t, your present, your
future. You--you--you. You never thought of the folks you left down
home; left to suffocate with the stink you raised. You cleared out
scot-free, and, say, kid, you let a girl lie for you; lie for you. You
did that. A girl, by heck! who wouldn't lie for the Almighty Himself.
A girl who--who----" Drake searched frantically for a fitting simile,
gasped, mopped his face with a lurid silk handkerchief, and flumped into
a chair. "Well, say, kid, it's just plain hell. That's what it is."

"Lied for me?" said Garrison very quietly.

"That's the word. But I'll start from the time the fur commenced to fly.
In the first place, there's no doubt about your identity. I was right.
I've proved that. I couldn't find Snark--I guess the devil must have
called him back home. So I took things on my own hook and went to
Cottonton, where I moseyed round considerable. I know Colonel Desha, and
I learned a good deal in a quiet way when I was there. I learned from
Major Calvert that his half-sister's--your mother's--name was Loring.
That cinched it for me. But I said nothing. They were in an awful stew
over your absence, but I never let on, at first, that I had you bunked.

"I learned, among other things, that Miss Desha had taken upon herself
the blame of your leaving; saying that she had said something you had
taken exception to; that you had gone to prove your manhood, kid. Your
manhood, kid--mind that. She's a thoroughbred, that girl. Now, I
would have backed her lie to the finish if something hadn't gone and
happened." Drake paused significantly. "That something was that the
major received a letter--from your father, kid."

"My father?" whispered Garrison.

"Um-m-m, the very party. Written from 'Frisco--on his death-bed. One
of those old-timey, stage-climax death-bed confessions. As old as the
mortgage on the farm business. As I remarked before some right-meaning
chap says somewhere something about saying nothing but good of the dead.
I'm not slinging mud. I guess there was a whole lot missing in your
father, kid, but he tried to square himself at the finish, the same as
we all do, I guess.

"He wrote to the major, saying he had never told his son--you, kid--of
his real name nor of his mother's family. He confessed to changing his
name from Dagget to Garrison for the very reasons I said. Remember?
He ended by saying he had wronged you; that he knew you would be the
major's heir, and that if you were to be found