"Yes."
"But ye air cold," said she, "ye can't walk four miles without a coat."
"Where are you going to take me?" Frederick scented a place of safety.
"To my hut," replied the squatter stoically. "Wait! Ye stop here a minute."
She bounded into the road from the railway tracks, leaving Frederick staring helplessly after her. At the door of the mission she halted with the slyness that had been taught her from the cradle, bending her head forward to ascertain if any person 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."