in, beginning to look worried herself.

"Well," continued Mrs. Nelson, "I decided then and there that I
wouldn't sell to anybody."

"Oh, Mother!" Betty was all eagerness now, "do you really mean it?"

"Yes, I do," said Mrs. Nelson, determination replacing uncertainty.
"There must be something unusual about Gold Run or John Josephs and this
man, too, wouldn't be so anxious to get it away from me. I am certainly
not going to let them drive me into selling, until I see my property at
least."

"Good for you, Mother!" cried Betty enthusiastically. "I've been
fearfully worried for fear you wouldn't see it that way. Did you tell
the man in the check suit that?"

"No, I didn't," said Mrs. Nelson, smiling as she pressed Betty's hand.
"Now you will see what a schemer your mother is, my dear. I told him I
hadn't definitely decided yet on any course, that I had already had a
very good offer for my ranch, and that he would have to see Allen
Washburn, our attorney. I wanted Allen to have a chance to size this man
up and see if he has the same impression of him that I had."

"Mother," breathed Betty admiringly, "I think you are wonderful." Then
after a little pause, she added shyly: "You really think a great deal
of--of Allen's ability, don't you, Mother?"

"I do, dear," said Mrs. Nelson, stroking the brown head gently. Then she
added with a hint of mischief in her voice: "Your father and I have come
to feel toward him almost as if he were our son."

"Oh--" murmured Betty, very faintly.

Two days went by--anxious ones for the girls. In the Nelson home, this
time in the pretty living room, Allen Washburn was now a guest.

"Well," Mrs. Nelson said, with more than a hint of eagerness in her
voice, "what did you think of our loudly-dressed friend, Allen?"

"Was he as bad as Mrs. Nelson's description makes him out to be?" asked
Mr. Nelson, smiling genially through a cloud of cigar smoke.

Betty, in a corner of the lounge, was trying her best to be calm while
she waited eagerly for Allen's reply.

"I don't know just how Mrs. Nelson described this fellow to you, I'm
sure," he answered, with a smiling glance toward Betty's mother. "But
I'm quite sure that she didn't say anything bad enough."

"Then you didn't like him either?" asked Mrs. Nelson quickly.

"I neither liked him nor trusted him," Allen replied decidedly, adding
with a wry smile: "He calls himself Peter Levine, but I'm willing to
wager about anything I have that t