* * * * * "You think he is very ill, Tess?" Teola asked, early one evening in September, when she and Tessibel were alone in the Skinner hut. Tess came forward to the wooden box, holding in her hand the frying-pan filled with bacon fat, and gazed down upon the baby Dan, contemplating the wee old-man face thoughtfully. "He air sick! He air a look on him what air on Myry's brat--kind of sickly. That air because he has so many lines in his face, and he air so little," she finished, wrinkling the sun-tanned cheeks and shrugging her shoulders almost disdainfully. Teola knelt down, and slipped one slender arm under the dark head. These two girls had been drawn together during the past few weeks by a tie stronger than death. It had brought Frederick nearer to the squatter, and little did Teola realize that, had it not been for her handsome brother, her secret would have been discovered long before. It was of him she was thinking as she bent over the fire-scarred babe on this stormy September night in the fisherman's hut. "I may not be able to come down to-morrow, Tessibel," she said, looking up into the serious face, "because my brother is coming home early in the morning." The frying-pan fell to the floor; the fat spattered and ran across the broken, tilted boards until it congealed into rounded miniature mountains. Teola turned a puzzled face toward the fishermaid, but there was nothing about the girl to tell her why the accident had happened, for Tessibel, grappling with a huge cloth, was wiping the floor furiously. "I was saying, Tess," repeated Teola, "that I may not come down to-morrow.... Oh! hear how it rains, and the thunder!... Tess, since he died, and the baby came, thunder-storms make me shiver." "It ain't nothin' that'll hurt ye," grunted Tess from her position on the floor. "I know it, unless one stands directly in the lightning's path. But I am such a coward, Tessibel! You have so much faith--that's why you're not afraid." The pathetic face turned suddenly upon Tess with a questioning look. "My brother, you know, thinks you are such a good girl--and--and--you are a good girl, aren't you, Tess?" "Squatters ain't never good," answered Tess in a low tone, her eyes dropping under the steady gaze of the other girl. "But I--I love the student's God, I does." She was standing with rag hanging from her right hand, her face illumined by a deep flush that disappeared only when it met the red hair. "I believe that you do love Him, Tess," Teola breathed. "And Frederick told me that if he had your faith, he could do anything in the world. You know, the Bible says that if we had faith as large as a mustard seed, we could move a mountain." Her voice faltered on the last words. Tess grunted significantly. "Aw! a mustard seed ain't no bigger than a speck of dirt." "I know it, Tess; I know it. But one only has to have a little faith in God to enable Him to answer every prayer we utter."