"You don't have to make any promises for me," Mr. Cane hastened to say. "Nobody has any greater regard for the truth than I have. I deplore this act of vandalism more than I can say; but since you have told the truth, I give you my word that I will help you clear the thing up. Now let's have the rest of it." All Sube's doubts had fled. He felt that he was now protected by the panoply of truth, and he came out with the whole story with brutal directness. "When I took the tree to Guilfords' they was all tickled with it. They thought it was a 'beaut'! But the minute _she_ saw it, she spotted it. And she went up there to the cemetery this afternoon, and when she saw one of her trees was gone, she came back there to the house and took on awful--!" "Just a minute," his father interrupted. "Who is this 'she' you keep referring to?" "Why, Nancy's aunt! M's Hotchkiss-Harger!" "But what had _she_ to do with the case?" his father persisted. "Why, I cut the tree on her cemetery lot!" Speechless with horror, Mr. and Mrs. Cane stared helplessly at each other, while Sube, with a feeling of unaccustomed security, laid bare the entire situation. "Yes," he rattled on, "she spotted it right off. And when she asked me where I got it, I told her _you_ cut it for me." He indicated his father by a movement of the head. "You told her _I_ cut it for you!" shrieked the stricken parent. "G-o-o-d Heavens!!" It was with difficulty that Mr. Cane kept from laying violent hands on his son as he paced up and down the room excitedly exclaiming: "What next!--What next!" "But we must not lose sight of the fact that Sube has told the truth," Mrs. Cane reminded him from time to time. "Don't keep harping on that all the while," growled her irate husband. "He's told the truth all right; but it's a pity he couldn't have begun to tell it a little sooner." After a few more turns up and down the room Mr. Cane came to a stop before his son. "Are you perfectly certain there hasn't been some mistake about this?" he asked desperately. "Are you perfectly certain that the tree came from the Harger lot?" Sube hesitated. "Well, I ain't sure," he admitted finally. "It was pretty dark." "Let's be thankful for that!" exclaimed his father fervently. "But _she_ is," Sube added after a moment. "What do you mean by that?" asked his father suspiciously. "Why, I mean that I didn't know _whose_ lot it was; but she went up there this afternoon and found one of her trees gone--" "Yes, but somebody else might have taken it! You say you are not certain which lot you took it from." "But I could tell in a holy minute if I should go up there--" "Sube!" his father glared at him dangerously. "You are positively forbidden to go anywhere near that cemetery for the next six months! If you do,--I will turn you over to the authorities, and let the law take its course. Don't forget that! I mean it!--And now, you may go to bed just as fast as you can get there."