The Secret of the Storm Country Part 84

Yes! Elsie should be treated as her father had treated Boy! She stooped and picked up the whip. The men leaned forward, watching intently. Their heavy breathing and Ma Brewer's sobs mingled with the ticking of the clock and the storm's racket against the hut sides.

She studied the whip and tested its hissing pliability. That tip had stung Boy beyond endurance. The length of it had put him in his grave.

Waldstricker's hands had tortured her son. She would make his daughter pay the reckoning. She drew a deep breath and raised her arm.

Elsie had crept unnoticed to her side, and as Tess glanced down, the child touched her hand with little fingers, marble-cold. The girl drew away from the suppliant touch, then, lowered the whip and stood considering the baby face.

"I hate you worse'n anyone in the whole world," she spat out.

"Then, lick 'er," growled Longman, and the other squatters muttered their approval.

Elsie dropped her head against Tessibel, and clung to her skirt.

"I want my--mover," she burst out, crying.

"Get even with Waldstricker, brat," said another voice.

Tess raised her arm and glancing along the uplifted whip, again, she looked into Boy's eyes, and, as she gazed, the little face in the rafters receded, grew dimmer.

She dropped the whip, and unmindful of the squatters, lifted her hands.

"Mummy's baby boy!" she called. The happy eyes faded last from her sight and it seemed to her they summoned her thence. A moment more, she stood s.h.i.+vering, staring into the shadows, and, then, she turned upon the dark-browed men.

"You said I could do anything I wanted to with 'er, eh?"

"Yep," Brewer a.s.sented. "Beat 'er, kill 'er, the more the better for us-uns."

"Then give me a blanket to wrap her in. I'll take her home where--where--Boy--died."

Brewer's lips fell apart and he laughed evilly.

"Good idee, brat," he said. "Ye can make it a thousand times worser for the kid if ye do.... Get a blanket, Ma."

Carefully, the girl wrapped the blanket around and around the little one. Elsie whimpered disconsolately but made no objection. Anything was better than being left with the men who tied her up. Lifting the bulky bundle, Tess started for the door, Jake picked up the whip from the floor, handed it to her.

"Ye're forgettin' somethin' ain't ye, brat? Ye'll be wantin' this, I'm thinkin'," he chuckled.

"I can't ever thank you all enough," she flung back hoa.r.s.ely, tucking the whip into her coat pocket, "for giving me this chance at Waldstricker."

Longman got up and opened the door and Tess stepped out into the storm, carrying Waldstricker's daughter.

Deforrest Young was trying to calm his sister. Her frantic cries for her baby contrasted strangely with the icy despair of the other mother he'd tried to comfort. His heart, still sore from Boy's loss, bled in ready sympathy to his sister's mourning. He grasped Helen's hands which were tearing her hair.

"Don't!" he said. "We'll find her soon. By morning she'll be back home again. Ebenezer has nearly every man around looking for her, ...

searching every barn and asking at every house.... Darling, do you think you could stay here with Madelene and let me go out, too?"

"Yes, yes, go, but Oh, G.o.d, I shall die if you don't find her!"

Hour after hour men on horseback and men on foot hunted through the hills and gullies for little Elsie Waldstricker.

It was almost twelve, when one by one Ebenezer's friends rode sorrowfully home after a useless search.

CHAPTER LI

THE CHRISTMAS GUEST

When Tessibel carried Elsie into the living room, she looked furtively about to a.s.sure herself that Professor Young had not returned during her absence. Only Andy should know! He would help her--he, too, loved Boy with all his soul. The little girl still in her arms, she hurried up the stairs to her own room, and after removing the blanket, placed her in a chair. Elsie stared about, too frightened and tired even to whimper. The whip fell to the floor and Tess picked it up. For a long time, she held it in her hand, meditatively trying its strength and suppleness while she glared at the child. Then she slipped quietly into the hall, still carrying the riding crop at her side.

"Andy," she called softly. "Is Mother Moll asleep?"

Andy came out of his own room.

"Yes, she's asleep. I been singin' to her most ever since you been gone.

The old woman sure does like my singin', Tess." He waddled toward the girl and when he noticed the expression on her face,

"Somethin's happened," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "Anything the matter with Ma Brewer?"

Tessibel backed into her room and beckoned the dwarf onward by a movement of her head. After she'd shut the door, she pointed to the child with a hissing swish of the whip.

"Waldstricker's," she announced briefly. "The squatters stole her and gave her to me."

The sight of the little girl stopped Andy near the door. Instantly his alert mind pictured Waldstricker's present anxiety and the awful retribution he'd exact when he learned of her abduction. He had no idea as yet what Tess intended to do and her att.i.tude revealed no hint.

Personally, he was powerless because, to his physical weakness, the storm presented an unsurmountable obstacle. Except for Mother Moll, he was alone in the house with Tess and the Waldstricker child. Here was a terrible predicament. He'd already lost many years of his life, because he was present when Waldstricker's father was killed. He'd done what he could to avert that crime and paid a heavy penalty, for his interference. What to do, now, he didn't know. How to save the little one and protect Tess he couldn't guess. Casting frightened eyes first on the girl, then on the silent child, he crouched against the wall.

"What ye goin' to do with 'er?" he mumbled at last.... "What's the whip for?"

"I don't know yet," replied Tess, and she balanced the raw-hide in her hand. "This is the whip Waldstricker used.... Jake says to beat 'er like he beat Boy."

The cruel look on her face and the fire in her eyes frightened the dwarf. To him, she seemed almost insane.

"What'd ye tell 'em you'd do, Tess? Air you goin' to lick 'er?"

"I guess so. I didn't tell 'em for sure what I'd do."

She dropped the whip on a table and walked across the room to the window where she stood looking out into the night with unseeing eyes. Then, whirling on Andy, she clenched her fists and burst forth.

"She's the only thing Waldstricker loves! If I hurt her, don't I hurt him?"

"Sure, dear," the little man acquiesced. "Sure, it'd make 'im ... think a bit ... mebbe."

Elsie stirred uneasily, making the chair rock back and forth.

"Baby's hungry," she whimpered.