Now at any other time Jimmie would have gleefully picked flaws in this bit of Augusta's theology. Instead he took the paper quite humbly and read:
"Dear Nice Folks, whoever you are:
"It was a shame of me to take you in like that. But I couldn't help it. It was the suspicious way you looked at me." (Jimmie took this as directed to himself alone.)
"I am wanted. The wife wants me home to start the harvest. That was in my mind when I said the thing first. And I kept it up because I wanted to see what'd happen.
"But you will not be angry, I hope. This place is yours in welcome if you care to stay. I'll be up to see you in the Fall.
John McQuade o' the Sunny Shade."
Jimmie laid the paper down on his bunk and looked at it solemnly and stupidly. After a little he said softly:
"Yes, John, you did everlastingly put one over on me."
Augusta broke all her rules as she announced gravely:
"He had us kidded to death." Then she dropped laughing into Jimmie's arms.
"Augusta," Jimmie howled, between spasms of laughing, "do you remember how I stood nobly in the dense forest while the gatling guns were charging down upon us and announced in a dying whisper:
"'Surrounded!'"
"And I," Augusta cried through tears of laughing, "I was behind your back all the time motioning the man to take Donahue and fly for liberty!"