now hobbling legs!

Soon, her father went to the lake for a pail of water, and she sprang from the cot and dressed hastily.

Later in the forenoon, when Tessibel returned home from an errand to Kennedys', she found Daddy Skinner on the bench at the side of the shanty, one horny hand clutching the bowl of a pipe in which the ashes were dead. It took but one sharp glance from the red-brown eyes for Tess to note that his face was white, almost grey; she saw, too, with a quiver of loving sympathy, that his lower lip hung away from his dark teeth as though he suffered. She sprang toward him, and dropped to her knees, at his side.

"Daddy Skinner!" she exclaimed. "Daddy Skinner, ye're sick! Ye're sick, darlin'!... Tell me, Daddy, what air the matter? Tell Tessibel."

She laid her hand tenderly on his chest. His heart was beating a heavy tattoo against the blue gingham shirt.

"Ye hurt here?" she queried breathlessly.

The pipe dropped to the soft sand, and Skinner's crooked fingers fell upon the profusion of red curls. Then he slowly tilted up her face.

"Yep, I hurt in there!" he muttered brokenly.

And as ashen and more ashen grew the wrinkled old countenance, Tessibel cried out sharply in protest.

"Why, Daddy, what d'ye mean by yer heart's hurtin' ye?... What do ye mean, Daddy?... I thought the doctor'd fixed yer heart so it wouldn't pain ye no more."

The man considered the appealing young face an instant.

"I want to talk to ye about somethin'," said he, presently, "and I know ye'll never tell anythin' Daddy tells ye."

With a little shake of her head that set the tawny curls a-tremble, Tessibel squatted back on her feet.

"'Course I won't tell nobody, but if ye've got a pain in yer heart, daddy, the doctor—"

"I don't need no doctor, brat. I jest—jest got to talk to ye, that air all."

A slender girlish figure cuddled between Daddy Skinner's knees, and warm young lips met his. Never had Tess seen him look just that way, not even when he had been taken from her to prison. The expression on his face was hopeless, forlornly hopeless, and to wait until he began to speak took all the patience the eager girl-soul could muster.

"Brat, dear," he sighed at length, "I ain't needin' to tell ye again what I went through in Auburn, hev I?"

Brown eyes, frightened and fascinated, sought and found the faded greys.

"'Course not, Daddy Skinner! But what fer air ye talkin' about Auburn Prison?... Ye promised me, Daddy, ye'd forgit all about them days, an' now what're ye rememberin' 'em fer?"

Skinner's face blanched, and drops of sweat formed in the spaces behind his ears and trickled in little streams down his neck.

"I got to remember 'em, child," he groaned.

"What fer I want to know? Ye'd best make a hustle an' tell me or, in a minute, I'll be gettin' awful mad."

The pleading, sorrowful face belied the threat, and a pair of red lips touched Skinner's hand between almost every word.

"Do ye bring to mind my tellin' ye about any of the fellers up there, Tessibel?" came at length from the man's shaking lips.

Tess stroked his arm lovingly.

"Sure, Daddy, I remember 'bout lots of 'em, an' how good they be, an' how kind, an' how none of 'em be guilty."

"Ye bet none of 'em be guilty," muttered Daddy Skinner. "Nobody air ever guilty who gets in jail.... Folks be mostly guilty that air out o' prison to my mind."

"That air true, Daddy Skinner," she assented, smiling. "Sure it air true, but it ain't no good reason fer you to be yappin' 'bout Auburn, air it?... Now git that look out of yer eyes, an' tell Tessibel what air troublin' ye!"

But Daddy Skinner's grave old face still kept its set expression. The haunted look, born in his eyes in the Ithaca Jail, had returned after all these happy months. Tess was frantic with apprehension and dread.

"Ye know well's ye're born, Daddy, nobody can hurt ye," she told him strenuously. "Ye've got Tessibel, and ye've got—" She was about to say, "Frederick," but substituted, "Professor Young."

The girl lovingly slipped her fingers over her father's heavy hand and drew it from her curls.

"Ye're goin' to peel it off to me now, ain't ye?" she coaxed.

"Let's go inside the shanty," said the fisherman, in a thick voice.

With the door closed and barred, the father and daughter sat for some time in troubled silence.

"I asked if ye remembered some of my pals in Auburn Prison, an' ye said ye did, didn't ye, Tessibel?" asked Skinner, suddenly.

Tess gave an impatient twist of her shoulders.

"An' I told ye I did, Daddy," she replied. "'Course I do. I ain't never forgot nobody who were good to you, honey."

"An' ye're pretty well satisfied, ain't ye, brat, most of 'em there air innercent?"

"Ye bet, Daddy darlin', I air that!"

"Well, what if one of them men who were good to yer old father'd come an' ask ye to do somethin' for 'im?"

With an upward movement of her head, Tessibel scrambled to her feet.

"Why, I'd help 'im!" she cried in one short, quick breath. "I'd help 'im; 'course I would."

"An' ye'd always keep it a secret?"

"Keep what a secret?"

Daddy Skinner's face grew furtive with fear.

"Why—well now, s'posin' Andy Bishop—ye remember Andy, the little man I told ye about, the weenty, little dwarf who squatted near Glenwood?"

Tess nodded, and the fisherman went on, hesitant.

"He—were accused—of murderin'—"

"Waldstricker—Ebenezer Waldstricker's father?" interjected Tess. "Sure, I remember!" Her eyes widened in anxiety. "Andy were sent up there fer all his life, weren't he? An' weren't he the one Sandy Letts swore agin?... 'Satisfied' Longman says Waldstricker give Sandy money for tellin' the jury what he did."

"Like as not," answered Skinner. "Anyhow, Bishop were there fer life! He air been there five years a innercent man.... My God, Auburn fer five years!"

The last four words were wailed forth, the look of hopeless horror deepening in his old eyes. Then he threw back his shoulders and spoke directly to Tess.

"Well, what if he skipped out o' jail, an' what if he'd come here an' say, 'Kid, 'cause what I done fer yer dad, now you do somethin' fer me!'"

Tess was trembling with excitement as she stood before her father. The generosity of her loving nature instinctively responded to his apparent need. She was instantly eager to show her love and loyalty.

"I'd do it, Daddy!" she exploded. "I'd do it quick!"

"But what if—if—if—if—it made ye lots of trouble an'—an'—mebbe some of yer friends—if they found it out—wouldn't think 'twere right?"

A queer, obstinate expression lived a moment in the girl's eyes. Then she smiled.

"I ain't got no friends who'd say it were wrong to help somebody what'd helped my darlin' old daddy."

Skinner bent his heavy brows in a troubled frown over stern eyes.

"But 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