replied. "Rotten world is full of danged fools who
want money and ain't satisfied when you get it for 'em."

"Have you made such a sale lately?" Carey inquired.

"Yes; day before yesterday," Champers replied.

"Was it the old Jim Shirley quarter, the Cloverdale Ranch?" the doctor
asked.

"The very place, and I'm in a devil of a fix, too," Darley Champers
declared. "The trouble is I'm dead sure I'll not get the other fourteen
hundred."

Thomas Smith had been paid the two hundred dollars and had fully released
the land to Champers to finish the sale. Unfortunately for Champers, Smith
still hung about Wykerton, annoying his agent so much that in a fit of
anger, Champers revealed the fact that Leigh Shirley was the buyer of the
Cloverdale Ranch. Smith's rage was the greater because he did not believe
the price money could be paid by a girl without resources, and against
this girl he was not now ready to move. The burden of the whole matter
now was that Darley Champers had taken his life in his own hands by the
deal. The bulldog in Champers was roused now, and, while he was a good
many things evil, he was not a coward.

But for his anger this morning, he would hardly have been so free in
answering Doctor Carey's query. Carey was a living rebuke to him, and no
man loves that force anywhere.

"I tell you, I'm in a devil of a fix," he repeated.

"Well, be wise and go to a doctor in time," Doctor Carey said, only half
in jest. "Champers, we haven't always worked together out here, but I
guess we know each other pretty well. I'm willing to trust you. Are you
afraid to trust me?"

Darley Champers leaned back in his office chair and stared at the
questioner.

Horace Carey's heavy hair was very white now, although he was hardly
fifty-five years old. The decades of consecrated service to his profession
had told only in this one feature. His face was the face of a vigorous
man, and something in his life, maybe the meaning of giving up and the
meaning of the service, he once told Jim Shirley, he had known, had left
upon his countenance their mark of strength. As Darley Champers looked at
this face, he realized, as he had never done before, the freedom and joy
of an unsullied reputation and honest dealing.

"Lord, no, I'd trust you in hell, Doc," he exclaimed bluntly.

"I won't put it to the proof," the doctor assured him. "Nor will I trouble
you nor myself with any matter not concerning us two. Tell me frankly all
the tr