"Ye can't stay always with the brute."
"To-night I can, and in the day I ain't afeared—I don't want no candy."
The brindle bulldog lifted his head again and sent a low snarl in the direction of the fisherman—Ben in his rage had come too close to the fence. The animal's warning sent him back. Months before, Pete had buried his teeth in the man's hand and Ben would bear the marks to his grave.
"Ye go home, Ben Letts," insisted Tess. "Ye ain't no business here. Go home to yer mammy."
"I'm a-goin' to stay, just the same," rejoined Ben, sitting down upon the tracks.
Tessibel wound her arms around the dog's neck, banking the red curls under her cheek for a pillow. It was good to rest with her friend. Between the fence wires she could see the branches of the pine tree, its shadowy arms creating odd figures across the light streaks in the sky. What a wonderful being the student's God was! He had listened to the cry of a squatter and had saved her.
"Yer daddy ain't a-comin' home," Ben Letts broke in upon her meditations.
"He air," retorted Tess. "He air the nextest time I go for him."
"It air a lie," insisted the fisherman, "ye comes with me to the minister and I'll make yer an hones' woman. Ye'll have to cut that mop and settle down like a woman should. Do ye hear?... Tessibel, I says an hones' woman!"