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"I ain't held it all these years to let it go now fer a duffer like him." "An', Daddy dear," blurted Tess, "Mother Moll told old Waldstricker's fortune out of the pot, an' she says as how he ain't never goin' to git Andy back to Auburn till it air too late, even if he uses up all the money he air got. What d'ye think o' that?" A little groan came from the garret.
How cruel he had looked and how strong his hands were! Once, some one had said Waldstricker's hands were stronger than God's. But, no, that wasn't true! She and Andy had proved it false. It was just that Waldstricker didn't like her; he didn't like any of the squatters, that's why he made her go away. Probably, he wasn't as glad as she thought he'd be to get his baby back.
She'd escaped the squalor, the horrid cold and the hardships, common to the women of the Silent City. She lived more comfortably and decently than the fishermen's wives. She'd learned many things, but all her efforts to improve herself had been centered in her ambitions for Boy. Now it was all wasted! She'd won for him nothing but Waldstricker's enmity.
"I was talking about a lot thousands." Daddy Skinner straightened out on the cot and Tess tried to swallow, but couldn't. She knew now that he referred to the reward for Andy. "Lordy massy!" she got out at last, huskily. Deforrest Young coughed, and Waldstricker's hand went quickly to his face. "I'll explain about it," he said, "and then you can decide if you wish to do it."
"He's got to keep out of sight of folks.... Eb Waldstricker's five thousand bucks fer gettin' 'im back to Auburn will be settin' men like Sandy flyin' all over the state." The dwarf shivered from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. "I don't want 'em to git me," he whimpered disconsolately. "Ye won't let 'em git me, will ye, Orn?... Will ye, kid?"
"I does that. You leave it to me. Then, I'll settle with Tess Skinner." "As you please about her," consented Waldstricker. "Go along now. I'm busy." Lysander Letts left Waldstricker's office highly pleased. He was going to see Tess, and he had twenty-five dollars in his pocket.
If he'd let me alone, I'd had all the squatters off the lake side before this and probably would have located Bishop." "You've heard nothing of him, Ebbie, I suppose?" asked Madelene. "It does seem queer a dwarf could disappear like that and not a word about him from any part of the world." Waldstricker's powerful hand clenched the teaspoon in his fingers so violently as to bend the handle.
"Nonsense!" was Waldstricker's prompt rejoinder. "Why should you bother with college? You'd better get married right along and go to Europe for your honeymoon. Then when you come back, take your place in my business and help me. I need some smart young fellow, and there's no sense in wasting your time at college. It isn't as though you had your own way to make."
"Then if God's hands kept me here in the shanty 'gainst all Waldstricker could do, can't they keep you here, huh?" Tessibel's head lifted suddenly. What was Andy saying about hands Waldstricker's and and With her free fingers she brushed the dampened curls from her forehead. Waldstricker's hands! Oh, incomparable memory! How could she have forgotten the hands of the Christ!
Tess advanced into the kitchen. "That duffer Waldstricker's come along with me," she told her in a low tone. The old woman struggled to her feet with the aid of her cane. Her watery eyes glared at the tall man in the doorway, and he as angrily stared back at her. The woman hobbled two steps forward.
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