"I shall be interested in knowing how you succeed this afternoon. I hope you may not be disappointed. I happen to know that there are funds and goods both on hand. It's a matter of getting them distributed without prejudice." "You are very kind, Mr. Jacobs," Virginia replied. "It is a desperate case. I feel as if I should be ready to leave the West if I do not get relief for our neighborhood today." Jacobs looked at her keenly. "Can you go?" he asked. "I wonder you have waited until now." "I've never wanted to go before. I wouldn't now. I could stand it for our household." The dark eyes flashed with the old Thaine will to do as she pleased. "But it is my sympathy for other people, for our sick, for discouraged men." Jacobs smiled kindly and bowed as she left the room. When she returned to Champers' office Mr. Thomas Smith was already there, his small frame and narrow, close-set eyes and secretive manner seeming out of place in the breezy atmosphere of the plain, outspoken West of the settlement days. In the conversation that followed it seemed to Virginia that he controlled all of the real estate dealer's words. "I am sorry to say that there ain't anything left in the way of supplies, Mrs. Aydelot, except what's reserved for worthy parties. I've looked over things carefully." Darley Champers broke the silence at once. "Who draws the line between the worthy and the unworthy, Mr. Champers?" Virginia asked. "I am told the relief supply is not exhausted." "Oh, the distributin's in my hands in a way, but that don't change matters," Champers said. "I read the rulings in the postoffice," Virginia began. "Yes, I had 'em put there. It saves a lot of misunderstandin'," the guardian of supplies declared. "But it don't change anything here." Virginia knew that her case was lost and she rose to leave the room. She had instinctively distrusted Darley Champers from their first meeting. She had disliked him as an ill-bred, blustering sort of man, but she had not thought him vindictive until now. Now she saw in him a stubborn, unforgiving man, small enough to work out of petty spite to the complete downfall of any who dared oppose his plans. "Sit down, Mrs. Aydelot. As I said this mornin', it's too bad you can't go back East now," Champers said seriously. "We can." Virginia could not keep back the words. Champers and Smith exchanged glances. "No, mom, you can't, Mrs. Aydelot. Let me show you why." He opened the drawer of his rickety desk and out of a mass of papers he fished up a copy of the _Cincinnati Enquirer_, six weeks old. "Look at this," and he thrust it into Virginia's hand. The head-lines were large, but the story was brief. The failure of the Cloverdale bank, the disappearance of the trusted cashier, the loss of deposits--a story too common to need detail. Virginia Aydelot never knew until that moment how much that reserve fund had really meant to her. She had need of the inherited pride of the Thaines now.