"Ye'd hang Ben Letts if ye could. But ye won't, ye see? Ye'd not hang a man what ought to be in yer own fambly, would ye?"
"If I tells Pa Satisfied that ye said that, Myry," muttered the boy, "he wouldn't wait for the law to handle Ben Letts—he'd shoot his dum head offen him quicker than a cat can blink."
"I knows a hull lot about you, Ezy," warned Myra, "and if ye tells on Ben, I tells on yer, too. I loves Ben Letts, I does!"
"Bid him keep from Tess, then," answered Ezra sulkily, filling his arms with wood. Myra looked after him fearfully.
The trouble between her child's father and her brother had come upon her so suddenly that she had given Ezra another hold upon the man she loved, by telling him her secret.
That afternoon she followed Letts a short distance along the shore toward his cabin. When out of sight of her own home, she ran forward.
"Ben! Ben!" she called.
The fisherman turned impatiently.
"What air ye wantin', Myry?"
"Be you and Ezy hatin' each other?"