ouble about this sale."

Briefly, Champers explained Smith's hatred of Jim Shirley, and his anger
at the present sale.

"All I ask is that you will not break your word to Miss Shirley," Horace
Carey said. "I happen to know that the money will be ready for you. This
Smith is the same man who came to old Carey's Crossing years ago, of
course?"

"Why, do you remember him?" Darley Champers asked in surprise.

"I've crossed his trail a hundred times since then, and it's always an
ill-smelling trail. Some day I may follow it a bit myself. You'll do well
to break with him," the doctor assured him.

"If Doc Carey ever starts on that hyena's trail, I'd like to be in at the
end of the chase," Champers declared with a grin.

"Why not help a bit yourself? I'm going East for a week. When I come back,
I'll see you. Maybe I can help you a little to get his claws unhooked from
your throat," Carey suggested, and the two men shook hands and separated.

Champers stood up and breathed deeply. The influence of an upright man's
presence is inspiring. Horace Carey did not dream that his confidence and
good will that day were turning the balances for Darley Champers for the
remainder of his life. Champers was by nature a ferret, and Carey's
parting words took root and grew in his mind.

The May rains that had flooded Grass River and its tributaries did worse
for Clover Creek in Ohio a few days later. The lower part of the town of
Cloverdale was uncomfortably submerged until the high railroad grade
across the creek on the Aydelot farm broke and let the back water have
broader outlet.

Doctor Carey had not startled the same old loafers who kept watch over the
railway station when he suddenly dropped into the town again. They were
too busy watching the capers of Clover Creek to attend to their regular
post of duty. And since he had been a guest of Miss Jane Aydelot as much
as a half dozen times in two decades, they knew about what to expect of
him now.

They were more interested in a big bluff stranger who dropped into town
off the early morning train, ate a plentiful meal at the depot restaurant,
and then strolled down to the creek. He loitered all day about the spot
where the grade broke, nor did he leave the place when the crowd was
called away late in the afternoon to a little stream on the other side of
town that had suddenly risen to be a river for the first time in the
memory of man.

To Doctor Carey, Jane Aydelot looked scarc