grove, gazing with burning eyes
at her own kingdom built out of Kansas sand.

<tb>

Mrs. Darby had hot coffee and cold chicken and cherry preserves and cake
with blackberry wine all daintily served for a hungry man to enjoy after
a long three hours on horseback in the sunshine. The rose-arbor was
odorous with perfume from the sweet-peas, clinging to the trellis that
ran between the side lawn and the grape-arbor.

What took place in that council had its results in the letter that
Eugene Wellington wrote that night to Jerry Swaim. He did not mail it
for several days, and when he went to his tasks on the morning after his
fingers had let go of it at the lip of the iron mail-box, the artist in
him said things to him that to the day of his death he would never quite
forget.

<tb>

Late one afternoon, a fortnight after the day of Jerry's visit to her
claim, Ponk, of the Commercial Hotel and Garage, slipped into the office
of the Macpherson Mortgage Company.

"York, what happens to folks that tends to other folks's affairs?" he
asked, as he spread his short proportions over a chair beside York's
desk.

"Sometimes they get the gratitude of posterity. More generally their
portion is present contempt and future obscurity. Are you in line for
promotion on that, Ponk?" York replied.

"I'm 'bout ready to take chances," Ponk said, with a good-natured grin.

"All right. Am I involved in your scheme of things?" York inquired.

"You bet you are," Ponk assured him. "And, to be brief, knowin' how
valuable your time is for gougin' mortgages out of unsuspectin'
victims--"

"Well, we haven't foreclosed on the Commercial Hotel and Garage yet,"
York interrupted.

"No, but you're likely to the minute my back's turned. That's why I have
to go facin' south all the time. But to get to real business now,
York--"

"I wish you would," York declared.

His caller paid no heed to the thrust, and continued, seriously, "I
can't get some things off my mind, and I've got to unload, that's all."

"Go ahead. I'm your dumping-ground," York said, with a smile.

"That's what you are, you son of a horse-thief. I mean the tool of a
grasping bunch of loan sharks known as the Macpherson Mortgage Company.
Well, it's that young lady at your house."

"I see. We robbed you of a boarder," York suggested.

"Aw, shut up an' listen, now, will you? You know I'm a man of affairs
here. Owner and proprietor and man-of-all-work at the Commercial Hotel
an