It was nearly midnight when she passed Kennedy's wheat field in which capered Pete, the brindle bulldog. She called to him softly, pronouncing his name twice in loving resonance, which brought a low, pleased howl from the coarse throat of the dog. But the exhausted squatter-girl did not wait to touch the long, red tongue as Pete thrust his nose through the fence. She passed quickly down the lane to her father's hut. Turning the corner of the mud cellar, she saw dimly a man's form leaning against the shanty door. Her eyes were accustomed to marking correctly through the darkness, and it took Tess but a moment to ascertain that the lounging figure was Ben Letts.
In an instant, the first real fear she had ever felt swept over her and she drew back into the shadows. As a child she had fled from this man because he tantalized her; as a woman she dreaded him more than any reptile that came from the earth.
The man, hearing footsteps, raised his head; the silence continuing, he dropped it again, thinking he had been mistaken, and resumed his former position of waiting.
Tessibel wondered if she should go bravely forward—insist that the shanty was hers, and that he should go away. The mud cellar was between her and the waiting man, and as she peered closer to see if Ben were still there one brilliant tangle of hair fell over her shoulder. Ben Letts caught the movement and Tessibel knew it.
Alert as a young deer, she turned and fled back up the lane. Daddy's boots impeded her speed and one after the other she kicked them off. She could hear the man running after her, shouting his rage into her tingling ears. He was gaining upon the girl and commanded her to stop.
"If I get my claws on ye once," he growled, "it'll be bad for ye."
Tessibel heard and flew faster. There was no one to help her and her only salvation lay in her own two sturdy little legs and bruised feet. She reached the tracks but did not dare run the ties—she might trip in the darkness, and nothing could save her from her enemy. Her eyes, strained with convulsive fright, lifted one moment to the sky, and her glance fell directly upon the giant pine whose branches formed the image of her fantastic God. Her lips fell apart with a gasp—she fancied her Deity sent her an assurance of aid.
"Goddy—Goddy," was her petition, "for the love of yer Christ ... and the student."
Suddenly out upon the air rang the voice of one of Tessibel's friends. The brindle bulldog from Kennedy's farm had heard the unequal race. With short tail raised, his fat neck bristling with stubby hair, he started for the tracks, as Tess did for the fence when she heard his growl. As the girl came on and on, the dog bounded along the ground toward her. Tess opened her lips and spoke sharply—and a pleased bark came in response.