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“So you would be,” Hank agreed. “But there was no need to call on you for that, Pettie. I did name it to Miss Valery when she come to me speaking of Lee Marchbanks having applied; I told her same as I told the judge when I took out my papers. It’s nothing for a child like you to pester her little head about.” But the mention of Aunt Val brought back all Hilda’s bitterness.

“Well, I think it was mean for a man to want to do that—want to be our guardian, I mean—when you’re it,” she said.

“Sho! I wouldn’t talk that-away about some one you never seen—nor me either, for that matter. It chances I’ve never laid eyes on Colonel Lee Marchbanks; but from what I hear, he’s all right.”

“Well, he’s Fayte Marchbanks’ papa, and I don’t like Fayte a bit. Fayte said the Three Sorrows ranch belonged to him—if he had his rights. Is that the reason his papa wanted to be our guardian?”

“Now see here, don’t you fix up a story and fit it onto the other feller without by-your-leave. That ain’t fair. I expect Lee Marchbanks does wish his first wife’s father hadn’t sold the Sorrers out of the family, but too much thinkin’ about what the other feller’s thinkin’ has made a lot of trouble in this world before now. Let it go at what he done. And he done no more than to ask appointment as guardeen—and I guess he had your Aunt Val’s permission for that. You couldn’t understand the ins and outs of it now.”