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. CHAPTER XV THE SEARCH Burnett wiped his hand across his eyes to efface the vision which so unexpectedly impeded his official progress. It was the sight of a girl, nestled on a cot, and over the pillow upon which her head rested was strewn in a wild, magnificent disarray, a profusion of tawny curls, such as he never had seen. For a moment the corpulent deputy from Auburn, the terror of all the criminals in the country around, forgot his delegated obligation to the state. Tessibel Skinner's two slender arms huddled a small, speckled hoot owl; and as in a dream, Burnett noted the girl's red lips touched the bird affectionately in a hasty little caress. Another thing he noted was the unflinching and prolonged questioning glance with which the red-brown eyes met his. Tess couldn't speak a word at first, now that she was actually face to face with the man after Andy. He was even sterner than she had imagined he would be. Quite gravely she considered his big frame from head to foot, took hasty account of the firm setting of his jaw, and the deep, clean-cut lines from his eyes to his chin. Then, she smiled a rare, enchanting smile, the deepening dimples around the red moist lips suffusing the deputy warden with a warm, welcoming glow.