Scraggy sat up painfully.

“I wasn’t throwed over no fence.”

“Ye was, ’cause I seed the man when he done it.  I wish now that I’d a gone and settled with him.  Who was he, Screechy?”

“I dunno,” she answered.

Lem bent over her, his eyes blazing with wrath.

“Ye want to git yer batty head a workin’ damn quick,” he shouted, “or I’ll slit yer throat with this!” The rusty hook was thrust near the thin, drawn face.

“I can’t think tonight,” muttered Screech Owl, “’cause the bats be a runnin’ ’bout in my head.  When I think, I’ll tell ye, Lemmy.”

“Where be that boy?” demanded Lem.

Scraggy shook her head.  Every time she thought of Lem’s questions, there was an infernal tapping of unnumbered winged creatures at the walls of her brain.

“There ain’t no boy that I knows of,” she said listlessly, sinking down again.  “And ye wouldn’t slit my neck when I ain’t done nothin’, would ye, Lemmy?”

“Ye has done somethin’,” growled Lem.  “Ye has kep’ that brat from me these years past, and now he’s big ‘nough I’m goin’ to have him!  Ye hear?” Every word he uttered came forth with effort.  The red mark under his chin moved relentlessly, preventing him from speaking with clearness.

Scraggy writhed beneath the tightening grasp of the man’s wet fingers.

“I’ll choke ye to death!” Lem gasped, between throaty convulsions.

“Lemmy, Lemmy dear—­”

Another twist of Lem’s fingers, and the woman sank back unconscious.  Lem shook her roughly.

“Scraggy, Scraggy!” he cried wildly.  “Set up!  I Want to talk to ye!  Set up!”

The silence in the gloomy hut, the whiteness of the seemingly dead woman, filled Lem with superstitious dread.  He grasped his lantern and ran out, failing to close the door.

The frightened man made off up the hill, and, passing through the Stebbins farm by the Gothic church and dark graveyard, he tramped the Trumansburg road to Ithaca.  The tracks were covered with water as they had been when Eli had given him the lift toward the settlement.  But the flood had so receded that by drawing his trousers up over his boots Lem managed to get through the mud to the bridge.  From there he sought the house of Middy Burnes, where he made an agreement with the tugman that the scow should be towed from Ithaca to Tarrytown.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

To usher Everett into her home with the same fond heart as hitherto was more than Ann could do.  Dearly as she loved him, much as she desired to be his wife, it was hard to pardon him for casting aside her interests for those of the dark-browed squatter.  But, womanlike, she felt that she could break down her lover’s determination, and resolved that she would not hesitate to open argument with him.

Everett met her with a smile, and her lips trembled as they received his warm kiss.  After they were seated he said: