o look after. I'll report to them now. I seem to be general handy man.
Doc Carey left matters with me, too."

"Yes?" Leigh said courteously.

"Well, referrin' to that matter regardin' your father we spoke of the
other day, I find, through Doc Carey's helpin' an' some other ways, that
your father, Mr. Tank Shirley, was accidentally drowned in Clover Creek,
Ohio, some years ago. So far as I can find out, he died insolvent. If I
discover anything further, I'll let you know."

Leigh sat very still, her eyes on the far-away headlands that seemed like
blue cloud banks at the moment.

"Had you heard of Miss Jane Aydelot's demise? I reckon you had, of course.
But do you know what her intentions were?"

Leigh looked steadily at her questioner. All her life she had had a way of
keeping her own counsel, nor was it ever easy to know what her thoughts
might be.

"Miss Shirley, the late Miss Jane Aydelot trusted Doc Carey to look after
her affairs. Doc Carey, he trusted me to take his place. Can you trust me
to be the last link of the chain in doin' her business? My grammar's poor,
but my hands is clean now, thank the Lord!"

"Yes, Mr. Champers, I am sure of your uprightness."

Leigh did not dream how grateful these words were to the man before her,
honestly trying to beat back to better ideals of life.

"When I was a very little girl," Leigh went on, "Miss Jane told me I was
to be her heir."

Darley gave a start, but as Leigh's face was calm, he could only wonder
how much she had remembered.

"All the years since I've lived in Kansas I've been kept in mind in many
ways of her favor toward me. I came to know long ago that she was
determined to leave me all the old Aydelot estate. And I knew also that it
should have been Asher's, not mine."

Darley thought of Thaine, and, dull as he was, he read in a flash a
romance that many a finer mind might have missed.

"Well, sufferin' catfish!" he said to himself. "Danged plucky girl; forges
along an' bucks me into sellin' her this ranch an' sets it into alfalfy
an' sets up Jim Shirley for life, 'cause putterin' in the garden an' bein'
kind to the neighbors is the limit to that big man's endurance. An' this
pretty girl, knowin' that Aydelot property ought to be Thaine Aydelot's,
just turns it down, an', by golly, I'll bet she turns him down, too,
fearin' he wouldn't feel like takin' it. An' he's clear hiked to the edges
of Chiny. Well, it's a danged queer world. I'm glad I've onl