ye couldn't tell yer friends about it, kid," he cautioned.

A mist shone around the girl's thick lashes.

"Daddy, ye know I never blat things I hadn't ought to.... Slide yer arms
'round yer brat's neck, look 'er straight in the eye, an' tell 'er 'bout
Andy; an' if she can help, she sure will."

A noise in the vicinity of the cot gave Tessibel an involuntary start.
She turned her head slowly and saw two feet protruding from under her
bed. Clinging to Daddy Skinner, she watched, with widening lids, a
dwarfed figure crawl slowly into full view, and Tess found herself
staring into a pair of beautiful, boyish, blue eyes.

A slow smile broke over the dwarf's face.

"Yer brat's the right sort, Orn," he cried, in the sweetest tenor voice
Tess ever heard. "Ye don't need to make her promise no more.... Her word
air good's God's law."

"So it air, Andy," replied Orn. "Tessibel, this air my friend, Andy
Bishop, an' he were a good pal, as good as any man ever had."

For one single, tensely-strung moment, Tessibel contemplated the ugly
little figure and the upraised, appealing face. Then as a sudden sense
of protection spurred her to immediate action, she sent back a welcoming
smile. Two or three quick steps took her to the dwarf's side.

"I air going' to help ye, Andy," she announced brokenly. "Ye was in
prison fer life, wasn't ye, huh?"

"Yep, an'--an' I broke out, kid.... An' I ain't able to tell how I done
it."

"Oh, never mind that!" soothed Tessibel. "Ye was lookin' in the window
last night, wasn't ye?"

The dwarf rolled his eyes at the squatter, then back to the girl.

"Yep, that were me, but I didn't do no murder, brat; that air the main
thing an' Sandy Letts lied when he told the jury I done it."

"He said as how ye gunned Ebenezer Waldstricker's father, eh?" Tess
interrupted. "Eb air the richest man in Ithaca, an' him an' his sister
air been to Europe, but they come back early in the spring. I see 'em
every Sunday at Hayt's when I go there to sing. He air goin' to marry
Mr. Young's sister, Helen, an' he air gittin' some pink peach when he
gets her, ye can bet on that."

"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