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 "Well, I never thought I'd have you for a neighbor," he said, his delight dampened not a little by the thought that she never intended to be anything more. "And she never said a word."

"We had a little fuss," Edith said.

"I thought as much."

"We'd had plenty of them before. About my money, you know. She said I'd used it all up in board, and education and care, and that kind of stuff, when I've worked my way ever since I've been with her. She never was my legal guardian, you know, Ned. She wasn't under bond, or anything. Father asked her to look after me when he was dying; he turned over his insurance and all he had to her to keep for me."

"So that was the way of it. I didn't know."

"There wasn't much. We compromised on fifteen hundred dollars, she paid me, and I struck out for Jasper to file on that land while the filin' was good."

"You took a long chance, I'm afraid, Edith. Hewitt was here with the last bunch that raided us, when Peck killed one of them. He isn't the kind of man to let it drop, even though we've got the sheriff behind us now. I've been looking for them every day."

Edith heard him out with a queer look of incredulity and surprise.

"Why, is it possible you haven't heard the news, Ned? Sheep limit's off; you've won your fight."

"Nobody's been around here to tell me about it," he replied, a little sarcastically, as if to say if that was her notion of a joke he couldn't see it.

"But you've been over in town to-day, and that's all they're talking about there," she said.