fessor
Young's hand dropped as if it had been struck. Tess only grasped the
basket more firmly. Her secret was out. Without a word, she slipped the
cover from the child's face, and pushed the sugar rag into its mouth.

"Ye can see it ain't no fish," she said stolidly.

"A child!" murmured Young. "Where did you get that baby, Tessibel
Skinner?"

"He air a little bloke without no one to take care of him, and I has him
in the basket--that's all."

It seemed for a long time to the man that his brain would burn from the
fire kindled in his heart. The sight of the marked baby horrified him,
but he took the basket from her hands, and placed her forcibly in a
chair. Tess allowed him to do so without speaking.

Young set his teeth fiercely.

"Tessibel Skinner, do you want to save your father--from hanging?"

"Yep," she answered, her eyes roving toward the babe.

"Then listen to me. Is that child yours?"

Her glance sought his for a twinkling, as if she thought he had lost his
mind.

She shook her head.

"Nope."

She was not disloyal to Teola in saying this.

"I have offered you all the help a man can give to another human being."
Here his voice broke a little. "All I have offered to do for you, you
have refused. Now, if you want me to continue to help your father, you
are to tell me whose child it is."

Before the vivid mind of the girl rose the handsome, manly face of the
student. Her labor for the child and its mother had been wholly for
Frederick's sake--not for anything in the world would she have consented
to do what she had done, if it had not been to save him pain.

"Well, 'tain't mine," she drawled after a time, "and it ain't belonging
to anyone ye know. It air only a brat what ain't nothin' but a
grape-basket to sleep in. And now ye says that if I wants my Daddy saved
from the rope, I must tell yer whose it air. I says it ain't mine. And I
says as how ye knows a new little bloke when ye sees one. Here it air!
And if ye don't know that it ain't mine, then ye air a bigger fool
lawyer than I thinks ye air."

She was speaking rapidly, and had again slipped the cover from the babe,
lifting it from its bed. The fire scar was uppermost, and the loud
smacking of the half-naked child caused the man to sink into his seat.
The blood-red cheeks of the squatter denoted perfect health. The eyes
were wide, confiding and entreating. Young held out his hands and took
it from her. Then, for the second time in her lif