g Boy back, but surely he'd rest easier if Elsie joined
him. The thought that her enemy would know the ache that tore her heart,
was balm to her own heart. Yet something within her tugged her eyes to
the baby on the floor. How Boy'd cried when the convulsive pain had tied
his little limbs into cruel knots! She wanted to hear Elsie cry, too.
The wails of her enemy's child might drive the shrieks of her own little
one from memory.

"Take the rag off her mouth," said she, quickly.

"She'll cry like a sick cat, if ye do," warned a man.

Tess crossed the room to the corner where Elsie lay and kneeling by her,
unfastened the cloth about her mouth. The baby held up her bound hands,
blue and swollen from the tight ligature, and whimpered,

"Elsie's hands hurt."

The squatter girl had never voluntarily hurt a living thing. All her
life quick sympathy had responded instinctively to helplessness and
misery. Even the toads and bats knew her tender care. Waldstricker's
child was to her, then, the most loathsome of breathing creatures. She
might let the squatters kill her; she might even do it herself. But this
was another thing! Face to face with the concrete case of pinching a
baby's wrists, her instinct sent her fingers to the tight cords about
the uplifted hands. Without conscious purpose, she, also, loosened the
plump ankles. Elsie rolled in a whimpering, little heap on the floor.

"I want my Daddy," she whined.

"You can't have your Daddy," answered Tess. Lifting the child to her
feet, she noted how like to Deforrest Young's were the little one's
eyes.

"Your daddy air a dirty duffer," said Jake. "Give 'er a whack in the
face, Tess."

He came forward from his place by the door and stopped near the two
girls. The fisherman raised his own fist, and Tessibel moved a little
aside. She regretted, now, that she'd loosened the little one's bonds or
had done anything to relieve her suffering. She didn't care what they
did to Waldstricker's girl. If they wanted to strike her, what affair
was it of hers?

She turned her eyes upward, and, there, from among the rafters, she
seemed to see Boy's face smiling down upon her. Love, shining from the
dear eyes, radiated bliss and joy. How very sweet and peaceful he
appeared! Then, Brewer's voice penetrated her consciousness. He was
leaning over the rigid little girl.

"Brat," he was saying, "you air goin' to get the lickin' of yer life,
an' don't ye ferget it."

"Pretty lady, help