"If ye did ye didn't mean to, did ye?"
The two negative replies made Tessibel's heart bound. It would be easier for God to help him if he had not committed a crime, and for no instant did she doubt his word. She kissed him again passionately, clinging to his lips with all the young growing emotion in her body.
The squatter clung desperately to the body of his child. He could not let her go, fearing she would fall to the hard stones below, but he knew that she stood in danger of being discovered and dared not detain her.
"Kin ye get down again?" he whispered.
"Yep, Daddy Skinner, and ye ain't goin' to hang, 'cause some one what can, air goin' to help ye."
"Who air he?"
"God ... up there!" and Tessibel motioned with her hand toward the dark sky. "He says as how He helps folks like us ... that a cross was beared for us ... and I says to Him to-night, and I says every day till ye come back to the shanty ... that He lets ye free, Daddy.... I asks the sheriff to-morrow if I can come afternoons to see ye. And, Daddy, I holds the shanty till ye come home."
He kissed her small pinched face again and again—and took his arms away. Tess slipped down the creeper and when she reached the ground called softly:
"I air here, Daddy Skinner."
She saw him pressing against the bars, his lips shaking and his eyes closely shut as if he were stumblingly offering a prayer for the child of his fisherman soul.