XXXV
BACK TO LITTLE RIVERS
As with the gentle touch of a familiar hand, the ozone of high altitudesgradually and sweetly awakened Jack. The engine was puffing on anupgrade; the car creaked and leaned in taking a curve. Raising the shadeof his berth he looked out on spectral ranges that seemed marching andtumbling through dim distances. With pillows doubled under his head helay back, filling sight and mind with the indistinctness and spaciousmystery of the desert at night; recalling his thoughts with his lastview of it over two months ago in the morning hours after leaving ElPaso and seeing his future with it now, where then he had seen hisfuture with the store.
"Think of old Burleigh raising oranges! I am sure that the trees will bewell trimmed," he whispered. "Think of Mamie Devore in the thick of thegreat jelly competition, while the weight of Joe Mathewson's shouldersstarts a spade into the soil as if it were going right to the centre ofthe earth. Why, Joe is likely to get us into international difficultiesby poking the ribs of a Chinese ancestor! Yes--if we don't lose ourLittle Rivers; and we must not lose it!"
The silvery face of the moon grew fainter with the coming of a ruddierlight; the shadows of the mountains were being etched definitely on theplateaus that stretched out like vast floors under the developing glowof sunrise; and the full splendor of day had come, with its majesticspread of vision.
"When Joe sees that he will feel so strong he will want to get out andcarry the Pullman," Jack thought. "But Mamie will not let him for fearthat he will overdo!"
How slow the train seemed to travel! It was a snail compared to Jack'seagerness to arrive. He was inclined to think that P.D., Wrath of God,and Jag Ear were faster than through expresses. He kept inquiring of theconductor if they were on time, and the conductor kept repeating thatthey were. How near that flash of steel at a bend around a tongue ofchaotic rock, stretching out into the desert sea, with its command to manto tunnel or accept a winding path for his iron horse! How long in comingto it in that rare air, with its deceit of distances! Landmark afterlandmark of peak or bold ridge took the angle of some recollected view ofhis five years' wanderings. It was already noon when he saw Galeria fromthe far end of the long basin that he had crossed, with the V as thecompass of his bearings, on the ride that brought him to the top to meetMary and Pete Leddy.
Then the V was lost while the train wound around the range that formedone side of the basin's rim. The blaze of midday had passed before itentered the reaches of the best valley yet in the judgment of aconnoisseur in valleys; and under the Eternal Painter's canopy a spot ofgreen quivered in the heat-rays of the horizon. His Majesty was in adreamy mood. He was playing in delicate variations, tranquil andenchanting, of effects in gold and silver, now gossamery thin, nowthick and rich.
"What is this thing crawling along on two silken threads and so afraid ofthe hills?" he was asking, sleepily. "Eh? No! Bring the easel to me, ifyou want a painting. I am not going to rise from my easy couch. There!Fix that cushion so! I am a leisurely, lordly aristocrat. Palette? No, Iwill just shake my soft beard of fine mist back and forth across the sky,a spectrum for the sunrays. So! so! I see that this worm is a railroadtrain. Let it curl up in the shadow of a gorge and take a nap. I willwake it up by and by when I seize my brush and start a riot in theheavens that will make its rows of window-glass eyes stare."
"I am on this train and in a hurry!" Jack objected.
"Do I hear the faint echo of a human ego down there on the earth?"demanded the Eternal Painter. "Who are you? One of the art critics?"
"One of Your Majesty's loving subjects, who has been away in a foreignkingdom and returns to your allegiance," Jack answered.
"So be it. I shall know if what you say is true when I gaze into youreyes at sunset."
"I am bringing you a Velasquez!" Jack added.
"Good! Put him where he can have a view out of the window of his firstteacher at work in the studio of the universe."
The train crept on toward the hour of the Eternal Painter's riot andtoward Little Rivers, while the patch of green was softly, impalpablygrowing, growing, until the crisscross breaks of the streets developedand Jack could identify the Doge's and other bungalows. He was on theplatform of the car before the brakes ground on the wheels, leaning outto see a crowd at the station, which a minute later became a prospect offamiliar, kindly, beaming faces. There was a roar of "Hello, Jack!" inthe heavy voices of men and the treble of children. Then he did not seethe faces at all for a second; he saw only mist.
"Not tanned, Jack, but you'll brown up soon!"
"Gosh! But we've been lonesome without you!"
"Cure any case of sore eyes on record!"
Jack was too full of the glory of this unaffected welcome in answer tohis telegram that he was coming to find words at first; but as he fairlydropped off the steps into the arms of Jim Galway and Dr. Patterson heshouted in a shaking voice:
"Hello, everybody! Hello, Little Rivers!"
He noted, while all were trying to grasp his hands at once, that the menhad their six-shooters. A half-dozen were struggling to get his suitcase. Not one of his friends was missing except the Doge and Mary.
"Let the patient have a little air!" protested Dr. Patterson, as somestarted in to shake hands a second time.
"Fellow-citizens, if there's anything in the direct primary I feel sureof the nomination!" said Jack drily.
"You're already elected!" shouted Bob Worther.
Around at the other side of the station Jack found Firio waiting his turnin patient isolation, with P.D., Wrath of God, and Jag Ear.
"_Si! si_!" called Firio triumphantly to all the sceptics who had toldhim that Jack would not return.
Jack took the little Indian by the shoulders and rocked him back andforth in delight, while Firio's eyes were burning coals of jubilation.
"You knew!" Jack exclaimed. "You were right! I have come back!"
"_Si, si_! I know!" repeated Firio.
"No stopping him from bringing the whole cavalcade to the station,either," said Jim Galway. "And he wouldn't join the rest of us out infront of the station. He was going to be his own reception committee andhold an overflow meeting all by himself!"
There was no disguising the fact that the equine trio of veteransremembered Jack. With P.D. and Jag Ear the demonstration wasunrestrained; but however exultant Wrath of God might be in secret, hewas of no mind to compromise his reputation for lugubriousness by anypublic display of emotional weakness.
"Wrath of God, I believe you were a cross-eyed Cromwellian soldier inyour previous incarnation!" said Jack; "and as it is hard for a horse tobe crosseyed, you could not retain the characteristic. Think of that!Wouldn't a cross-eyed Cromwellian soldier strike fear to the heart of anyloyalist? And Jag Ear, you're getting fat!"
"I keep his hoofs hard. When he fat he eat less on trail!" explainedFirio, becoming almost voluble. "All ready for trail!" he hinted.
"Not now, Firio," said Jack. "And, Firio, there's a package at thestation, a big, flat case. It came by express on the same train withme--the most precious package in the world. See that it is taken tothe house."
"Si! You ride?" asked Firio, offering P.D.'s reins.
"No, we'll all walk."
The procession had started toward the town when Jack felt something softpoking him in the small of the back and looked around to find that thecause was P.D.'s muzzle. Wrath of God and Jag Ear might go with Firio,but P.D. proposed to follow Jack.
"And after I have ridden you thousands of miles and you've heard all mysongs over and over! Well, well, P.D., you are a subtle flatterer! Comealong!" Then he turned to Jim Galway: "Has John Prather arrived?"
"Yes, last night."
"He is here now?" Jack put in quickly.
"No; he pulled out at dawn on his way to Agua Fria."
"Oh!" Jack was plainly disappointed. "He has the grant for thewater rights?"
"Yes," said Jim, "though he hasn't made the fact public. He doeseverything in his smooth, quiet fashion, with a long h
ead, and I supposehe hasn't things just right yet to spring his surprise. But there is nodisputing the fact--he has us!"
One man henceforth was in control of the water. His power over thedesert community would be equivalent to control of the rains in ahumid locality.
"You see," Jim continued, "old man Lefferts' partners had really neversold out to him; so his transfer to the Doge wasn't legal. He turned hispapers over to Prather, giving Prather full power to act for him insecuring the partners' surrender of their claims and straighten outeverything with the Territory and get a bonafide concession. That is as Iunderstand it, for the whole business has been done in an underhand way.Prather represented to the Doge that he was acting entirely in theinterests of the community and his only charge would be the costs. TheDoge quite believed in Prather's single-mindedness and public spirit.Well, with the use of money and all the influences he could command,including the kind that Pete Leddy exercises, he got the concession andin his name. It was very smart work. I suppose it was due to the craftyway he could direct the Doge to do his wishes that the Doge happened tobe off the scene at the critical stage of the negotiations. When he wentto New York all that remained was for him to obtain the capital for hisscheme. Lefferts and his partners had the underlying rights and the Dogethe later rights, thanks to his improvements, and Prather has them both.Well, Leddy and his crowd have been taking up plots right and left;that's their share in the exploitation. They're here, waiting for theannouncement to be made and--well, the water users' association is stillin charge; but it won't be when Prather says the word."
"And you have no plans?" Jack asked.
"None."
"And the Doge?"
"None. What can the old man do? Though nobody exactly blames him, a goodmany aren't of a mind to consult him at all. The crisis has passed beyondhim. Three or four men, good men, too, were inclined to have it out withJohn Prather; but that would have precipitated a general fight withLeddy's gang. The conservatives got the hot-heads to wait till you came.You see, the trouble with every suggestion is that pretty much everybodyis against it except the fellow who made it. The more we have talked,the more we have drifted back to you. It's a case of all we've got in theworld and standing together, and we are ready to get behind you and takeorders, Jack."
"Yes, ready to fight at the drop of the hat, seh, or to sit still on ourdoorsteps with our tongues in our cheeks and doing the wives' mending, asyou say!" declared Bob Worther. "It's right up to you!"
"You are all of the same opinion?" asked Jack.
They were, with one voice, which was not vociferous. For theirs was thatsignificantly quiet mood of an American crowd when easy-going good natureturns to steel. Their partisanship in pioneerdom had not been withsix-shooters, but with the ethics of the Doge; and such men when arouseddo not precede action with threats.
"All right!" said Jack.
There was a rustle and an exchange of satisfied glances and a chorus ofapproval like an indrawing of breath.
"First, I will see the Doge," Jack added; "and then I shall go tothe house."
Galway, Dr. Patterson, Worther, and three or four others went on with himtoward the Ewold bungalow. They were halted on the way by Pete Leddy,Ropey Smith, and a dozen followers, who appeared from a side street andstopped across Jack's path, every one of them with a certain slouchingaggressiveness and staring hard at him. Pete and Ropey still kept faithwith their pledge to Jack in the _arroyo_. They were without guns, buttheir companions were armed in defiance of the local ordinance which hadbeen established for Jack's protection.
"Howdy do, Leddy?" said Jack, as amiably as if there had never beenanything but the pleasantest of relations between them.
"Getting polite, eh! Where's your pretty whistle?" Leddy answered.
"I put it in storage in New York," Jack said laughing; then, with asudden change to seriousness: "Leddy, is it true that you and JohnPrather have got the water rights to this town?"
"None of your d----d business!" Leddy rapped out. "The only business I'vegot with you has been waiting for some time, and you can have it your wayout in the _arroyo_ where we had it before, right now!"
"As I said, Pete, I put the whistle in storage and I have alreadyapologized for the way I used it," returned Jack. "I can't accommodateyou in the _arroyo_ again. I have other things to attend to."
"Then the first time you get outside the limits of this town you willhave to play my way--a man's way!"
"I hope not, Pete!"
"Naturally you hope so, for you know I will get you, you--"
"Careful!" Jack interrupted. "You'd better leave that out until we areboth armed. Or, if you will not, why, we both have weapons that naturegave us. Do you prefer that way?" and Jack's weight had shifted to theball of his foot.
Plainly this was not to Pete's taste.
"I don't want to bruise you. I mean to make a clean hole through you!"he answered.
"That is both courteous and merciful; and you are very insistent, Leddy,"Jack returned, and walked on.
"Just as sweet as honey, just as cool as ice, and just as sunny asJune!" whispered Bob Worther to the man next him.
Again Jack was before the opening in the Ewold hedge, with its glimpseof the spacious living-room. The big ivory paper-cutter lay in itsaccustomed place on the broad top of the Florentine table. In line withit on the wall was a photograph of Abbey's mural in the Pennsylvaniacapitol and through the open window a photograph of a Puvis de Chavanneswas visible. Evidently the Doge had already hung some of thereproductions of masterpieces which he had brought from New York. But noone was on the porch or in the living-room; the house was silent. AsJack started across the cement bridge he was halted by a laugh from hiscompanions. He found that P.D. was taking no risks of losing his masteragain; he was going right on into the Doge's, too. Jim took charge ofhim, receiving in return a glance from the pony that positively reekedof malice.
Again Jack was on his way around the Doge's bungalow on the journey hehad made so many times in the growing ardor of the love that had masteredhis senses. The quiet of the garden seemed a part of the pervasivestillness that stretched away to the pass from the broad path of thepalms under the blazonry of the sun. As he proceeded he heard thecrunching of gravel under a heavy tread. The Doge was pacing back andforth in the cross path, fighting despair with the forced vigor of hissteps, while Mary was seated watching him. As the Doge wheeled to faceJack at the sound of his approach, it was not in surprise, but rather inpreparedness for the expected appearance of another character in adrama. This was also Mary's attitude. They had heard of his coming andthey received his call with a trace of fatalistic curiosity. The Dogesuddenly dropped on a bench, as if overcome by the weariness anddepression of spirits that he had been defying; but there was somethingunyielding and indomitable in Mary's aspect.
"Well, Sir Chaps, welcome!" said the Doge. "We still have a seat in theshade for you. Will you sit down?"
But Jack remained standing, as if what he had to say would be soon said.
"I have come back and come for good," he began. "Yes, I have come back totake all the blue ribbons at ranching," he added, with a touch of gardennonsense that came like a second thought to soften the abruptness of hisannouncement.
"For good! For good! You!" The Doge stared at Jack in incomprehension.
"Yes, my future is out here, now."
"You give up the store--the millions--your inheritance!" cried the Doge,still amazed and sceptical as he sounded the preposterousness of thisidea to worldly credulity.
"Quite!"
There was no mistaking the firmness of the word. "To make your fortune,your life, out here?"
The Doge's voice was throbbing with the wonder of the thing.
"Yes!"
"Why? Why? I feel that I have a right to ask why!" demanded the Doge, inall the majesty of the moment when he faced John Wingfield, Sr. in thedrawing-room.
"Because of a lie and what it concealed. Because of reasons that may notbe so vague to you as they are
to me."
"A lie! Yes, a lie that came home!" the Doge repeated, while he passedhis hand back and forth over his eyes. The hand was trembling. Indeed,his whole body was trembling, while he sought for self-control and tocollect his thoughts for what he had to say to that still figure awaitinghis words. When he looked up it was with an expression wholly new toJack. Its candor was not that of transparent mental processes in serenephilosophy or forensic display, but that of a man who was about to laybare things of the past which he had kept secret.
"Sir Chaps, I am going to give you my story, however weak and blameworthyit makes me appear," he said. "Sir Chaps, you saw me in anger in theWingfield drawing-room, further baffling you with a mystery which musthave begun for you the night that you came to Little Rivers when weexchanged a look in which I saw that you knew that I recognized you. Itried to talk as if you were a welcome stranger, when I was holding in myrancor. There was no other face in the world that I would not rather haveseen in this community than yours!
"How glad I was to hear that you were leaving by the morning train! How Icounted the days of your convalescence after you were wounded! How glad Iwas at the news that you were to go as soon as you were well! With what arevelry of suggestion I planned to speed your parting! How demoralized Iwas when you announced that you were going to stay! How amazed at yourseriousness about ranching--but how distrustful! Yet what joy in yourcompanionship! At times I wanted to get my arms around you and hug you asa scarred old grizzly bear would hug a cub. And, first and last, yoursuccess with everybody here! Your cool hand in the duel! That iron inyour will which would triumph at any cost when you broke Nogales's arm!For some reason you had chosen to stop, in the play period of youth, onthe way to the inheritance to overcome some obstacle that it pleased youto overcome and to amuse yourself a while in Little Rivers--you with yoursteadiness in a fight and your airy, smiling confidence in yourself!"
"I--I did not know that I was like that!" said Jack, in hurt, gropingsurprise. "Was I truly?"
The Doge nodded.
"As I saw you," he said.
Jack looked at Mary, frankly and calmly.
"Was I truly?" he asked her.
"As I saw you!" she repeated, as an impersonal, honest witness.
"Then I must have been!" he said, with conviction. "But I hope that Ishall not be in the future." And he smiled at Mary wistfully. But hergaze was bent on the ground.
"And you want it all--all the story from me?" the Doge asked, hesitating.
"All!" Jack answered.
"It strikes hard at your father."
"The truth must strike where it will, now!"
"Then, your face, so like your father's, stood for the wreck of twolives to me, and for recollections in my own career that tinged my viewof you, Jack. You were one newcomer to Little Rivers to whom I could notwholly apply the desert rule of oblivion to the past and judgment ofevery man solely by his conduct in this community. No! It was out of thequestion that I could ever look at you without thinking who you were.
"You know, of course, that your father and I spent our boyhood inBurbridge. Once I found that he had told me an untruth and we had ourdifference out, as boys will; and, as I was in the right, he confessedthe lie before I let him up. That defeat was a hurt to his egoism that hecould not forget. He was that way, John Wingfield, in his egoism. It waslike flint, and his ambition and energy were without bounds. I rememberhe would say when teased that some day he should have more money than allthe town together, and when he had money no one would dare to tease him.He had a remarkable gift of ingratiation with anyone who could be ofservice to him. My uncle, who was the head of the family, was fond ofhim; he saw the possibilities of success in this smart youngster in a NewEngland village. It was the Ewold money that gave John Wingfield hisstart. With it he bought the store in which he began as a clerk. He losta good part of the Ewold fortune later in one of his enterprises that didnot turn out well. But all this is trifling beside what is to come.
"He went on to his great commercial career. I, poor fool, was an egoist,too. I tried to paint. I had taste, but no talent. In outbursts ofdespair my critical discrimination consigned my own work to the rubbishheap. I tried to write books, only to find that all I had was a headstuffed with learning, mixed with the philosophy that is death to theconcentrated application that means positive accomplishment. But I couldnot create. I was by nature only a drinker at the fountain; only astudent, the pitiful student who could read his Caesar at eight, learn alanguage without half trying, but with no ability to make my knowledge ofservice; with no masterful purpose of my own--a failure!"
"No one is a failure who spreads kindliness and culture as he goesthrough life," Jack interrupted, earnestly; "who gives of himselfunstintedly as you have; who teaches people to bring a tribute of flowersto a convalescent! Why, to found a town and make the desert bloom--thatis better than to add another book to the weight of library shelves or toget a picture on the line!"
"Thank you, Jack!" said the Doge, with a flash of his happy manner ofold, while there was the play of fleeting sunshine over the hills andvalleys of his features. "I won't call it persiflage. I am too selfish,too greedy of a little cheer to call it persiflage. I like the illusionyou suggest."
He was silent for a while, and when he spoke again it was with the tragicsimplicity of one near his climax.
"Your father and I loved the same girl---your mother. It seemed that inevery sympathy of mind and heart she and I were meant to travel the longhighway together. But your father won her with his gift for ingratiationwith the object of his desire, which amounts to a kind of genius. He wonher with a lie and put me in a position that seemed to prove that thelie was truth. She accepted him in reaction; in an impulse of heart-breakthat followed what she believed to be a revelation of my true characteras something far worse than that of idler. I married the woman whom hehad made the object of his well-managed calumny. My wife knew where myheart was and why I had married her. It is from her that Mary gets herdark hair and the brown of her cheeks which make her appear so at home onthe desert. Soon after Mary's birth she chose to live apart from me--butI will not speak further of her. She is long ago dead. I knew that yourmother had left your father. I saw her a few times in Europe. But shenever gave the reason for the separation. She would talk nothing of thepast, and with the years heavy on our shoulders and the memory of what wehad been to each other hovering close, words came with difficulty andevery one was painful. Her whole life was bound up in you, as mine was inMary. It was you that kept her from being a bitter cynic; you that kepther alive.
"Some of the Ewold money that John Wingfield lost was mine. You see howhe kept on winning; how all the threads of his weaving closed in aroundme. I came to the desert to give Mary life with the fragments of myfortune; and here I hope that, as you say, I have done something worthierthan live the life of a wandering, leisurely student who had lapsed intothe observer for want of the capacity by nature or training to doanything else.
"But sometimes I did long for the centres of civilization; to touchelbows with their activities; to feel the flow of the current ofhumanity in great streets. Not that I wanted to give up Little Rivers,but I wanted to go forth to fill the mind with argosies which I couldenjoy here at my leisure. And Mary was young. The longing that sheconcealed must be far more powerful than mine. I saw the supremeselfishness of shutting her up on the desert, without any glimpse of theouter world. I sensed the call that sent her on her lonely rides to thepass. I feared that your coming had increased her restlessness.
"But I wander! That is my fault, as you know, Sir Chaps. Well, we come tothe end of the weaving; to the finality of John Wingfield's victory.Little Rivers was getting out of hand. I could plan a ranch, but I hadnot a business head. I had neither the gift nor the experience to dealwith lawyers and land-grabbers. I knew that with the increase ofpopulation and development our position was exciting the cupidity ofthose who find quicker profit in annexing what others have built than inbuilding on their own accou
nt. I knew that we ought to have a great dam;that there was water to irrigate ten times the present irrigated area.
"Then came John Prather. I saw in him the judgment, energy, and abilityfor organization of a real man of affairs. He was young, self-made,engaging and convincing of manner. He liked our life and ideals in LittleRivers; he wanted to share our future. In his resemblance to you I sawnothing but a coincidence that I passed over lightly. He knew how tohandle the difficult situation that arose with the reappearance of oldman Lefferts' partners. He would get the water rights legalized beyonddispute and turn them over to the water users' association; he wouldbring in capital for the dam; the value of our property would beenhanced; Little Rivers would become a city in her own right, while I wasgrowing old delectably in the pride of founder. So he pictured it and soI dreamed. I was so sure of the future that I dared the expense of a tripto New York.
"And always to me, when I looked at you and when I thought of you, youwere the son of John Wingfield; you incarnated the inheritance of hisstrength. But when, from the drawing-room, I saw your father, whom I hadnot seen for fifteen years, then--well, the thing came to me in a burningsecond, the while I glimpsed his face before he saw mine. He was smilingas if pleased with himself and his power; he was rubbing the palms of hishands together; and I saw that it was John Prather who was like JohnWingfield in manner, pose, and feature. You were like the fighting man,your ancestor, and your airy confidence was his. And I, witless andunperceiving, had been won by the same methods of ingratiation with whichJohn Wingfield had won the assistance of the Ewold fortune for the firststep of his career; with which he had won Alice Jamison and kept meunaware of his plan while he was lying to her.
"Finally, let us say, in all charity, that your father is what he isbecause of what is born in him and for the same reason that the snowballgathers size as it rolls; and I am what I am for the same reason that thewind scatter the sands of the desert--a man full of books and tangentinconsequence of ideas, without sense; a simpleton who knows a paintingbut does not know men; a garrulous, philosophizing, blind, oldsimpleton, whose pompous incompetency has betrayed a trust! Through me,men and women came here to settle and make a home! Through me theylose--to my shame!"
The Doge buried his face in his hands and drew a deep breath morepitiful than a sob, which, as it went free of the lungs, seemed to leavean empty ruin of what had once been a splendid edifice. He was instriking contrast to Mary, who, throughout the story fondly regardinghim, had remained as straight as a young pine. Now, with her rigiditysuddenly become so pliant that it was a fluid thing mixed ofindignation, fearlessness, and compelling sympathy, she sprang to hisside. She knew the touchstone to her father's emotion. He did not wanthis cheek patted in that moment of agony. He wanted a stimulant; somejustification for living.
"There is no shame in believing in those who speak fairly! There ishonor, the honor of faith in mankind!" she cried penetratingly. "There isno shame in being the victim of lies!"
"No! No shame!" the Doge cried, rising unsteadily to his feetunder the whip.
"And we are not afraid for the future!" she continued. "And the other menand women in Little Rivers are not afraid for the future!"
"No, not afraid under this sun, in this air. Afraid!"
An unconquerable flame had come into his eyes in answer to that inMary's.
"The others have asked me to act for them, and I think I may yet save ourrights," said Jack. "Will you also trust me?"
"Will I trust you, Jack? Trust you who gave up your inheritance?"exclaimed the Doge. "I would trust you on a mission to the stars or tolead a regiment; and the wish of the others is mine."
Jack had turned to go, but he looked back at Mary.
"And you, Mary? I have your good wishes?"
He could not resist that question; and though it was clear that nothingcould stay him--as clear as it had been in the _arroyo_ that he wouldkeep his word and face Leddy--he was hanging on her word and he wasseeing her eyes moist, with a bright fire like that of sunshine on stillwater. She was swaying slightly as a young pine might in a wind. Her eyesdarkened as with fear, then her cheeks went crimson with the stir of herblood; and suddenly, her eyes were sparkling in their moisture like waterwhen it ripples under sunshine.
"Yes, Jack," she said quietly, with the tense eagerness of a good causethat sends a man away to the wars.
"That is everything!" he answered.
So it was! Everything that he could ask now, with his story and hers sofresh in mind! He started up the path, but stopped at the turn to lookback and wave his hand to the two figures in a confident gesture.
"Luck with you, Sir Chaps!" called the Doge, with all the far-carryingforce of his oldtime sonorousness.
"Luck! luck!" Mary called, on her part; and her voice had a flute notethat seemed to go singing on its own ether waves through the tendergreen foliage, through all the gardens of Little Rivers, and even awayto the pass.
"Mary! Mary!" he answered, with a ring of cheeriness. "Luck for me willalways come at your command!"
A moment later Galway and the others saw him smiling with a hope that ranas high as his purpose, as he passed through the gateway of the hedge.
"It will all be right!" he told them.
With P.D. keeping his muzzle close to the middle of Jack's back, theparty started toward his house, which took them almost the length of themain street.
"Prather went by the range trail, of course?" Jack asked Galway.
"No, straight out across the desert," said Galway.
"Straight out across the desert!" exclaimed Jack, mystified.
For one had a choice of two routes to Agua Fria, which was well over theborder in Mexico. Not a drop of water was to be had on the way across thetrackless plateau, but halfway on the range trail was a camping-place,Las Cascadas, where a spring which spouted in a tiny cascade welcomed thetraveller. Under irrigation, most of the land for the whole stretchbetween the two towns would be fertile. There was said to be a bigunderground run at Agua Fria that could be pumped at little expense.
"All I can make out of Prather's taking a straight line, which really isslower, as you know, on account of the heavy sand in places, is to lookover the soil," said Galway. "He may be preparing to get a concession inMexico at the same time as on this side, so as to secure control of thewhole valley. It means railroads, factories, new towns, millions--but youand I have talked all this before in our dreams."
"Who was with him?" Jack asked.
"Pedro Nogales. He seems to have taken quite a fancy to Pedro and Pedrois acting as guide. Leddy recommended him, I suppose."
"No one else?"
"No."
"Good!" said Jack.
As they turned into the side street where the front of Jack's bungalowwas visible, Jim Galway observed that they had seen nothing of Leddy orany of his followers.
"Maybe he's gone to join Prather," said Bob Worther.
But Jack paid no attention to the remark. He was preoccupied with thefirst sight of his ranch in over two months.
"It will be all right!" he called out to the crowd in his yard; for theothers who had met him at the station were waiting for him there. "Bob,those umbrella-trees could shade a thin, short man now, even if he didn'thug the trunk! Firio has done well, hasn't he?" he concluded, after hehad walked through the garden and surveyed the fields and orchards infond comparison as to progress.
"The best I ever knew an Indian to do!" said Jim Galway.
"And everything kept right on growing while I was away! That's the joy ofplanting things. They are growing for somebody, if not for you!"
Inside the house he found Firio, with the help of some of the ranchers,taking the pictures out of their cases. Firio surveyed the buccaneerfor some time, squinting his eyes and finally opening them saucer-widein approval.
"You!" he said to Jack. And of the Sargent, after equally deliberateobservation, he said: "A lady!"
That seemed about all there was to say and expressed the thought of theo
nlookers.
"And, Firio, now it's the trail!" said Jack.
"_Si, si_!" said Firio, ever so softly. "We take rifles?"
"Yes. Food for a week and two-days' water."
It pleased Jack to hang the portraits while Firio was putting on JagEar's pack; and he made it a ceremony in which his silence wasuninterrupted by the comments of the ranchers. They stood in wonderingawe before John Wingfield, Knight, hung where he could watch the EternalPainter at his sunset displays and looking at the "Portrait of a Lady"across the breadth of the living-room, whose neutral tones made a perfectsetting for their dominant genius.
"I believe they are at home," said Jack, with a fond look from one to theother, when Firio came to say that everything was ready.
"Senor Jack," whispered Firio insinuatingly, "for the trail you wear thegrand, glad trail clothes and the big spurs. I keep them shiny--the bigspurs!" He was speaking with the authority of an expert in trailfashions, who would consider Jack in very bad form if he refused.
"Why, yes, Firio, yes; it is so long since we have been on the trail!"And he went into the bedroom to make the change.
"I've never seen him quite so dumb quiet!" said Worther.
Jack certainly had been quiet, ominously quiet and self-contained. Whenhe came out of the bedroom he was without the jaunty freedom of mannerthat Little Rivers always associated with his full regalia. In place ofthe dreamy distances in his eyes on such occasions were a sadpreoccupation and determination. When they went outside to Firio and thewaiting ponies, the Eternal Painter was in his evening orgy of splendor.But even Jack did not look up at the sky this time as he walked along insilence with his fellow-citizens to the point where the farthest furrowof his ranch had been drawn across the virgin desert. His foot wasalready in the stirrup when Jim Galway spoke the thought of all:
"Jack, there's only two of you, and if it happened that you metLeddy--"
"It is Prather that I want to see," Jack answered.
"But Leddy's whole gang! We don't know what your plans are, but ifthere's going to be a mix-up, why, we've got to be with you!"
"No!" said Jack, decidedly. "Remember, Jim, you were to trust me. This isa mission that requires only two; it is between Prather and me. We aregoing to get acquainted for the first time."
Already Firio, riding Wrath of God, had started, and the bells of Jag Earwere jingling, while the rifles, their bores so clean from Firio's care,danced with the gleams of sunset in their movement with the burro'sjogging trot. Jack sprang into the saddle, his face lighting as the footcame home in the stirrup.
"It will be all right!" he called back.
P.D. in the freshness of his long holiday, feeling a familiar pressure ofa leg, hastened to overtake his companions; and the group of LittleRiversites watched a chubby horseman and a tall, gaunt horseman, bathedin gold, riding away on a hazy sea of gold, with Jag Ear's bells growingfainter and fainter, until the moving specks were lost in the darkness.