And Thomas Smith knew that the big, coarse-grained man was sincere. "Yonder's Aydelot now. Want to see him?" Darley Champers declared, sighting Asher down the short trail beyond the deep bend. "I've no business with him, and he's the man I don't want to see," Thomas Smith said hastily. "I'll ride on out of sight round this bend and wait for you. It's a good place when you don't want to be seen." "Depends on how much of a plainsman Aydelot is. He ought to have sighted both of us half a mile back," Champers declared. But Smith hurried away and was soon behind the low bluff at the deep bend. Asher Aydelot had seen the two before they saw him, and he saw them part company and only one come on to meet him. "You're Aydelot from the claim up the river, I s'pose. I'm just out lookin' at the country. Not much to it but looks," Champers declared as the two met at the deep bend. "Yes, sir; my name is Aydelot," Asher replied, deciding at once that this stranger was not to be accepted on sight, a judgment based not on a woman's instinct but on a man's experience. "Any of these claims ever been entered?" Champers asked. "Yes, sir; most of them," Asher responded. "I see. Couldn't make it out here. I s'pose you'll get out next. Hard place to take root. Most too far away, and land's a little thin, I see," the real estate dealer remarked carelessly. "Yes, it's pretty well out," Asher assented. "The river ever get low here?" was the next query. "Not often, in the winter," Asher replied. "Most too uncertain for water power, though, and the railroad ain't comin' this way at all. I must be gettin' on. One man's too few to be travelin' so fur from civilization." "Come up to the cabin for the night," Asher said, with a plainsman's courtesy. "Thank you, no. Hope to see you again nearer to the Lord's ground; losin' game here. Good-by." Asher did not look like a disappointed man when he reached the Sunflower Inn. "Best news in the world," he declared when Virginia related what had happened in the cabin that afternoon. "A man who goes prospecting around the Kansas prairies doesn't discourage the poor cuss he pities; he tries to encourage the wretch to hold on to land he wouldn't have himself. Listen to me, Virgie. That man has his eye on Grass River right now. I know his breed." Meanwhile the early dusk found Champers and Smith approaching Shirley's premises. "I don't know about Aydelot," Champers declared as they lariated their ponies beyond the corral. "He's one of the clear-eyed fellows who sees a good thing about as soon as you sight it yourself, and then he turns clam and leach and you won't move him nor get nothin' out of him, and that's all there is to it." "Yes, I know that. I mean, you say he does?" Smith seemed too preoccupied to follow his own words, but Champers followed Smith shrewdly enough. They made a hasty but careful examination of the premises, keeping wide of the cabin where the sick man lay.