Yep, live ones. What do I want with dead ones? Will ye help?"

"Can't see no good a swipin' kids. What do ye want with 'em?"

"I'll tell ye if ye sit up and listen to me."

Crabbe dropped his hooked arm and leaned against the wall. Eli lighted a
pipe. A mysterious change had passed over Silent Lon's face. The blue
eyes glowed out from under a massive brow, and a mouth cruel and
vindictive set firm-jawed over decayed teeth.

"I'll tell ye this much for all time, Lem Crabbe: that ye lied when ye
said that no woman could love no man--ye lied, I say!"

So fierce had he become that the man with the hook drew back into the
corner and sat staring sullenly. Eli puffed more vigorously on his pipe.

Lon went on:

"I had a woman oncet," said he, "and she were every bit mine. And she
were little--like this."

The big fellow measured off a space with his hand and, straightening
again, stood against the wall of the scow, his head reaching almost to
the ceiling.

"She were mine, I say, and any man what says she weren't--"

"Where be she?" interrupted Lem curiously.

"Dead," replied Lon, "as dead as if she'd never been alive, as dead as
if she'd never laid ag'in' my heart when I wanted her! God! how I wanted
her!"

"But were she a woman?" asked Lem meditatively.

"Yep, she were a woman, and I married her square, I did!"

Lon stirred his dank black hair ferociously, standing it on end with
horny fingers. "I loved her, Lem Crabbe," he continued hoarsely. "I
loved her, that I know! And ye can let that devilish grin ride on yer
lips when I say it and I don't give a hell; but--but if ye say that she
didn't love me, if ye so much as smile when I say that she died a
callin' me, that she went away lovin' me every minute, I--I'll rip
offen yer hooked arm and tear out yer in'ards with it!"

He was leaning against the wall no longer. As he spoke, he came closer
to the crouching canalman, his eyes straining from their sockets in
livid hate. But he halted, and presently began to speak in a voice more
subdued.

"But she's dead, and I'm goin' to get even. He killed her, he did,
'cause he wouldn't let me see her, and he's got to go the same way I
went! He's got to tear his hair and call God to curse some 'un he won't
know who! He's got to want his kids like as how I've been wantin'
mine--"

"Ye ain't had no kids, Lon," his brother broke in scoffingly.

"I would a had if he'd a kept his hands to hum and let me see her. But
she we