Tinkletown was sorry to see him depart, but it thrived on his promise to return. Every one winked slyly behind his back, for, of course, Tinkletown understood it all. He would come back often and then not at all--for the magnet would go away with him in the end. The busybodies, good-natured but garrulous, did not have to rehearse the story to its end; it would have been superfluous. Be it said here, however, that Rosalie was not long in settling many of the speculators straight in their minds. It seemed improbable that it should not be as they had thought and hoped. The news soon reached Blootch Peabody and Ed Higgins, and, both eager to revive a blighted hope, in high spirits, called to see Rosalie on the same night. It is on record that neither of them uttered two dozen words between eight o'clock and ten, so bitterly was the presence of the other resented. March came, and with it, to the intense amazement of Anderson Crow, the ever-mysterious thousand dollars, a few weeks late. On a certain day the old marshal took Rosalie to Boggs City, and the guardianship proceedings were legally closed. Listlessly she accepted half of the money he had saved, having refused to take all of it. She was now her own mistress, much to her regret if not to his. "I may go on living with you, Daddy Crow, may I not?" she asked wistfully as they drove home through the March blizzard. "This doesn't mean that I cannot be your own little girl after to-day, does it?" "Don't talk like that, Rosalie Gray, er I'll put you to bed 'thout a speck o' supper," growled he in his most threatening tones, but the tears were rolling down his cheeks at the time. "Do you know, daddy, I honestly hope that the big city detective won't find out who I am," she said after a long period of reflection. "Cause why?" "Because, if he doesn't, you won't have any excuse for turning me out." "I'll not only send you to bed, but I'll give you a tarnation good lickin' besides if you talk like--" "But I'm twenty-one. You have no right," said she so brightly that he cracked his whip over the horse's back and blew his nose twice for full measure of gratitude. "Well, I ain't heerd anything from that fly detective lately, an' I'm beginnin' to think he ain't sech a long sight better'n I am," said he proudly. "He isn't half as good!" she cried. "I mean as a detective," he supplemented apologetically. "So do I," she agreed earnestly; but it was lost on him.