She had built up this business and now she had sold it and she was oppressed with the certainty that, without her at the helm, Ashley would lose it all—everything that she had worked to build. Ashley trusted everyone and still hardly knew a two-by-four from a six-by-eight. And now she would never be able to give him the benefit of her advice—all because Rhett had told him that she liked to boss everything.
"Oh, damn Rhett!" she thought and as she watched him the conviction grew that he was at the bottom of all this. Just how and why she did not know. He was talking to Ashley and his words brought her up sharply.
"I suppose you'll turn the convicts back right away," he said.
Turn the convicts back? Why should there be any idea of turning them back? Rhett knew perfectly well that the larg
