"Set down, Flea," ordered Lon presently. "Ye give me the twitches. If ye can't set still, crawl to bed till," he glanced her over, as she paused to catch his words,--"till one of yer young men'll come to git ye." It was the chance Fledra had been longing for. She backed from him through the opening of Granny Cronk's room and closed the door. For one minute she stood panting. Then she walked to the window, threw back the small sash, and slipped through. Once in the open air, she shot toward the scow, and in another moment had scurried up the gangplank and into the living-room. When he saw her, Lem's lips fell away from his pipe, and he rose slowly and awkwardly; but no shade of surrender softened the hard lines settled about the mouth of the panting girl. "Lem," she gasped, "has Pappy Lon said anything to ye about Mr. Brimbecomb?" "Yep." "Are ye goin' to let me go with him?" "Nope." "Will ye swear, Lem, that when he comes to the hut ye'll say that he can't have me?" Lem's jaw dropped, and he uttered a throat sound, guttural and rough. "Do ye mean, Flea, that ye'd rather come to the scow than go with the young, good-lookin' cuss?" "Yes, that's what I mean; and Pappy Lon says he's comin'." Lem made a spring toward her. "Don't touch me now!" she cried, shuddering. "Don't--yet! I'm comin' back by and by." Before he could place his hands upon her, Fledra had gone down the plank. From the small boat-window Lem could discern the little figure flitting among the hut bushes; in another moment she had crawled through the open window into Lon's hut. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX When Everett arrived in Ithaca he made arrangements with the conductor of the local train running to Geneva to have it slow down at Sherwoods Lane. A sudden jerk of the engine as it halted at the path that led to Lon's hut brought Brimbecomb to his feet, and he hurried from the car with muttered thanks and a substantial consideration to the conductor. While the train rumbled away in the distance, he stood in the shadow of a large pine tree by the track and looked about to get his bearings. Suddenly he heard not far from him the faint, weird cry of an owl. Instantly he was on the alert; for there was something familiar in the melancholy sound. It took him back to a night in Tarrytown, when he had cast a woman into the cemetery, and he remembered that she had said she lived in Ithaca. Superstition sent him deeper into the shadow for a moment; but he recovered himself and, shaking his shoulders, went his way toward the lake with a muttered oath.