ronical touch was given the
anti-climax when our rescuer turned out to be the mother of the chief of
the head-hunters himself! He had lingered perforce with his brothers and
sister outside the cabin until dinner time, and when he came in he was
meek as Moses.

Thus the ready hospitality of the poor, which passed over the heads of
Tom and me as we ate bread and onions and potatoes with a ravenous
hunger. It must have been about two o'clock in the afternoon when we bade
good-bye to our preserver and departed for home....

At first we went at a dog-trot, but presently slowed down to discuss the
future looming portentously ahead of us. Since entire concealment was now
impossible, the question was,--how complete a confession would be
necessary? Our cases, indeed, were dissimilar, and Tom's incentive to
hold back the facts was not nearly so great as mine. It sometimes seemed
to me in those days unjust that the Peterses were able on the whole to
keep out of criminal difficulties, in which I was more or less
continuously involved: for it did not strike me that their sins were not
those of the imagination. The method of Tom's father was the slipper. He
and Tom understood each other, while between my father and myself was a
great gulf fixed. Not that Tom yearned for the slipper; but he regarded
its occasional applications as being as inevitable as changes in the
weather; lying did not come easily to him, and left to himself he much
preferred to confess and have the matter over with. I have already
suggested that I had cultivated lying, that weapon of the weaker party,
in some degree, at least, in self-defence.

Tom was loyal. Moreover, my conviction would probably deprive him for six
whole afternoons of my company, on which he was more or less dependent.
But the defence of this case presented unusual difficulties, and we
stopped several times to thrash them out. We had been absent from dinner,
and doubtless by this time Julia had informed Tom's mother of the
expedition, and anyone could see that our clothing had been wet. So I
lingered in no little anxiety behind the Peters stable while he made the
investigation. Our spirits rose considerably when he returned to report
that Julia had unexpectedly been a trump, having quieted his mother by
the surmise that he was spending the day with his Aunt Fanny. So far, so
good. The problem now was to decide upon what to admit. For we must both
tell the same story.

It was agreed that we