"Thank God, my little girl is safe!" he murmured.
Then he glanced over her head, his horrified attention centered upon the group on the floor.
Scraggy looked up at him, still holding Lem and Everett.
"I'm glad ye comed, Mister. Can't ye help 'em any?"
For many minutes they worked in silence over the father and son. Once the brilliant eyes of Brimbecomb opened and flashed bewilderedly about the room, until he caught sight of Ann. A smile, sweet and winning, curved his lips. Then he lapsed into unconsciousness again.
"Oh, I want him to speak to me, Horace," moaned Ann, "only a little word!"
"Wait, Dear," said Horace. "We're doing all we can.... I believe that man over there is dead."
He made a motion as if to lean over the scowman; but Scraggy pushed him back.
"No, my Lemmy ain't dead," she wailed, "course he ain't dead!" She placed her lips close to the dying man's ear, and called, "Lemmy, Lemmy, this be Scraggy!"
The hooked arm moved a trifle, and then was still. The fingers of the left hand groped weakly about, and Scraggy, with a sob, lifted the arm and put it about her. Had the others in the room been mindful of the action, they would have seen the man's muscles tighten about the woman's thin neck. Then presently his arm loosened and he was dead.
Everett's eyes were open, and he was trying to speak.
"Is--Ann--here?" he whispered faintly.
"Yes, Dear, I am here, right close beside you. Can't you feel my hands?"
His head turned feebly, and his fingers sought hers.
"I have been--wretchedly--wicked!"
His voice was so low that Horace did not catch the words; but Scraggy heard, and crawled from Lem to Miss Shellington's side.
"Missus, will ye tell my little boy-brat that his mammy be here? Will ye say as how I loved him--him and Lemmy, allers?"
Her haggard face was close to Ann's, and the latter took in every word of the low-spoken petition. Miss Shellington bent over the dying man.
"Everett," she said brokenly, "your own mother is here, and she wants you to speak to her."
Brimbecomb partly rose, and, in scanning those in the hut, his eyes fell upon Screech Owl. The tense agony seemed for an instant to leave his face, and it fell into more boyish lines.
"Little 'un--pretty little 'un," whispered Scraggy "yer mammy loves ye, and Lemmy loved ye, too, if he did hit ye!"