"I'm a-goin' to stay, just the same," rejoined Ben, sitting down upon the tracks.
Tessibel wound her arms around the dog's neck, banking the red curls under her cheek for a pillow. It was good to rest with her friend. Between the fence wires she could see the branches of the pine tree, its shadowy arms creating odd figures across the light streaks in the sky. What a wonderful being the student's God was! He had listened to the cry of a squatter and had saved her.
"Yer daddy ain't a-comin' home," Ben Letts broke in upon her meditations.
"He air," retorted Tess. "He air the nextest time I go for him."
"It air a lie," insisted the fisherman, "ye comes with me to the minister and I'll make yer an hones' woman. Ye'll have to cut that mop and settle down like a woman should. Do ye hear?... Tessibel, I says an hones' woman!"
Tessibel shifted her head from Pete's neck and sat up.
"Ye says as how--ye and--me--will go to the minister?"
"Yep."
"And we air to be--married ... eh?"
"Yep."
"How about--the--brat--and--and--and Satisfied's girl?"
Myra's secret had slipped from her. Ben's silence invited her to proceed.
"Yer brat air sick to his grave, he air," said she mournfully, a tear settling in her voice, making its sweetness rough, "and Myry air a-dyin' of a broken heart.... If yer wants to make an hones' woman, make her one, that air what I says, I does. And ye broke her arm on the ragged rocks! Ye did! And then yer comes--and talks about bein' hones'," the musical voice rose to a cry. "Ye can't make a woman hones' for ye ain't hones' yerself."
Without a sound Ben rose from the tracks, reached for a stone and whirled it through the fence at Tessibel. The stone missed her, but struck the dog. Trembling with rage, Pete lifted his great body with a low, vicious growl.
Tessibel sprang from the ground, whilst another stone hurtled through the air, catching her curls in its flight. Then she lifted the lower wire of the barbed fence. Pete crouched, and wiggled his flattened body through. Ben hadn't expected this--he turned and ran. The skurrying legs of the dog carried him quickly on after the fisherman. While Ben, screeching like a great night owl, hooted out his fear of the maddened dog, and yelled for Tess to call him off.
The girl did not speak, only waited, waited until a louder cry from the hunted man assured her that Pete had gripped him. Tessibel scarcely dared breathe; her friend, God's earthly instrument, sent to save her, and her mortal enemy were in deadly combat.