"I'm not through
with you yet."

"You're not going to hit him again, are you?" asked Fleming, while Braxton
staggered painfully to his feet.

"No," said Joe. "I guess he's had enough."

"You said it!" cried Jim admiringly. "If ever a man was trimmed to the
queen's taste he's that man."

"But I'm going to nail, right now, the lies you fellows have been
spreading," continued Joe, eyes alight with the thought of his coming
vindication. "You've got to sign a written confession of the part you've
played in this dirty business."

"We w-will, w-when we get back to town," stammered Fleming.

"No, you won't," cried Joe. "You'll do it right here and now."

"B-but we haven't any writing materials," suggested Braxton, through his
swollen lips.

"I've got paper and a fountain pen!" exclaimed Jim eagerly. "This light is
rather dim, but probably Mike has got the automobile lamps going by this
time and that'll be light enough."

"Come along!" cried Joe sternly, and his crest-fallen opponents knew him
too well by this time to resist.

They went out into the open and found that the rain had almost stopped. As
Jim had prophesied, the automobile lamps were gleaming through the dusk.
Like every Irishman, Mike dearly loved a scrap, and his eyes lighted with
a mixture of eagerness and regret as he looked at Braxton and realized
what he had been missing.

"Begorra!" he cried in his rich brogue, "'tis a lovely shindy ye've been
after havin'."

With the paper resting on his knee and Jim's fountain pen in his hand, Joe
wrote out the story of the trickery and fraud that had been practiced in
getting his signature. When he had covered every important point, he held
out the pen to Braxton.

The latter hesitated, and Joe's fist clenched till the knuckles were
white. Braxton knew what that fist was capable of and hesitated no longer.
He wrote his name under the confession and Fleming followed suit. Then Jim
affixed his name as a witness, and Michael O'Halloran happily added his.

"Now," said Jim, as he folded the precious paper and stowed it safely in
his pocket, "you fellows clear out. I suppose that's your car that we saw
standing a little way down the road. I don't think either of you will care
to mix in my affairs again."

They moved away with an assumption of bravado they were far from feeling
and were lost in the darkness.

"And now, Mike," said Joe with a jubilant ring in his voice, as they
leaped into the car, "let her go