n were witness of her action. She
opened the door and fled like a young deer toward the organ, then,
ripping the crimson cloth from the altar, she fled out again into the
night, running pantingly toward the student.

"It air for you--put it on," she ordered, proffering him the embroidered
spread.

"Where did you--?" hesitated Frederick.

"Put it on, I say. I'll fan it back some time if ye will. Ye can't
freeze with that--and there air bacon, fish and bread in the hut."

Her voice was low and vibrant with untried emotions. Something uplifting
in the criminal action of the girl so touched Frederick that the
nearness of tears called a throb to his throat. Without expostulating he
wrapped the brilliant covering about his head, the embroidered ends
hanging to his waist. Frederick Graves appreciated for the first time in
his short, shielded life the awful temptations that make these squatter
people in their cold and misery take what did not belong to them. He
followed Tessibel, with no spoken word; on and on, up past the lighted
huts, to the gaping gorge under the trestle. Tessibel knew that the
student could not traverse it without her help, and she also knew that
to touch his hand would be the sweetest of happiness to her. At any
other time her soul would have recoiled from such temerity, but the life
and welfare of Daddy's deliverer were at stake. She halted abruptly. The
night was so dark she could scarcely outline the student as he stood
near her.

"Take hold of my hand," she ordered. "It air the trestle. It air a long
one and the steps be far apart."

Without a demurring word, Frederick grasped the strong fingers she held
out to him. A smile, obscured by the darkness, played about the girl's
sensitive mouth. The young body was pulsing with life--with intense
gratitude, for was not she, Tessibel Skinner, helping her friend? With
halting steps the boy and girl commenced the most perilous part of their
journey, Tessibel leading the way. The student stopped in the middle of
the long trestle.

"Are we nearly over?" he asked in a low voice. The awful magnificence of
the dark night, the rushing water tumbling and roaring over the rocks
beneath them, awed him into what was almost timidity.

"Nope; come on, don't stop here," urged Tess. "'Taint a good place."

At the end of the gap Tess tried to draw her hand away, but it was a
feeble motion and she ceased as she noted that Frederick was still
clinging to it.

"Let