again. "You sure must have had so-ome jag, Casey," they told
him exuberantly.

"I was sober," Casey testified earnestly. "I'll swear I hadn't a drop of
anything worse than lemon soda, and that was before I left town."
Whereupon they whooped the louder, bent double, some of them with mirth.

"Say! If I was drunk that night, I'd say so," Casey exploded finally.
"What the hell--what's the matter with you rabbits? You think Casey Ryan
has got to the point where he's scared to tell what he done and all he
done? Lemme tell yuh, anything Casey does he ain't afraid to _tell_ about!
Lyin' is something I never was scared bad enough to do. You ask anybody."

"There's the widow," said the foreman, wiping his eyes.

Casey turned and looked, but the widow was not in sight. The foreman, he
judged, was speaking figuratively. He swung back glaring.

"You think I'm scared to tell her what happened? She'll know I was sober
if I say I was sober. She ain't as big a fool--" He did not want to fight,
although he was aching to lick every man of them. But for one thing, he
was too sore and lame, and then, the widow would not like it.

With his neck very stiff, Casey limped down to the house and tried to tell
the widow. But the widow was a woman, and she was hurt because Casey,
since he was alive and not in the crevice, had not come straight to
comfort her, but had lingered up there talking and laughing with the men.
The widow had taken Casey's part when the others said he must have been
drunk. She had maintained, red-lidded and trembly of voice, that something
had gone wrong with Casey's car so that he couldn't steer it. Such things
happened, she knew.

Well, Casey told the widow the truth, and the widow's face hardened while
she listened. She had permitted him to kiss her when he came in, but now
she moved away from him. She did not call him dear boy, nor even Casey
dear. She waited until he had reached the point that puzzled him, the
point of a Ford's degree of intelligence. Then her lips thinned before she
opened them.

"And what," she asked coldly, "had you been drinking, Mr. Ryan?"

"Me? One bottle of lemon soda before I left town, and I left town at three
o'clock in the afternoon. I swear--"

"You need not swear, Mr. Ryan." The widow folded her hands and regarded
him sternly, though her voice was still politely soft. "After I had told
you repeatedly that my little ones should ever be guarded from a drinking
father; after you ha