"But he'll get me by my neck if he can," lamented the dwarf, in despair. "Waldstricker air a mean duffer—a mighty mean duffer."
"He air awful religious," reflected Tess, soberly. "I s'posed he were awful good."
The dwarf made a gesture of disgust with his hand.
"Well, good or bad, I never killed his daddy," he returned. "I saw Owen Bennett when he done it, but him an' Sandy socked it off on me. I got life an' Owen got ten years.... There ain't no makin' him own up he done it, air there, Orn?"
"Nope," mumbled the fisherman. "Most men won't take life sentence by confessin' when by keepin' still they c'n git off with ten years."
"Mr. Waldstricker air a awful big, handsome lookin' man," asserted Tess, thoughtfully. "Folks says he air good to the poor, too. He air the biggest, fattest, elegantest elder in our church."
Andy flipped his fingers in the air and summed up what he thought of the last statement in five words.
"Shucks! That fer the church," mocked he.
"It air just like Sandy Letts to lie about ye," remarked Tess, changing the subject abruptly. "There ain't a hatefuller man in the Silent City 'n him. He makes a pile of money, though.... Once last fall he dragged the lake fer two students an' got a thousand apiece fer handin' 'em over to their folks, dead."
"He'd git five thousand fer handin' me over to Waldstricker, alive," replied Andy, solemnly. "I wouldn't a gone up if 't 'adn't been fer him. He can lie faster'n a horse can trot."