The capture shrieked and squirmed and fought earnestly.

Grasped by the shoulder he held a lean, fierce-eyed, undersized girl of fourteen, clad in one ragged cotton garment, unless the coat of dust she wore over all may be esteemed another.

Her cheeks were sallow, and her brow was already shrewdly lined, and her eyes were as hypocritical as they were savage.

She was very thin and little, but old Tom's brown face grew a shade nearer white when the light fell upon her.
"You're no Plattville girl," he said sharply.
"You lie!" cried the child.

"You lie! I am! You leave me go, will you?
I'm lookin' fer pap and you're a liar!" "You crawled in here to sleep, after your seven-mile walk, didn't you ?" Martin went on.
"You're a liar," she screamed again.
"Look here," said Martin, slowly, "you go back to Six-Cross-Roads and tell your folks that if anything happens to a hair of Mr.Harkless's head every shanty in your town will burn, and your grandfather and your father and your uncles and your brothers and your cousins and your second-cousins and your third-cousins will never have the good luck to see the penitentiary.