is astonishing reply.

"The next time I am sinking in a morass, let me sink," Aggie said, with
simple dignity.

He did not speak another word, but gave each of us a glance of the most
deadly contempt, and finished up with Hutchins.

"What I don't understand," he said furiously, "is why you have to lend
yourself to this senile idiocy. Because some old women choose to sink
themselves in a swamp is no reason why you should commit suicide!"

Aggie said afterward only the recollection that he had saved her life
prevented her emptying the tea on him. I should hardly have known
Hutchins.

"Naturally," she said in a voice thick with fury, "you are in a position
to insult these ladies, and you do. But I warn you, if you intend to
keep on, this swamp is nothing. We like it here. We may stay for months.
I hope you have your life insured."

Perhaps we should have understood it all then. Of course Charlie Sands,
for whom I am writing this, will by this time, with his keen mind,
comprehend it all; but I assure you we suspected nothing.

How simple, when you line it up: The country house and the garden hose;
the detective, with no camp equipment; Mr. McDonald and the green
canoe; the letter on the train; the red flag; the girl in the pink
tam-o'-shanter--who has not yet appeared, but will shortly; Mr.
McDonald's incriminating list--also not yet, but soon.

How inevitably they led to what Charlie Sands has called our crime!

The detective, who was evidently very strong, only glared at her. Then
he swung the canoe up on his head and, turning about, started back the
way we had come. Though Hutchins and Aggie were raging, I was resigned.
My neck was stiff and my shoulders ached. We finished our tea in silence
and then made our way back to the river.

I have now reached Tish's adventure. It is not my intention in this
record to defend Tish. She thought her conclusions were correct. Charlie
Sands says she is like Shaw--she has got a crooked point of view, but
she believes she is seeing straight. And, after a while, if you look her
way long enough you get a sort of mental astigmatism.

So I shall confess at once that, at the time, I saw nothing immoral in
what she did that afternoon while we were having our adventure in the
swamp.

I was putting cloths wrung out of arnica and hot water on my neck when
she came home, and Hutchins was baking biscuit--she was a marvelous
cook, though Aggie, who washed the dishes, objected to the n