s baby.
The thin little body lay between the father and mother.

For many minutes they surveyed the dead trio in rapt attention.

"Where air Myry's ma?" asked Tessibel presently.

"Back there, in Ezy's bed. She air sick, and so air Mammy Letts."

"Ezy were buried yesterday," ruminated Tess.

"Yep, and Myry be a-goin' to the same place. Ma and me air--alone."

There was something strangely pathetic in the quiet words, in the
stolid, ugly face with its hard lines, in the mouth twitching at the
corners as he spoke. Tess sprang toward him, and wound her strong young
arms about him.

"Myry air happy," she burst forth; "happier than when she were livin'
with you. She air with Ben Letts."

Satisfied, towering over her, blinked confusedly at her words. Puzzling,
he drew his heavy brows down darkly.

"Myry were a-seekin' Ben," Tess went on hurriedly, "and the brat
couldn't stay without its pa and ma. I says as how Myry air happy,
Satisfied."

"She were a-lovin' Ben Letts?" The pain in his clouded blue eyes stung
Tess to the heart. The grief of this lonely old man, bereft of his all,
seemed the most tragic spectacle she had ever faced.

"Yep," she replied, trying to smile through her tears; "she were
a-lovin' him, and were a-seekin' his lovin's all the time. It were only
in the storm--she found what she were a-seekin'."

She turned her head sharply toward the dead.

"Ye can see she air a-smilin', Satisfied, can't ye? And Ben air
a-huggin' her up to him. That air somethin' Myry wanted. And ye air
a-goin' to leave them like that, ain't ye? Don't tear Ben's arms loose,
'cause Myry won't be happy if ye does. Can't ye put 'em in a box, just
like they air?"

Longman made a protesting motion. Some fishermen had picked the two dead
ones up, locked in each other's arms. And he himself had covered them
with a sheet, without making an effort to part them. He had not thought
of putting them in the squatters' cemetery together.

"And let the brat stay with 'em, too," Tess broke in on his reverie.

"Yep," he replied; "I lets 'em all stay together. What Myry seeked for
and found, she can have for all of me."

The listening girl knew there was hatred in the father's tones for Ben
Letts. Well, she had hated Ben too, but he was all Myra's now, and there
was no more hatred for the ugly squatter in the heart of Tessibel.

"She air a-smilin', Satisfied," Tess said again.

Longman loosened Tessibel's arms, and, walking slowly fo