aughed in reply.

"Ye have, Ben Letts, ye have, damn ye," screamed the girl now glowering
above the fishermen with eyes changing to the deep copper of her hair.
"Take that, and that, and that."

She had snatched the long fish from his fingers, and with swift swirls
slapped it thrice into the fisherman's face. Turning she flashed away,
her long shadows giving out the smaller ones of the tatters that hung
about her.

"I'll be goldarned," gasped Letts, "and I'll be goldarned twice if I
don't get even with her some of these here days. The devil's built his
nest in her alright, and if hell fire don't get her, it'll be 'cause she
air burned up by her own cussed wickedness."

He rubbed his face frantically with the soiled sleeve of his shirt,
spitting out the scales and blood that hat lodged between his
dark-colored teeth.

"Ye're always a tormentin' her, Ben," said Longman; "now if ye was only
satisfied to let her alone, I air a thinkin' that she wouldn't bother
ye. Tess air a good girl, for Myry says as how she can hush the brat
when he air a howlin' like a nigger."

"She'll cast a spell over him, that's what she will," muttered Ben
Letts. "Her ma could take off warts afore she was knee high to a
grasshopper, and so can Tess. Once she whispered ten off from Minister
Graves' hand under his very eyes when he was a laughin' at the idee."

"Wish they'd lit on his nose," broke out Jake Brewer, darkly, "he
wouldn't be makin' it so hard for us down here. He gets his bread on
Sunday if any man does. But they do say as how, when he sees Tess a
comin' along, he scoots like a jack-rabbit."

"Sposin' the Dominie don't laugh now, sposin' he don't," put in Longman
with a chuckle, "he air lost the ten warts, ain't he? Tess ain't the
worst in this here county."

"She can keep the bread-risin' from comin' up," objected Brewer; "she
did it with us one day last winter. She scooted by our hut and down
dropped the yeast. Wouldn't as much as let her step her foot in my
kitchen bakin' day. Air we goin' out again to-night, fellers?"

"Yep," answered Ben Letts. "Sposin' Orn'll go, too. He air in town but
he'll get back, Orn will. There ain't no man on the shores of this here
lake that can pull a net with a steady hand like Orn Skinner. Pity he
has such a gal."

Letts gave another wipe at the scales which still clung to his neck and
his eyes glittered evilly as he looked in the direction the girl had
taken. He turned when Longman touche