me walk with your hand in mine," he said simply with no extra
pressure of the fingers within his. "It is dark for us both."

During the rest of the journey a silence fell upon them. Kennedy's
brindle bull, scenting a friend, capered madly for a word from Tess, but
the squatter paid no heed to her dog chum.

She took her hand from Frederick's to unfasten the door and light the
candle. While they were walking the tracks, the woman in her had tried
to remember in what condition she had left the hut. She looked about
hastily. Before lighting another candle she smuggled the frying pan from
the floor and picked up the loaf of bread that had fallen behind the
stove from the table. While Tessibel lighted the fire, Frederick sat
huddled in the wooden rocking-chair, still wrapped in the crimson
altar-cloth, and watched the girl, who, as she moved clumsily to and
fro, uttered no sound save now and then a characteristic grunt. Instinct
told the squatter that she would choke the sensitive throat of the
student if she raised the dust by sweeping and she refrained from using
a broom, but Frederick wished vaguely that she would gather up the fish
bones and crumbs of bread from her path that they might not crunch so
audibly under her heavy boots. An open Bible placed on Daddy Skinner's
stool attracted his attention in his survey of the room. Through the
flickering light he could see the passages Tessibel had marked. He must
say something or his brain would burst.

"You have a Bible, I see?"

His words sounded strained and his voice foreign to his own.

"Yep."

"Can you read it?"

"I spells at it," Tess replied in tones a little surly.

"Where did you get it?" asked Frederick presently.

She waited a moment before answering, straightening up from the oven
where she had placed the cold bacon left from her breakfast to heat.

"Where did I get what?" she demanded.

"The Bible," replied Frederick.

He had asked about the book in the first place for something to talk of,
for the roaring of the wind through the hut's rafters distracted him. He
desired to hear the squatter say something--it all seemed so much like a
dream that he feared to awaken only to find himself in the empty house
with the sophomore's revolver staring at him.

"I cribbed it from the mission," answered the girl, pronouncing her
words plainly. She leaned toward him and finished abruptly. "I took it
from the place that comed from."

She was pointing toward th