aid with
charming eagerness to set Hepseba at ease. "I am very fond of
geraniums, and I shall plant these slips and take good care of them. I
thank you very, very much for them."

As the machine rolled away Hepseba turned to old man Gifford:

"I like both of them!" she stated most decisively.

CHAPTER V

MISS JOSEPHINE'S FATHER AGREES THAT SAM TURNER IS ALL BUSINESS

"And now," announced Sam in calm triumph as they neared Hollis Creek
Inn, "I'll finish up this deal right away. There is no use in my
holding for a further rise at this time, and I'll just sell these trees
to your father."

"To father!" she gasped, and then, as it dawned upon her that she had
been out all morning to help Sam Turner buy up trees to sell to her own
father at a profit, she burst forth into shrieks of laughter.

"What's the joke?" Sam asked, regarding her in amazement, and then,
more or less dimly, he perceived. "Still," he said, relapsing into
serious consideration of the affair, "your father will be in luck to
buy those trees at all, even at the ten dollars a thousand profit he'll
have to pay me. There is not less than a hundred thousand feet of
walnut in that grove.

"Mercy!" she said. "Why, that will make you a thousand dollars for
this morning's drive; and the opportunity was entirely accidental, one
which would not have occurred if you hadn't come over to see me in this
machine. I think I ought to have a commission."

"You ought to be fined," Sam retorted. "You had me scared stiff at one
time."

"How was that?" she demanded.

"Why, of course you didn't think, but when you told the boys that I was
going out to buy a walnut grove, they were right on their way to see
your father. It would have been very natural for one of them to
mention our errand. Your father might have immediately inquired where
there was walnut to be found, and have telephoned to old man Gifford
before I could reach him."

"You needn't have worried!" stated Miss Josephine in a tone so
indignant that Sam turned to her in astonishment. "My father would not
have done anything so despicable as that, I am quite sure!"

"He wouldn't!" exclaimed Sam. "I'll bet he would. Why, how do you
suppose your father became rich in the lumber trade if it wasn't
through snapping up bargains every time he found one?"

"I have no doubt that my father has been and is a very alert business
man," retorted Miss Josephine most icily; "but after he knew that you