ered moan fell from her lips.

"I hate ye!" growled Lon. "Get back to the loft afore I kill ye!"

Slowly Flea was regaining her senses, and the squatter's curses struck
her ears like a whiplash. Bitter, scalding tears blinded her as, holding
her thin skirt to her bleeding nose, she stumbled up the ladder. With
anger unappeased, Lon, staggering like one drunken, took his cap from
the peg and went out.

* * * * *

When Lon called Flukey, Flea followed her brother into the night, while
he arranged the thief's tools in the boat. There was a dull roar and
rush of the wind, as it tossed the lake into gigantic whitecaps, which
added to the girl's suffering. Her young soul was smarting beneath the
scathing injustice. As she watched Lem and Lon pull away, with Flukey at
the rudder, Flea squatted on the beach, bent her head, and wept long and
wildly.

A gentle, sympathetic touch of a warm tongue made her put out her arms
and draw Snatchet into them. It comforted her to feel the faithful heart
beating against her own. That Lon disliked to have her and Flukey about
him, she knew; but she had not known until today that he hated her. He
had never before told her so. Flea caught her breath in a gasp, and
turned her eyes to a rift in a rock where the scow lay. Only a dark line
distinguished it in the shadows. At the thought that it was to be forced
upon her for a home, she cried again, and Snatchet, from his haven of
rest, lifted his pointed yellow nose and wailed dismally, striving with
all his dog's soul to assuage her unusual grief.

The distant sound of a hoot-owl startled Flea from her tears. It was a
familiar sound to her and came as a call from a friend.

Creeping into the low woodshed, Flea took up a bundle of fagots from the
corner, and, closing the door on Snatchet that he might not follow her,
mounted the hill with the wood under her arm. Once at the top of the
lane, she opened her lips and echoed the hoot. She passed through a
thicket of sumac into a clearing where a number of sheep were huddled
together in the cold night air. An answer came back almost instantly
from the ragged rocks, and, squatting in a hollow, Flea sat patiently
until the branches broke below her. A woman with tangled hair came
creeping cautiously forward.

"Who be there?" she whispered.

"It's Flea, Screech Owl. Be the bats a runnin' in yer head?"

"Yep, child," the woman answered mournfully. "The fagots be give