"Ben Letts," she cried, shrieking the words into his ear, "kiss yer brat afore he dies with ye, will ye? Ye ain't so much as ever touched him." A dark storm-cloud broke directly over their head--one brilliant sheet flared the sky from the north to the south. The child, sleeping heavily under the drug, was close to the squatter's face. A revulsion of feeling overwhelmed Ben--approaching death aided the ghosts of his past bad deeds in their attack upon his wretched, over-wrought soul.... With a sob, he laid his lips upon the slumbering babe. A long kiss followed the first; another, and then another. Myra gasped, and drew the boy back to her. The boat reared high in the boiling, seething waves, and the next whitecap wrenched the child from her hands, snatching it into the water. "Ben Letts, our brat air gone!... There he be!... God!... There! There!" Through a sudden, resplendent flood of light, they saw the babe poised for one brief instant on a huge, foaming shoulder of the lake. In her frenzy the squatter woman was murmuring over and over strange, inarticulate words which Ben did not heed. Their arms were locked tightly about each other. Ben Letts slowly fixed his cold, shivering lips on those of the girl, drawing her closer and closer into his embrace. The majesty of death was upon them, this squatter father and mother. Another glare of light showed them still clinging together, but the one following failed to reveal either man, woman or boat. CHAPTER XXXVIII Professor Young knocked at the Skinner hut. Tess smiled at him from between the tatters of the curtain, and unlocked the door, standing, as her friend took the wooden rocker. "Daddy air a-comin' home," she breathed timidly. "Soon. Sit down, child. I have much to say to you.... We have discovered the murderer of the gamekeeper. We have positive proof that it was not your father." Tess squatted on the floor, crossed her legs, and waited. "Who were it?" she asked presently, as if afraid to speak. "Ben Letts." "The damn bloke!" she ejaculated, a dangerous light gathering in her eyes. "And he were a-lettin' Daddy be hung for his own dirty work! He air a wicked cuss, he air!" "Ezra Longman saw him when he committed the murder," Young told her, watching the interest gather in the eager face. "Letts used your father's gun. That accounts for his having been accused." Tess nodded her head. "Ezy were here last night," she commented quietly. "He were sick." "He was under my care for a long time," explained Young, "and last night escaped and walked home through the rain.... He is dead." "Dead!" gasped Tess. "Dead!" Impetuously she bent toward him, and finished: "Ezy Longman ain't dead!" "Yes, he is," replied Young. "He died in his father's hut, last night. I have just left there, and I feel heartily sorry for them both." "Myry?... Did ye see Myry?" "She's gone with Ben Letts." "Gone where?"