Betty told him that Aunt Prudence was feeble. The girl did not know at that time how serious the woman’s malady was. Only on the day following did the telegram come recalling her to Amberly! “Anyway,” Wilkenson observed, after some thought, “you’re her heir, Betty.” For a second time the girl was startled by his speech. She began to peer at him now in the dusk in a puzzled fashion. “What I’m aimin’ at,” said Wilkenson quite calmly, “is that we’d better keep all this quiet until Auntie goes over the divide. No use stirring up possible objections. She’ll leave you her money, you say. We’ll take that money and go back West. I know a place I can buy in Crescent City that will pay big returns. I will let the pasteboards alone, myself. I always get foolish if I deal ’em wild instead of for the house. We’ll cut a swath out there, Betty, that’ll make ’em sit up and take notice. Sure thing!” “Andy! What are you talking about?” asked the incredulous girl. “Auntie’s money—— It’s all invested. I know it is. It’s tied up.” “Shucks! we can untie it,” and Wilkenson laughed. “No banker’s knots mean much to me. And four or five per cent. interest ain’t a patch on what I’ll make for you when we get to going.” “But, Andy,” she said weakly, “I know all about Auntie’s will. I have even read it. She made it years ago when Ford and I were little. And she is a woman who never changes her mind. Ford has papa’s little fortune. Aunt Prudence gives me her property; but I can spend only the income from it until I am thirty.” “What’s that?” His tone made her jump. “Thirty?” Then he thought. “Well, shucks, honey,” he drawled, “you’re a married woman now. That makes you practically of age in this State, and the courts——” “It makes no difference, Andy. The will is made that way for that very purpose,” the girl said frankly. “For what purpose?” “So that—that my husband cannot touch the principal. Until I am thirty I cannot touch it myself.” An oath—a foul, blistering expression—parted the man’s lips. In the deepening gloom of the evening she could see his face change to a mask of indignant disappointment. She did not shrink from him. She did not plead with him. In that dragging minute, Andy had stopped the car with a jerk, Betty understood everything about this Westerner. And from that instant had germinated and grown all the hatred and fear of the West and its people that Betty Hunt had betrayed when first her brother had suggested the journey to Canyon Pass. She had stepped out of the car. She had torn in small pieces the paper the old minister had given her. She had drawn from her finger the plain band Wilkenson had placed upon it, which she must have hidden in any case, and thrown it from her into the bushes beside the way.