g
the bent little figure. "Me an' Daddy loves ye, an' we'll hide ye, we
will. Be glad ye're little, honey. If ye was big, it'd be harder to
sneak ye out of sight."

"I don't see where ye're goin' to hide 'im, Tess?" remarked Skinner,
making the statement a question by the rising inflection in his voice.
"It air jest like Andy says, if Burnett gits on 'is scent, he'll find
'im all right, all right, an' five thousand dollars'd spur any man on to
hunt 'im down."

The squatter girl smiled in sudden decision.

"They won't find 'im where I put 'im," said she, decisively.

"Tell us about it, brat," urged her father, wistfully.

Tess thought a minute, and hummed a minute.

"He air goin' to get put in my straw tick! That air where ye're goin',
Andy," she explained presently. "An' I air got to be awful sick an' git
in bed an' stay there. I don't know anything else to do! Oh dear! I
can't look sick to save my life, can I?"

She got up and went to the glass and considered minutely her own rosy
reflection. After contemplating it for some time, she came back and sat
down, leaning a dimpled chin on the palm of one hand.

"I guess as how I don't need to be sick anywhere inside me," she
decided. Then a smile smoothed away the slight pucker on her brow. "I
know! I could hurt my foot, couldn't I? I guess as how that air best....
I'll hurt my foot.... Mebbe I'll sprain my ankle. I dunno yet, but I'll
be a bed all right, an' I'll have Deacon with me. I bet when that warden
sees me spread on that cot an' a owl starin' at 'im, he won't even think
o' askin' me to git up."

The dwarf uttered a weird cry in chorus with a groan from the squatter.

"What'll ye do, if he tries to take ye offen the bed?" Orn questioned.

Tess tossed the profusion of curls over her shoulder, and her smile
showed two rows of white teeth.

"I'll grin at him first, like this," she laughed, "an' if that don't do
no good, I'll sing at 'im. I air bettin' he won't touch me then. But if
he goes to haul me off, I'll holler an' make such a fuss I bet he'll be
glad to let me alone."

With this statement, Tessibel rose and finished, "Get off'n that bed,
Daddy. I air goin' to begin rippin' the tick now. If them deputies be
comin' down the lake, us uns got to be ready.... It's only straw, ye
know, Andy, an' awful soft. I'll fix yer head so it'll hang out a
little. Then ye can breathe."

Before the shadow of the willow trees went to sleep in their soft earth
bed l