The day was bright and lovely for driving, and Baptiste drove to his homestead, and from there to the Reynolds' where he had dinner and visited late. The next morning he went to the town, and when Jack Stewart, exhausted by the strain of worry under which he was laboring, came into town, having decided to try and sell the mare and one of the other horses, thereby leaving him only one with which to complete the cultivating of his corn and the reaping of his crops, he was called into the bank.

"Now if you'll just sign this, Mr. Stewart," said Brookings, "you can have until December first on that stuff."

"You mean the note!" the old man exclaimed, afraid to believe that he had heard aright.

"Yes, the note that is about to be foreclosed. You've been granted an extension." Jack Stewart was too overcome to attempt to comment. The realization that he was to be allowed to go on and not be sold out or be forced to dispose of his little stock at such a critical time, was too much for words. He caught up the pen, steadied his nerves, and wrote his name, not observing that the banker held a blotter over the lower line of the note. Jean Baptiste had cautioned him to do this. In view of the circumstances he had not wished Stewart or Agnes to know that he had gone on the note.

Jack Stewart hurried home in a fever of excitement. He could not get there fast enough. He thought of Agnes, he did not wish her to have a minute more grief than what she had endured. He reached home and stumbled into the house, and to Agnes he said:

"Oh, girl, girl, girl! They have extended the note! The sheriff is not coming! We are saved, saved, saved!" He was too overcome with emotion and joy then to proceed. He sank into a chair, while Agnes, carried away with excitement over the news, caressed him; said words of love and care until both had been exhausted by their own emotions. When they at last became calm, she turned to her father who now walked the floor in great joy.

"How did they come to extend the note, father?"

"Why—why, dear, that had never occurred to me! I became so excited when they told me that I had been granted an extension, I can only recall that I signed the note and almost ran out of the bank. The man had to call me back to give me my old note and mortgage. I don't know why they granted the extension." He stood holding his chin now and looking down at the floor as if trying to understand after all how it happened. Then his eyes opened suddenly wide. "Why, and, do you know, now, since I come to think of it, they did not take a new mortgage on the stock."