"What hes Ezy been a-sayin'?"

"Nothin' but that ye throwed him in the Hoghole, and tried to kill him,
and that ye killed the gamekeeper."

"Where hes he been all this time?"

"I dunno. He air awful sick, and Ma put him to bed."

Their voices rose high above the shrieking of the wind. Myra's last
words were screamed out. The boat tossed like a bit of tinder, but it
was in the hands of a fisherman: Ben knew how to keep it in and out of
the troughs of the waves. Once the boat lurched mightily, and Myra gave
a frightened cry, wedging the child between her knees. Higher and higher
rolled the waves.

"We hev got to bail the water out," yelled Ben. "Bail, Myry, while I
rows."

The mother grasped the sleeping child tighter between her knees, and
began to throw the water into the lake. Suddenly a great wave half
filled the boat.

"Ye can't do it, Ben," Myra screamed. "Ye can't keep the boat top up,
and we'll all die to once.... Does ye love yer brat, Ben Letts?"

The voice, prophetic and high-pitched, struck terror to the heart of the
fisherman. He stopped rowing, and shouted out over the waves for help.
The lightning made day of the inky night for an instant, and the
squatter Ben saw the woman, holding the child under one arm and clinging
to the side of the boat with the other, creep toward him.

"Keep away!" he bellowed. "Keep the boat top up!"

Another flash.... She was closer, her white face and her staring eyes
frightening him. He raised one great boot to ward her off, but she was
at his side before it touched her. A large wave lifted one oar from the
lock and bore it away on its crest. The boat, without pilot power,
tipped dangerously. Loosening her hand from the side of the boat, Myra
wound one arm about the knees of the squatter.

"Ben Letts," she cried, shrieking the words into his ear, "kiss yer brat
afore he dies with ye, will ye? Ye ain't so much as ever touched him."

A dark storm-cloud broke directly over their head--one brilliant sheet
flared the sky from the north to the south. The child, sleeping heavily
under the drug, was close to the squatter's face. A revulsion of feeling
overwhelmed Ben--approaching death aided the ghosts of his past bad
deeds in their attack upon his wretched, over-wrought soul.... With a
sob, he laid his lips upon the slumbering babe. A long kiss followed the
first; another, and then another.

Myra gasped, and drew the boy back to her. The boat reared high in the
boiling