Sue met his look steadily. "We'll tell him about it," she said. "Where is Ben?" Baird had asked. "He just went out to the barn." Baird had followed and had found Ben seated on a box in the wagon-shed, whittling and swaying as he worked. Any one who knew Ben well could have told Baird that Ben always whittled and swayed when thinking deeply or when perturbed; that he always carried bits of pine in his pockets, and that under his handling they usually became figure-fours. Ben had heard Baird's hasty approach, but he had not looked up until Baird was upon him with his anxious question. Ben thought, as he watched Baird's partial relief, that the young fellow looked pretty thoroughly "done." The rain had washed most of the mud from his trousers, but he was still well smudged with it and soaking wet, his face gray-white and his eyes red-rimmed. "You better set down while you wait fo' what the doctor has to say," he advised in a kindly growl. "Emergencies had oughter be met standin' and suspense sittin'. You've stood up pretty good against the first, reckon you can do the right thing by the second.... There's a box strong enough to hol' you, over there." Baird brought it and sat down opposite Ben. "You're about as wet and all in as I am," he remarked, in answer to the kindly note in Ben's voice. The big creature was just as Baird had seen him last, wet and muddy and queerly mottled about his cheeks and nose, red patches upon the nearest approach to pallor his tanned face could attain. "A wettin' ain't nothin' to me," Ben said, "but I done somethin' the same things you done last night." Then, either to ease Baird's suspense or for some other reason, he continued: "I was tellin' you last night it was me foun' the hole in the bridge an' what was below, an' we agreed I must have come on it a little after you'd took Ann away.... You see, when I run to Westmo' to tell Judith about Edward, she says, 'Ben, Garvin ain't here. You take the word to the Copeleys first, go quick, then try to meet up with Garvin.' I done what she says. I had a hard time findin' Garvin, though. I got the first word of him at the club. Everybody were gone from there to tell everybody else what a Westmo' had done to hisself, an' the cook were the only one left. He said a while befo' he'd heard some one gettin' out Garvin's automobile from the shed--seems he'd been keepin' it there, at the club. The cook reckoned it was Garvin that some one must have tol' Garvin what had happened, an' he'd took the automobile so's to get to Westmo' in a hurry. I started down the Post-Road then, an' I come upon what had happened. My lord!" Ben paused, then went on. "Well, I dragged some rails acrost the road an' went fo' help, an' we got the las' man bearin' the name of Westmo' back to his house."