"Mr. March, I ain't eveh goin' to git down to God's blessed level groun' ag'in!"
"Think not? You'll be there in five seconds if you take hold of any dead wood. Come on."
They climbed again, hugged the cliff while they took breath, climbed once more, forebore to look down, and soon, crowding into what had seemed but a shallow cleft, were stooping under the low roof of a small cavern. Its close rocky bounds and tumbled floor sparkled here and there in the light of the matches John struck. From their pockets the pair laid out a scant store of food.
"Now I must go," said John. "I'll come again to-morrow night. You're safe here. You may find a snake or two, but you don't mind that, do you?"
"Me? Law, no! not real ones. Di'mon'-back rattlesnake hisself cayn't no mo' scare me 'n if I was a hawg. Good-by, seh."
How the heavy-eyed youth the next day finished his examinations he scarcely knew himself, but he hoped he had somehow passed. He could not slip away from Rosemont until after bedtime, and the night was half gone when he reached the cliff under Lover's Leap. A light rain increased the risk of the climb, but he reached the cave in safety only to find it deserted. On his way down he discovered ample signs that the promiscuous lover, an hour or two before, had slowly, safely, and in the "skilfullest way" reached the arms of his most dangerous but dearest love; "cooned it every step," John said, talking to his horse as they trudged back toward Rosemont. "What the rattle-snakes couldn't do," he added, "the bottle-snake has done."
Mr. Leggett's perils might not be over, but out of the youth's hands meant off his indulgent conscience, and John returned to his slighted books, quickened in all his wilful young blood by the knowledge that a single night of adventurous magnanimity had made him henceforth master of himself, his own purposes, and his own mistakes.