“By God! it’s little Flea!” he exclaimed at last.

“Yep,” threw back Lon.  “We found somethin’ we didn’t expect—­eh, Lem?”

“Did you come to steal?” Fledra demanded again, this time looking at the canalman.

“Yep; but we didn’t know that you was here, Flea.”

“Then you won’t take anything—­now, will you?”

“We don’t go till you come with us, Flea!” Lon moved nearer her as he spoke.  “Ye be my brat, and ye’ll come home with yer pappy!”

Fledra choked for breath.

“I can’t go with you tonight,” she replied, bending over in supplication.  “Flukey’s sick here, and I have to stay.”

“Sick!  Sick, ye say?” Cronk exclaimed.

“Yes, he’s been in bed ever since we left home, and he can’t walk, and I won’t go without him.”

“I’ll take ye both,” said Lon ferociously.  “I’ll come after ye, and I’ll kill the man what keeps ye away from me!  I’m a thinkin’ a man can have his own brats!”

Fledra did not set up an argument upon this point.  She wanted to get the men out of the house, so that she might think out a plan to save her brother and herself.

“Ye’ll have to let Flukey stay until he gets well, and then mebbe we’ll come back.”

“There ain’t no mebbe about it,” growled Lon.  “Ye’ll come when I say it, and Lem ain’t through with ye yet, nuther!  Be ye, Lem?”

Never, since the children had left his hut, had Lon felt such a desire to torture them.  The dead woman seemed to call out to him for revenge.  The wish for the Shellington baubles and the money he might find was nothing compared to the delight he would feel in dragging the twins back to Ithaca.  Granny Cronk was there no longer, and everything would go his way!  He put out his hand and touched Crabbe.

“We ain’t goin’ to steal nothin’ in this house, Lem,” he said sullenly; “but I’ll come tomorry and take the kids.  Then we be done with this town.  Ye’ll get yer brother ready by tomorry mornin’.  Ye hear, Flea?”

“Yes,” answered Flea dully.

“If Flukey be too sick to walk, he can ride.  I’ve got the money, and all I want be you two brats, and, if ye don’t come when I tell ye to, then it’ll be worse for them what’s harborin’ ye.  And don’t ye so much as breathe to the man what owns this house that we was here tonight—­or—­I’ll kill Flukey when I get him back to the shanty!”

His glance took in the beautiful room, and, unable to suppress a smile, he taunted: 

“I’m a thinkin’ ye’ll see a difference ’tween the hut and this place—­eh, Flea?”

“And between this and the scow,” chuckled Lem.

“Yep, ‘tween this an’ the scow,” repeated Lon.  “Come on, Lem.  We’ll go now, an’ tomorry we’ll come for ye, Flea.  No man ain’t no right to keep another man’s kids.”