Mammy go
to bed. I locks the door."

She settled herself in the wooden rocking-chair, trundling the child to
and fro, and murmuring a doleful tune. Her son was now almost two years
old, and beginning to toddle about upon a pair of crooked, thin legs. As
often as Ben had visited the hut he had never deigned to look at the
child, but Myra had a dull hope that, if she saved the fisherman, he
would show some affection for the little boy.

An hour later, the regular breathing of her father and mother told Myra
that they both slept. Ezra, too, was sleeping, for she had bent over him
but a little time before. The clock on the mantel pointed to midnight.
The girl rose, and fed the baby, dropping some paregoric into his milk
to keep him asleep, and then drew a large shawl about the little one,
rolling him gently in the warm folds. Finally, she took a piece of paper
and a pencil from the shelf.

"Mammy," she wrote, "I's a-goin' to save Ben Letts. Ezy tells ye about
it, as how Ben Letts killed the gamekeeper it werent Orn Skinner. I
takes the brat cause it air Bens I luves yer and Satisfied."

She pinned the note to the handle of the copper kettle upon the stove,
and, lifting the child in her arms, slipped through the door without a
sound.

The rain still fell steadily, the turbulent roll of the lake lost only
in thunder's roar. Once on the ragged rocks, Myra walked swiftly, afraid
of the shadowy objects and ghostly sounds that spectered her path. She
threw despairing glances about her, and shrank from the imaginary
sneaking figures haunting the dismal night. Almost running, she reached
the Letts' shanty.

How soon would the officers come for Ben? They might have been there
before her. The cabin was dark, and she tapped timidly upon the kitchen
door. Only a great snore from the sleeping Ben inside answered her.
Trying the latch, it lifted in her fingers, and she crept stealthily
through the narrow aperture, encircling the child with her left arm.

"Ben!" she whispered. "Ben!"

The squatter turned, muttering sleepily.

"Mammy! What be the matter, Mammy?" The fresh night air startled him.

"Who air it?" he demanded hoarsely.

"Myry," breathed the woman again. "Get up.... They air a-comin' to take
ye to prison for the killin' of the gamekeeper. I comed to help ye, Ben
Letts."

The words soaked slowly into the sluggish brain. Tired from the beating
Frederick had given him, and lazy by temperament, Ben did not at first