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He, too, had scented something to eat, and thrust in and out a lean red tongue over pointed, tusky teeth. "It's time for me to steal, Flea," whispered Flukey, turning feverish eyes toward his sister. "If you do it, Flukey, I'll do it with ye." With no more ado, Flukey's practiced fingers silently slid up the sash. Two youthful bodies stepped through: the opening.
Flea had refrained from speaking of her midnight fright to Flukey; for he would but tell her that, like all girls, she was afraid, and a slur from her brother was more than she could bear. Flea and Flukey had never been taught to pray, "Lead us not into temptation." Now, with aching hearts and empty stomachs, they turned in silence to the richly lighted houses.
"Yep. I said, when I buyed 'em, there'd be one apiece." "Somethin' has made ye pale, Flea," said Flukey after each of the four had devoured breakfast. "Ye didn't " "I see Lem Crabbe's scow down by the river." Flukey uttered an exclamation and sat up with a groan. "He's comin' after ye, Kid," he breathed desperately. "Nope, he ain't," assured Flea; "he's takin' lumber down to New York.
Ann Shellington, like her brother, had never before seen human misery depicted in small lives. At the mention of his dog, Flukey opened his eyes and turned his gaze upward. "Thank ye, Lady," said he, "thank ye for what ye said about Snatchet. Ain't he a pink peach of a dorg, Ma'm?" Ann inclined her head gently, glancing dubiously over the yellow pup.
Grandma'm Cronk had told her that her dresses made the difference between her ability and Flukey's. With this impediment removed, she could turn her face toward the shining land predicted by Scraggy for Flukey and herself; she could follow her brother over hills and into valleys, until at last "I could wear a pair of yer pants and be a boy, too, and you could chop off my hair," she exclaimed.
"Nope," replied the other; "but I wish we had that cuss of a Flukey to open up them doors, or else Eli was here. This climbin' in windows be hard on a big man like me and you with yer hook, Lem." Lem grunted. "I'll soon have a boy what'll take a hand in things, with us, Lon," he said, presently. "I ain't sayin' nothin' jest yet; but when ye see him ye'll be glad to have him."
There was no time just then to bother with him. The flukey morning breeze shifted several points. The mist curled suddenly and began to flow diagonally across our line of cars instead of toward us, and from one moment to the next you could see straight along the road for maybe a mile or more.
Almost before Flea realized that he had gone, he was in the cave again with Snatchet in his arms, displaying his plunder. "Put 'em on quick!" ordered Flukey. "Here, hold still!" As he spoke, he gathered Flea's black curls into his fingers and cut them off boylike to her head. "If Pappy Lon catches us," he went on, "he'll knock hell out of us both."
Now, however, she wanted the girl to come to the dining-room to welcome Flukey to his first meal at the table and to learn that the deputy had been withdrawn. When no voice answered her knock, Ann turned the handle of the door and peeped in. Fledra's bed was open, and looked as if its occupant had just got up. Miss Shellington passed through to the bathroom, and called.
All the stumbling petitions she had made to Heaven were answered by those few words. At last, to be Horace's wife, to save Flukey, and to protect Ann, who would now have back her lover! It seemed to the young girl, in this flashing moment of thought, that all the clouds of the last few months had floated over their heads and away.
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