Twenty-four hours perceptibly changed the outlook of Paul Sumpter. He had an eye of not inconsiderable shrewdness for men, but with him men and money were inextricably entangled. He had been a banker on a small scale all his life, and property to him had an almost human appeal. The broad face of a meadow with a furrow turning black behind the plowshare was to him like beauty in a woman. A dense stand of yellow wheat with the wind rattling through it was a perfect symphony.
His opinion of Al Rankin began to change insensibly before he had been in the house a full hour. In the first place, it seemed a shame that the owner of such a property should be so evil. And that thought fathered the next, which was that the young fellow might not be entirely evil, and this in turn gave rise to the ide
