The old National pike road leading down to Cloverdale was still flanked by little rail-fenced fields that were bordered by deep woodlands. The old Aydelot farmhouse was as neat and white, with gardens and flower beds as well kept, as if only a day had passed since the master and mistress thereof had gone out to their last earthly home in the Cloverdale graveyard. Fifteen years had seen the frontier pushed westward with magic swiftness. The Grass River Valley, once a wide reach of emptiness and solitude, where only one homestead stood a lone bulwark against the forces of the wilderness, now, after a decade and a half, beheld its prairie dotted with freeholds, where the foundations of homes were laid. Fifteen years marked little appreciable change in the heritage given up by Asher Aydelot out of his love for a girl and his dream of a larger opportunity in the new West. For fifteen springtimes the old-fashioned sweet pinks had blossomed on the two mounds where his last service had been given to his native estate. Hardly a tree had been cut in the Aydelot woods. The marshes in the lower ground had not been drained. The only change in the landscape was the high grade of the railroad that cut a triangle from the northwest corner of the farm in its haste to reach Cloverdale and be done with it. The census of 1880, however, showed an increase in ten years of seventy-five citizens in Clover County, and the community felt satisfied with itself. The afternoon train on the Cloverdale branch was late getting into town, but the station parasites were rewarded for their patience by the sight of a stranger following the usual two or three passengers who alighted. Strangers were not so common in Cloverdale that anyone's face would be forgotten under ten years of time. "That's that same feller that come here ten year or mebby twelve year ago. I'd know him in Guinea," one of the oldest station parasites declared. "That's him, sure as shootin'," his comrade-in-laziness agreed. "A doctor, don't you ricolleck? Name's Corrie, no, Craney, no, that's not it neither--A-ah!" trying hard to think a little. "Carey. Don't you remember?" the first speaker broke in, "Doc Carey. They say he doctored Miss Jane in Philadelphia, an' got in good with her, more'n a dozen years ago." "Well," drawled the second watcher of affairs, "if he thinks he can get anything out'n o' her by hangin' round Cloverdale, he's barkin' up the wrong saplin'. Miss Jane, she's close, an' too set in her ways now. She must be nigh forty." "That's right. But, I'll bet he's goin' there now. Let's see." The two moved to the end of the station, from which strategic point both the main street, the National pike road, of course, and the new street running "cat-i-cornered" from the station to the creek bridge could be commanded. "Darned fool! is what he is! hikin' straight as a plumbline fur the crick. If he was worth it, I'd foller him."