ye can come back....
Today, she ain't feelin' well, an' I air goin' to ask ye to go along
home, or wherever ye were pointed fer when ye stopped 'ere."

Then Daddy Skinner opened the door.

"The leaves won't be fallin' from the trees, brat," he flung back
sulkily, "afore I come fer ye, an' don't forgit it!"

Daddy Skinner closed the door and dropped the bar after his departed
guest, and there was silence in the shanty until the sound of Lysander's
footsteps faded away.

Then Tess crawled off the dwarf and stood up.

"Landy," she groaned, "wouldn't that crack yer ribs! Now I got to be
prayin' to beat the band every minute to keep Andy in the garret an' to
save me from bein' married to the hatefullest old squatter devil in the
hull world."

CHAPTER XIV

THE WARDEN'S COMING

At ten o'clock in the morning, the day after Andy Bishop was fitted into
Tessibel's straw tick, a covered runabout wound its way along the lower
boulevard r