ole, but the sound of
voices brought him to a standstill.

Ezra Longman was shouting out a threat.

"Ye be a-tryin' to get Tess, and I tells ye to look out."

"Shet up!" responded Ben Letts.

"If ye air a-wishin' to live," came the boy's voice again, "I says for
ye to keep away from her."

"I lives 'cause I lives, and I ain't afraid of ye, nohow."

The Professor barely caught the words, for they were gurgled in the deep
throat.

"I wants Tess for a woman," Ben broke out, "and for a woman I air
a-goin' to have her. She'll care for Mammy and me. I gets her. See?"

The north reel stopped turning, but the south one went on silently. Ben
Letts and Ezra Longman were turning over and over on the sand, at grips
with each other.

Professor Young uttered no word. Then Ezra's voice came from under Ben's
big body.

"I tells what I knows about Skinner if ye don't get up and let me be,"
said he. "I tells--"

Red fingers closed over his throat, and Ezra Longman spoke no more. As
the south reel kept turning around and around, the rope slackened from
the north reel in the water; and still Ben Letts held his deadly fingers
pressed about the neck of his enemy.

Professor Young saw Ben sit up and bend his head to the heart of the
other fisherman. Then, with a furtive glance about, he lifted the boy in
his arms, and came toward Young, grunting under his burden. Young drew
back into the overhanging branches.

The squatter stumbled up the rocks, dragging the boy after him, and with
a mighty effort lifted him high in the air, and tumbled the body into
the Hoghole.

In another instant, Ben was back upon the shore at the reel, turning
swiftly until silently it caught up with the other, just as the net
dragged in the shallow waters, with bushels of flopping fish inside.

* * * * *

Professor Young lowered himself into the Hoghole. It was necessary for
him to use the greatest caution. The lad came to the surface directly
below him, and the Professor saw him catch at a jagged end of a rock.

"Can you breathe?" asked Young, in a low voice. "And can you help
yourself a little?"

"Yep," came back the faint answer.

"Then, when I put out my foot, take hold of it, and make no noise, for
your enemy is but a short distance away, and he meant to kill you. Now,
come up.... There! Don't lean too heavily upon me, for the rocks are
slippery."

Without any more conversation, the two men, one wet and weak