That name, though he knew his questioner's errand, so suddenly falling on Orn's ears, congealed his blood and knotted his muscles with fear.
"Andy Bishop?" he echoed irresolutely. "Andy Bishop? Who air Andy Bishop?"
Burnett lifted a huge fist, but dropped it again. The time hadn't arrived to punch from Skinner the knowledge he wanted. Later, perhaps-"Now none of that, Skinner," he barked savagely. "None of that, you hump-backed brute. You know perfectly well who I mean, and you know where the dwarf is, and we want him and we want him quick.... He made his getaway from Auburn.... Now give him up, see?"
Second by second, and minute by minute, Orn Skinner was gathering his courage and strength. All through his life he had been used to brutal officials like Burnett; so swallowing hard, he raised his great gray head and looked straight into the other's dark face.
"If ye mean that little dwarf who were up to Auburn when I were there, I don't know nothin' about him," he said. "I ain't never heard he come from this end of the lake."
The warden's fist knotted once more.
"You're a liar, Skinner," he scraped from his throat. "Now look here! I know confounded well you know where he is. If you don't want me to hand you trouble by the bushel, you'd better cough up that little dwarf. Get me? Eh?"
The fingers holding the broad-bladed knife sank to the fisherman's knee, and for a moment the stick Orn had been cutting poised in the air. Then a slow, broad smile showed his discolored teeth.
"It air the truth I been tellin' you," he declared deliberately. "I don't know nothin' about Bishop, an' I don't want to know nothin'.... Ye ain't got anything on me, Burnett. I air a livin' here peaceful with my kid."
"Well, I'm goin' to search your shanty, anyhow," Burnett growled menacingly, his under jaw sticking out like a bull dog's.
"Well, search it, I ain't carin'," consented Orn. "But my kid air sick in there, an' I don't want ye to scare her."
Without waiting for further parley, Burnett, like an enraged lion, bounded to the shanty threshold and one long stride took him well on his way across the kitchen. Suddenly he stopped, staring straight ahead of him, as if some shining spectre from another world had appeared in his path.