pers?" Jacobs asked.

"I don't know what to hope for from Mr. Champers. He seems kind-hearted,"
Virginia replied.

"I hope you will find him a real friend. He is pretty busy with a man from
the East today," Jacobs answered, with a face so neutral in its expression
that Virginia wondered what his thought might be.

As she rose to leave the table, Mr. Jacobs said:

"I shall be interested in knowing how you succeed this afternoon. I hope
you may not be disappointed. I happen to know that there are funds and
goods both on hand. It's a matter of getting them distributed without
prejudice."

"You are very kind, Mr. Jacobs," Virginia replied. "It is a desperate
case. I feel as if I should be ready to leave the West if I do not get
relief for our neighborhood today."

Jacobs looked at her keenly. "Can you go?" he asked. "I wonder you have
waited until now."

"I've never wanted to go before. I wouldn't now. I could stand it for our
household." The dark eyes flashed with the old Thaine will to do as she
pleased. "But it is my sympathy for other people, for our sick, for
discouraged men."

Jacobs smiled kindly and bowed as she left the room.

When she returned to Champers' office Mr. Thomas Smith was already there,
his small frame and narrow, close-set eyes and secretive manner seeming
out of place in the breezy atmosphere of the plain, outspoken West of the
settlement days. In the conversation that followed it seemed to Virginia
that he controlled all of the real estate dealer's words.

"I am sorry to say that there ain't anything left in the way of supplies,
Mrs. Aydelot, except what's reserved for worthy parties. I've looked over
things carefully." Darley Champers broke the silence at once.

"Who draws the line between the worthy and the unworthy, Mr. Champers?"
Virginia asked. "I am told the relief supply is not exhausted."

"Oh, the distributin's in my hands in a way, but that don't change
matters," Champers said.

"I read the rulings in the postoffice," Virginia began.

"Yes, I had 'em put there. It saves a lot of misunderstandin'," the
guardian of supplies declared. "But it don't change anything here."

Virginia knew that her case was lost and she rose to leave the room. She
had instinctively distrusted Darley Champers from their first meeting. She
had disliked him as an ill-bred, blustering sort of man, but she had not
thought him vindictive until now. Now she saw in him a stubborn,
unforgiving man, small