Five years later the Monarch was drawn up to the east bank of the Erie Canal at Syracuse. It was past midnight, and with the exception of those on Lem Crabbe's scow the occupants of all the long line of boats were sleeping. Three men sat silently working in the living-room of the boat. Lem Crabbe, Silent Lon Cronk, and his brother Eli, Cayuga Lake squatters, were the workers. At one end of the room hung a broken iron kettle. Into this Eli Cronk was dropping bits of gold which he cut from baubles taken from a basket. Crabbe, his short legs drawn up under his body, held a pair of pliers in his left hand, while caught firmly in the hook was a child's tiny pin. From this he tore the small jewels, threw them into a tin cup, and passed the setting on to Eli. The other man, taciturn and fierce, was flattening out by means of strong pressers several gold rings and bracelets. The three had worked for many hours with scarcely a word spoken, with scarcely a recognition of one another.

Of a sudden Eli Cronk raised his head and said, "Lem, Scraggy was to Mammy's t'other day."

"I didn't know ye'd been to Ithacy?" Lem made the statement a question.

"Yep, I went to see Mammy, and she says as how Scraggy's pappy were dead, and as how the gal's teched in here." His words were low, and he raised his forefinger to his head significantly.

"She ain't allers a stayin' in the squatter country nuther," he pursued. "She takes that damn ugly cat of her'n and scoots away for a time. And none of 'em up there don't know where she goes. Hones' Injun, don't she never come about this here scow, Lem?"

"Hones' Injun," replied Lem laconically, without looking up from his work.

Presently Eli continued: "Mammy says as how the winter's comin', and some 'un ought to look out for Scraggy. She goes 'bout the lake doin' nothin' but hollerin' like a hoot-owl, and she don't have enough to eat. But she's been gone now goin' on two weeks, disappearin' like she's been doin' for a few years back. Scraggy allers says she has bats in her head."

"So she has bats," muttered Lem, "and she allers had 'em, and that's why I made her beat it. I didn't want no woman 'bout me for good and all."

Lem Crabbe lifted his head and glanced toward the small window overlooking the dark canal. He had always feared the crazy squatter-woman whom he had wrecked by his brutality.




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