“I reckon that’s so,” assented our passenger.  “I took a notion to jump.  My weight and fool advice was like to cost three lives.  Better one, thinks I, than three.  You saved my life, Mr. Ajax.  Yes, you did.  Alviry, I reckon, will thank you.”

The rest of the journey was accomplished in silence.  We drove up to the Swiggarts’ house, and both Laban and his wife expressed great surprise at seeing us.

“You’re wet through, mother,” said Mrs. Swiggart, “and all of a tremble.”

“Yes, Alviry, I’ve had a close call.  This young man saved my life.”

“Nonsense,” said Ajax gruffly.  “I did nothing of the sort, Mrs. Skenk.”

“Yes, you did,” she insisted, grimly obstinate.

“Any ways,” said Mrs. Swiggart, “you’ll lose what has been saved, mother, if you stand there in the rain.”

For five days it rained steadily.  Our creek, which for eleven months in the year bleated sweetly at the foot of the garden, bellowed loudly as any bull of Bashan, and kept us prisoners in the house, where we had leisure to talk and reflect.  We had been robbed and humbugged, injured in pride and pocket, but the lagging hours anointed our wounds.  Philosophy touched us with healing finger.

“If we prosecute we advertise our own greenness,” said Ajax.  “After all, if Laban did fleece us, he kept at bay other ravening wolves.  And there is Mrs. Skenk.  That plucky old soul must never hear the story.  It would kill her.”

So we decided to charge profit and loss with five hundred dollars, and to keep our eyes peeled for the future.  By this time the skies had cleared, and the cataract was a creek again.  The next day Mrs. Swiggart drove up to the barn, tied her horse to the hitching-post, and walked with impressive dignity up the garden path.  We had time to note that something was amiss.  Her dark eyes, beneath darker brows, intensified a curious pallor—­that sickly hue which is seen upon the faces of those who have suffered grievously in mind or body.  Ajax opened the door, and offered her a chair, but not his hand.  She did not seem to notice the discourtesy.  We asked if her mother had suffered from the effects of her wetting.

“Mother has been very sick,” she replied, in a lifeless voice.  “She’s been at death’s door.  For five days I’ve prayed to Almighty God, and I swore that if He’d see fit to spare mother, I’d come down here, and on my bended knees”—­she sank on the floor—­“ask for your forgiveness as well as His.  Don’t come near me,” she entreated; “let me say what must be said in my own way.  When I married Laban Swiggart I was an honest woman, though full o’ pride and conceit.  And he was an honest man.  To-day we’re thieves and liars.”

“Mrs. Swiggart,” said Ajax, springing forward and raising her to her feet.  “You must not kneel to us.  There—­sit down and say no more.  We know all about it, and it’s blotted out so far as we’re concerned.”