"Then it's death to either of you if you ever tell a word of this. You understand that? I'm not to be known here because I'm a dead man. I'm the cashier that was mixed up in the Cloverdale bank affair. And, as I say, if Jane Aydelot had let things alone Tank Shirley and I could have pulled out honorably, but, womanlike, because she had a lot of bank stock and was the biggest loser of anybody, in her own mind, she pushed things where a man would not have noticed or kept still, and she kept pushing year after year. Damn a woman, anyhow! All I could do at last was to commit suicide. Tank planned it. It saved me and helped Tank. You see, Miss Jane had a line around his neck, too. She was the only one who really saw me go down and she spread the report that I'd committed suicide on account of the bank failure. So, gentlemen, I'm really drowned in Clover Creek right above where the railroad grade that cuts the Aydelot farm reaches the water." Darley Champers wondered why Thomas Smith was so particular in his description. "I've known Jim Shirley all my life. He was as bad a boy as ever left Cloverdale, Ohio, under a cloud. Got into trouble over some girl, I believe, finally. But you can see why I'm out of this game when it comes to the open. And maybe you could understand, if you knew the brothers as well as I do, why Tank keeps me after him. And I'll get him yet." The vengeance of the last words was venomous. "Well, now we understand each other we'll not be tramping on anybody's corns," Darley Champers urged, anxious to get away from the subject. With all of his shortcomings he was a man of different mould from the other men. Eagerness to represent and invest large capital and to make by far the best of a bargain by any means just inside the law were his besetments. But he had not the unremitting hatred that enslaved Thomas Smith and Hans Wyker. Champers' store of energy seemed exhaustless. Following this council he fell upon the Grass River Valley and threshed it to his profit. One mid-June evening the Grass River schoolhouse was lighted early, while up from the prairie ranches came the work-worn farmers. This year the crop outlook was bad, yet somehow an expectant spirit lifted sagging shoulders and looked out through hopeful eyes. While the men exchanged neighborly greetings, a group of children, the second generation in the valley, romped about in the twilight outside. "Here comes Thaine," they shouted as Asher Aydelot and his boy came down the trail. "Come on, Thaine," Leigh Shirley said, reaching for his hand. "We are going to play drop the handkerchief." "Thaine's going to stand by me," pretty Jo Bennington declared, pushing Leigh boisterously aside.