"Indeed, yes," was the student's answer. "There's nothing the Bible doesn't contain. The Saviour was nailed to the Cross bearing his misery to give you a heavenly harp and crown, Tessibel. If you read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, you will see it all plainly. You can be happy if you pray and are a good girl while your father is away." Then, desiring to ease the tense-drawn face, he added: "It will please him if you write him often and tell him about yourself.... Come now, it's getting too dark for you to walk those tracks. Child, haven't you a friend in town with whom you can pass the night? It's frightful to tramp that distance alone." Tess stiffened instantly. Daddy's shanty was in her care, and of what night had she ever been afraid? "I air a goin' home," she answered almost sullenly; "ain't a dum bit afraid of nothin'." As Frederick turned to her side, Tess glanced up confusedly. "Ye can't walk with me through the streets of Ithacy," said she. "Why not?" "Cause--well, cause ye can't, that's why!" Frederick understood, and, gravely lifting his hat, turned in the other direction with the remark that he would see her again soon. The girl stood for some seconds staring fixedly after him. Then, wiping her face with the sleeve of a ragged jacket, she started off toward the squatters' row. CHAPTER XVIII Many were the troubling thoughts which possessed the mind of Tess as she strode along. In the fulvid depths of her red-brown eyes there dwelt an expression of misery. As the child took her way through the streets, with none to care whither she went, her face lighted with a sudden determination. Frederick had told her to read, to study, to pray--that these three with faith would save Daddy Skinner from the rope of the Canadian Indian; but the student, like all those having plenty, forgot to enquire how Tess was to read without books, or study without anyone to teach her. True, Tess could pick out a few words which Daddy had taught her, could haltingly count the stars in the heavens at night, and the rain-drops on the shanty window. She could read the names upon the store signs and had often seated herself on the railroad tracks with a bit of newspaper to stammer forth the words she knew. But it was a Bible she needed--to learn about the student's God and the Christ. Tess was more interested in the cross than the crown, more interested in the nails that had opened the wounds in the Saviour's hands and feet, than in any royal head-covering that might come in some future time to her. There was too much misery in her own life, too much desperate desire for her loved one, to allow the glitter of a promised crown to affect her. She wanted to know of the suffering Christ, to read of how He had promised--Here Tess stopped and tossed back the red hair. What was it she wanted to read about? Ah, yes--not heaven and its glories nor hell and its terrors, but of Daddy Skinner back in the shanty.