"I guess John will make it hard on him if they come to blows again. The jail sentence and fine Jacobs fastened on him let Wyker down easy. John Jacobs is one of the state's big men," Asher responded. "We lost another big man when we let Doc Carey go," Champers went on. "I used to set up nights and rest myself hatin' him. He done the biggest missionary work in me the two weeks I stayed at his house ever was done for a benighted heathen. I hated to see him go." The sadness of the tone was genuine. "But I mustn't be hangin' round here all the mornin'; I've got other things to do. Hope your boy'll keep a-goin' till his term's out. Goodday!" And Champers was gone. "Till his term's out!" Asher repeated with a smile. "Wouldn't that six-footer of a soldier boy, whose patriotism burns like a furnace, see the joke to that! Till he gets his stripes off and forgets the lock-step! My Thaine, who is giving a young man's strength of body and inspiration of soul to his country's service! But Carey did do a missionary work in Champers. The fellow was crooked enough 'inside the law always,' as he said, but no more out of line than scores of reputable business men are today. And the fact that he's Jacobs' agent now measures the degree of trustworthiness Carey has helped to waken in him." Darley Champers' business took him down the river to the Cloverdale Ranch, where he found Leigh Shirley training the young vines up the trellis by the west porch. "You got a mighty pretty place here; just looks like Jim Shirley," Champers declared as he greeted the young gardener. "Yes, Uncle Jim is never so happy as when he is puttering about the lawn and garden," Leigh answered. "How's your alfalfa doin'?" Champers asked as he turned toward the level stretch of rich green alfalfa fields. "Danged money-maker for you," he added jovially. "We'll clear the place with the first cutting this year. It's just the thing for Uncle Jim," Leigh asserted. "Yep, Jim's in clover--alfalfa, ruther. You had a good business head when you run your bluff some years ago, an' you wan't only nineteen then. You walked into my place an' jest bought that land on sheer bluff." Champers laughed uproariously, but he grew sober in the next minute. "Miss Shirley," he said gravely, "I ain't got much style nor sentiment in my makin's, but I've honestly tried to be humane by widders an' orphans. I've done men to keep 'em from doin' me, or jest 'cause they was danged easy, but I never wronged no woman, not even my wife, who divorced me years ago back East 'cause I wouldn't turn my old mother out o' doors, but kep' her and provided for her long as she lived." Nobody in Kansas had ever heard Darley Champers mention his home relations before. Leigh looked at him gravely, and the sympathy in her deep blue eyes was grateful to the uncultured man before her. "Miss Shirley, I ain't wantin' to meddle none, but I come down here to ask you if you know anything about your father?"