w's will. He knew his implacable hatred of the squatters
and particularly of Tessibel. He recognized that revenge had prompted
him. Pushing the protesting elder aside, he ejaculated:

"You pious hypocrite! Get out of my way," and was gone.

The bitter winter wind nipped at Young as he strode down the steps and
battled his way to the stables. Waldstricker's words were pounding at
his brain like a hammer. What had they done to Tess? He remembered
Ebenezer had said that his vote--his own delegated vote--had turned the
tide against his pretty child!

He had no mercy for the stumbling horse as he spurred down the long
drive, into the public thoroughfare, and thence to the shore road. When
he came opposite to his own closed, uninhabited house, he could see by
straining his eyes the dusky shadow of the willow trees shrouding the
Skinner home.

A glimmer of light struggled from the curtained window of the hut. With
desperate haste he tied his horse to the fence post. He could scarcely
stop to spread over the animal the blanket he'd brought for the purpose.

Then as he waded through the snow and rounded the mud cellar a dog's
mournful howling, pierced and punctuated by a girl's shrill,
heart-broken cry, fell upon his startled ears. In another minute he had
flung himself against the shanty door and forced it open. Kennedy's
bulldog greeted him, growling, and beyond him, stretched out upon the
body of her dead father, lay Tess. Hovering over her, chattering, was
Andy Bishop, the dwarf, the condemned murderer of Ebenezer Waldstricker,
Sr.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE VIGIL

During Professor Young's instant of hesitation on the threshold, the
wind gusted sheets of snow into the Skinner shanty. Quieting the dog by
a low-spoken word, Deforrest stepped in and closed the door against the
storm. The acrid smoke drawn from the stove by the back-draft, filled
the room,--a choking cloud.

Andy stared at the intruder for an instant, and then turned again to the
girl lying unconscious upon the body of her father.

Young's vision comprehended the whole tragedy. He pulled off his cap and
gloves and shook the snow from his shoulders. Advanced to the bedside, a
glance satisfied him that the squatter was dead and that Tess had
fainted. He had recognized the dwarf the minute he saw him, and
heartsick with apprehension, he wondered what he was doing there.

"Get up," said he. "Let me look at her."

The dwarf moved aside hesitatingly.