Lindy Briggs uttered a choking cry and clutched her husband; Jed Briggs stared at Scattergood with hunted eyes. "It'll be best for you to tell. I'm standin' your friend, Jed Briggs.... Better tell me than the sheriff.... Asa Levens was here Tuesday night...." "He excused us from payin' our int'rest," said Jed, and then he, too, laughed shrilly. "Let us off our int'rest. Lindy told me when I come home. Couldn't hardly b'lieve my ears." Jed was talking wildly, pitifully. "Lindy was a-layin' on the floor, sobbin', when I come home, and she was afeard to tell me why Asa let us off our int'rest, but I coaxed her, Mr. Baines, and she told me--and so I shot Asa Levens 'cause he wa'n't fit to live." Scattergood nodded. "Sich things was wrote on Asa's face," he said. "But what about Abner? Wa'n't goin' to let him suffer f'r your act, Jed? What about Abner?" "Him too.... All of that blood.... I met Abner on the road of a Tuesday when I wa'n't quite myself with all that had happened, and I stopped his hoss and accused his brother to his face.... He listened quiet-like, and then he laughed. That's what Abner done, he laughed.... When I heard he was arrested f'r the killin', I laughed.... Back in Bible times, if one of a family sinned, God wiped out the whole of the kin...." Scattergood was thoughtful. "Yes," he said, "Abner would have laughed. That was like Abner.... Now I calc'late you and Mis' Briggs better fix up and drive to town with me.... Don't be afeard. Right'll be done, and there hain't no more sufferin' fallin' to your share, ... You been doin' God's rough work, Jed, and I don't calc'late he figgers to have you punished f'r it...." Next morning at ten by the clock the coroner with his jury held inquest over the body of Asa Levens, and over that body Jed Briggs and Lindy, his wife, told their story under oath to ears that credited the truth of their words because they knew the man of whom those words were spoken. The jury deliberated briefly. Its verdict was in these words: "We find that Asa Levens came to his death by act of God, and that there are found no reasons for further investigation into this matter." And so it stands in the imperishable records of the township; legal authority recognized the right of Deity to utilize a human being for his rougher sort of work. "I knew it was something like this," Mary Ware said, clinging openly and unashamed to Abner Levens. "It's why he couldn't defend himself." Abner nodded. "My flesh and blood was guilty. Could I free myself by accusin' the husband of this woman?... I calc'lated God meant to destroy us Levenses, root and branch.... It was his business, not mine." "I've took note," said Scattergood, "that them that was most strict about mindin' their own business was gen'ally most diligent about doin' God's--all unbeknownst to themselves." CHAPTER XI HE INVESTS IN SALVATION