in his domain, the Dry-Goods Emporium, previous to his departure for the
evening's gossip and checkers at the drug-store, he stumbled over
something soft, lying on the floor behind a counter. The thing rose, and
would have evaded him, but he put out his hands and pinioned it and
dragged it to the show-window where the light of the fading day defined
his capture. The capture shrieked and squirmed and fought earnestly.
Grasped by the shoulder he held a lean, fierce-eyed, undersized girl of
fourteen, clad in one ragged cotton garment, unless the coat of dust she
wore over all may be esteemed another. Her cheeks were sallow, and her
brow was already shrewdly lined, and her eyes were as hypocritical as they
were savage. She was very thin and little, but old Tom's brown face grew a
shade nearer white when the light fell upon her.

"You're no Plattville girl," he said sharply.

"You lie!" cried the child. "You lie! I am! You leave me go, will you? I'm
lookin' fer pap and you're a liar!"

"You crawled in here to sleep, after your seven-mile walk, didn't you?"
Martin went on.

"You're a liar," she screamed again.

"Look here," said Martin, slowly, "you go back to Six-Cross-Roads and tell
your folks that if anything happens to a hair of Mr. Harkless's head every
shanty in your town will burn, and your grandfather and your father and
your uncles and your brothers and your cousins and your second-cousins and
your third-cousins will never have the good luck to see the penitentiary.
Reckon you can remember that message? But before I let you go to carry it,
I guess you might as well hand out the paper they sent you over here