Sandy's Visit

The next day, Ebenezer Waldstricker met Lysander Letts, just back from Auburn, loitering along Buffalo Street near the Lehigh Valley station. The prison-pallor of the squatter's face and hands and the ill-fitting, cheap prison clothes on his big body made him conspicuous among the men on the street. Waldstricker pulled up his team.

"Sandy," he called, "come to the office when you're uptown. I want to see you."

An hour or so later, the squatter slouched into Waldstricker's private room.

The elder rose and greeted him.

"So you're out again?" The question was really a statement.

"Yes," assented Letts, sitting down on the edge of the chair, "an' I wouldn't a been if I hadn't been let out on good behavior. I made up my mind I wouldn't stay a minute longer'n I had to."

"I guess after this you won't be stealing dead bodies, will you?" asked the rich man.

"Nope, you bet I won't! I've enough of Auburn. It ain't like the Ithaca jail!... Heard anythin' of Tess Skinner?"

"Yes, she's got a boy over three years old."

Lysander nodded his head slowly, as if he'd received confirmation of a conclusion previously formed.

"Thought likely," he muttered. "Where air she livin'? I met Jake Brewer on the street an' he says she air left the shack."

"So she has, but not very far away.... Letts, I want you to do something for me. Are--or I might put it--do you still want to make up to the Skinner girl?"