“No, that wouldn’t mend matters. You must sign a confession that you committed the theft of which Carter was unjustly accused, so that he may have this to show whenever the old charge is brought up against him hereafter.”
“I’ll do it, squire. I’d have done it long ago if I’d known.”
“It is better late than not at all. Come into the cabin, both of you.”
His orders were obeyed, and after asking questions as to details he wrote out a confession exonerating John Carter and laying the blame on the right party. Gerald furnished him with pen, ink and paper.
“Now,” he said, when the document was completed, “I want you, Jake Amsden, to sign this and Gerald and I will subscribe our names as witnesses.”
“All right, squire, I’ll do it. You must not mind the writin’ for I haven’t handled a pen for so long that I have almost forgotten how to write.”
Jake Amsden affixed his signature in a large scrawling hand, and the two witnesses subscribed after him.
“Now, Mr. Carter,” said Noel Brooke, as he handed him the paper, “keep this carefully, and whenever that scoundrel who has made it his business to persecute you engages again in the same work you can show this document, and it will be a satisfactory answer to his base charges.”
“I thank you, Mr. Brooke,” said Carter in a deep voice. “You cannot conceive what a favor you have done me. I feel that a great burden has been lifted from my life, and that it has passed out of the shadow which has obscured it for so long. Now I shall be able to leave Oscar an untarnished name!”