Elisha was sitting limply before the radio.
"Did you hear that?" he gasped.
"Well, rather!" Horatio Fuller shouted with a triumphant wave of his hand.
"Ain't it the beateree?" exploded the astonished sheriff. "That sends the whole case up in the air. All that's needed now to make me out the darndest fool on God's earth is for Eleazer's young nephew-lawyer in New York, who's checking up Heath's story, to wire everything there is O.K. If he does, I'll go bury my head. There goes the telephone! That's him! That's Eleazer—I'll bet a hat."
"Hello!—Yes, I heard it.—You ain't surprised? Wal, I am. I'm took off my feet.—Oh, your nephew wired, did he, an' everything's O.K.? That bein' the case, I reckon there's no more to be said. I feel like a shrimp. How do you feel?——"
Elisha hung up the receiver.
"Wal, Mr. Heath, the story you told Eleazer an' me is straight as a string in every particular," he announced. "You're free! There ain't nothin' I can say. To tell you I'm sorry ain't in no way adequate. I shan't offer you my hand neither, 'cause I know you wouldn't take it—leastways I wouldn't, was I in your place. There's some insults nothin' can wipe out an' this blunder of mine is one of 'em. You'll just have to set me down as one of them puddin'-headed idiots that was over-ambitious to do his duty. I ain't got no other explanation or excuse to make."
"I shall not let it go at that, Mr. Winslow," Stanley Heath acclaimed, stepping to the old man's side and seizing his palm in a strong grip. "We all make errors. Forget it. I'm going to. Besides, you have treated me like a prince since I've been your guest."
"You are the prince, sir. Livin' with you has shown me that. Had I knowed you 'fore I arrested you as well as I do now the thing wouldn't 'a' happened. Wal, anyhow, all ain't been lost. At least I've met a thoroughbred an' that ain't none too frequent an occurrence in these days."
"What I can't understand, Mr. Winslow, is why you didn't recognize he was a thoroughbred from the beginning," Horatio Fuller remarked.