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She was glad she could now at least rest free from Lem until the hut was reached, and then, if only something should happen to soften Cronk's heart, how hard she would work for him! The next morning the barge approached the squatter settlement, and Fledra was once more on deck. She wondered what Floyd had said when he received her letter, and if he believed that she had gone of her own free will.
I'll be in room five until twelve o'clock to-night. Any time after eight he will find me there alone. You know where he lives; go and find him. Then make sure that Braddock is at Dick Cronk's room. That's all." At half-past eight o'clock that evening Ernie Cronk stole up the stairway in the rear of Broads's saloon.
"What were you laughing at, then?" demanded the unfortunate boy, made over-sensitive by his dread of ridicule. "I don't remember that I laughed," said David, perplexed and distressed. "Well, you did," defiantly. David caught the look of profound embarrassment in Dick Cronk's face. He felt a sharp pity for him, though he could not have explained why. "I'm sorry you think that of me," he said.
If ye can't set still, crawl to bed till," he glanced her over, as she paused to catch his words, "till one of yer young men'll come to git ye." It was the chance Fledra had been longing for. She backed from him through the opening of Granny Cronk's room and closed the door. For one minute she stood panting. Then she walked to the window, threw back the small sash, and slipped through.
The squatter's condition made it impossible to allow Katherine to be with him, and they dared not leave him alone in the hut. Later, when they were making plans for Cronk's future, Vandecar said: "We can't leave him here, Ann dear. Can't we take him with us, Katherine?" "It's the only thing I can see to do," replied Ann, with catching breath.
Brown, the brewer, his features distorted by agony and fear; then glancing up he discovered in the red glare upon her face that the woman was no other than his daughter. She had come to spend the night with a friend, and, being a sound sleeper, had not escaped with the family. "Who wants yer thousand dollars?" replied Bill Cronk's gruff voice.
"Mother, Mother!" she stumbled, "oh, I want her, Sister Ann! I want her! Will you take me to her? She's sweet and and mine!" She made the last statement in a low voice directly to Vandecar. "Yes, and I'm your father, Fledra," he whispered. He longed for her to be glad in him longed now as never before. Fledra's eyes sought Cronk's. He had forgotten her; Katherine alone held his attention.
The governor held her close, while he told her of her babyhood and the story of the kidnapping, refraining from mentioning Cronk's name. It took sometime to impress upon her that all need of apprehension was past, that her future cast with her own dear ones was safe, and that Lem and Lon were but as shadows of other days. Katherine, weeping with despair, was sitting close to Lon.
"There can be no mistake," Ann thrust in. "He looks too much like you, and the girl is exactly like him.... Oh, Floyd!" Vandecar extended his arms, and, with a sob that shook his soul, drew his boy to him. "You're not Cronk's son," he said; "you're mine!... God! Ann, you'll never know just how I feel toward you and Horace.
"But it won't hurt to let him think that we're all still a leetle bit doubtful." "I heard all about the murder in Staunton. The sheriff was trying to head the kid off if he came through that county. We were expectin' to see him landed in jail any day. They had bloodhounds after him, I hear." Dick Cronk's body quivered in a sharp spasm of dread.
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