"Did ye speak, Lon?" asked Granny Cronk.

"Nope; I were only a thinkin'."

"Have ye changed yer mind 'bout Flea?"

"Nope, Mammy, and ye keep yer mouth shet if ye want me to stay to hum!
See?"

Granny Cronk grunted a reply, and passed into the back room. Five
minutes later the rope cot creaked under her weight.

Wrapped in his somber musings, Lon did not hear Flea approach him until
she was at his elbow. With her coming, the sweet phantom, to which he
grimly held in his moments of solitude, fled back to its unknown grave.
Never had his loved one been so near, so real; never before had she
touched his writhing nature in all its primeval strength. The girl
before him was so like the man who had withstood his agony that he
clenched his fist and rose from his chair. Flea was looking at him in
mute appeal; but before she could speak he had lifted his fist and
brought it down upon the lovely, beseeching face. The blow stunned her;
but only a smothered moan fell from her lips.

"I hate ye!" growled Lon. "Get back to the loft afore I kill ye!"

Slowly Flea was regaining her senses, and the squatter's curses struck
her ears like a whiplash. Bitter, scalding tears blinded her as, holding
her thin skirt to her bleeding nose, she stumbled up the ladder. With
anger unappeased, Lon, staggering like one drunken, took his cap from