Perhaps we may best describe this as a chapter of Incidents; or, to use a simile, a broad, eddying bend in a river on a plateau, with cataracts and canyons awaiting it on its route to the sea. Or, discarding the simile and speaking in literal terms, in a search for a theme on which to hang the incidents, we revert to Mary's raillery at the announcement of an easy traveller that he was going to turn sober rancher.

"You plowing! You blistering your hands! You earning your bread by the sweat of your brow!"

But there he was in blue overalls, sinking his spade deep for settings, digging ditches and driving furrows through the virgin soil, while the masons and carpenters built his ranch house.

"They are straight furrows, too!" Jack declared.

"Passably so!" answered Mary.

"And look at the blisters!" he continued, exhibiting his puffy palms.

"You seem to think blisters a remarkable human phenomenon, a sensational novelty to a laboring population!"

"Now, would you advise pricking?" he asked, with deference to her judgment.

"It is so critical in your case that you ought to consult a doctor rather than take lay advice."

"Jim Galway says that the thorough way, I mulched my soil before putting in my first crop of alfalfa is a model for all future settlers," he ventured.

She remarked that Jim was always encouraging to new-comers, and remarked this in a way that implied that some new-comers possibly needed hazing.

"And I am up at dawn and hard at it for six hours before midday."

"Yes, it is wonderful!" she admitted, with a mock show of being overwhelmingly impressed. "Nobody in the world ever worked ten hours a day before!"

"I'm doing more than any man that I pay two-fifty. I do perspire, and if you don't call that earning your bread with the sweat of your brow, why this is an astoundingly illogical world!"

"There is a great difference between sporadic display and that continuity which is the final proof of efficiency," she corrected him.

"Long, involved sentences often indicate the loss of an argument!" declared Jack.

"There isn't any argument!" said Mary with superior disinterestedness.

By common inspiration they had established a truce of nonsense. She still called him Jack; he still called her Mary. It was the only point of tacit admission that they had ever met before he asked her to show a prospective settler a parcel of land.

Their new relations were as the house of cards of fellowship: cards of glass, iridescent and brittle, mocking the idea that there could be oblivion of the scene in Lang's store, the crack of Leddy's pistol in the arroyo, or the pulse of Jack's artery under her thumb! She was sure that he could forget these experiences, even if she could not. That was his character, as she saw it, free of clinging roots of yesterday's events, living some new part every day.

In the house of cards she set up a barrier, which he saw as a veil over her eyes. Not once had he a glimpse of their depths. There was only the surface gleam of sunbeams and sometimes of rapier-points, merry but significant. She frequently rode out to the pass and occasionally, when his day's work was done, he would ride to the foot of the range to meet her, and as they came back he often sang, but never whistled. Indeed, he had ceased to whistle altogether. Perhaps he regarded the omission as an insurance against duels.

Aside from nonsense they had common interests in cultural and daily life, from the Eternal Painter's brushwork to how to dress a salad. She did extend her approval for the generous space which he was allowing for flower-beds, and advised him in the practical construction of his kitchen; while the Doge decorated the living-room with Delia Robbias, which, however, never arrived at the express office. He was a neighbor always at home in the Ewold house. The Doge revelled in their disputations, yet never was really intimate or affectionate as he was with Jim Galway, who knew not the Pitti, the Prado, nor the Louvre, and could not understand the intoning of Dante in the original as Jack could, thanks to his having been brought up in libraries and galleries.

The town, which was not supposed to ask about pasts, could not help puzzling about his. What was the story of this teller of stories? The secluded little community was in a poor way to find out, even if the conscientious feeling about a custom had not been a restraint that kept wonder free from inquiring hints. They took him for what he was in all their personal relations; that was the delightful way of Little Rivers, which inner curiosity might not alloy. His broader experience of that world over the pass which stretched around the globe and back to the other range-wall of the valley, seemed only to make him fall more easily into the simple ways of the fellow-ranchers of the Doge's selection, who were genuine, hall-marked people, whatever the origin from which the individual sprang. He knew the fatigue of productive labor as something far sweeter than the fatigue that comes from mere exercise, and the neophyte's enthusiasm was his.

"I'm sitting at the outer edge of the circle," he told Jim Galway. "But when my first crop is harvested I shall be on the inside—a real rancher!"

"You've already got one foot over the circle," said Jim.

"And with my first crop of dates I'll be in the holy of holies of pastoral bliss!"

"Yes, I should say so!" Jim responded, but in a way that indicated surprise at the thought of Jack's remaining in Little Rivers long enough for such a consummation.

When his alfalfa covered the earth with a green carpet Jack was under a spell of something more than the never-ending marvel of dry seeds springing into succulent abundance without the waving of any magic wand.

"I made it out of the desert!" he cried. "It laughs in triumph at the bare stretches around it, waiting on water!"

"That is it," said Jim; "waiting on water!"

"The promise of what might come!"

"It will come! Some day, Jack, you and I will ride up into the river canyon and I will show you a place where you can see the blue sky between precipitous walls two hundred feet high. The abyss is so narrow you can throw a stone across it."

"What lies beyond?" asked Jack, his eyes lighting vividly.

"A great basin which was the bed of an ancient lake before the water wore its way through."

"A dam between those walls—and you have another lake!"

"Yes, and the spring freshets from the northern water-shed all held in a reservoir—none going to waste! And, Jack, as population spreads the dam must come."

"Why, the Doge has a kingdom!"

"Yes, that's the best of it, the rights being in his hands. He shares up with everybody and we get it when he dies. That's why we are ready to accept the Doge's sentiments as kind of gospel. If ornamental hedges waste water and bring bugs and are contrary to practical ranching ideas, why—well, why not? It's our Little Rivers to enjoy as we please. We aren't growing so fast, but we're growing in a clean, beautiful way, as Jasper Ewold says. What if that river was owned by one man! What if we had to pay the price he set for what takes the place of rain, as they do in some places in California? We're going to say who shall build that dam!"

"Think of it! Think of it!" Jack half whispered, his imagination in play. "Plot after plot being added to this little oasis until it extends from range to range, one sea of green! Many little towns, with Little Rivers the mother town, spreading its ideas! Yes, think of being in at the making of a new world, seeing visions develop into reality as, stone by stone, an edifice rises! I—I—" Jack paused, a cloud sweeping over his features, his eyes seeming to stare at a wall. His body alone seemed in Little Rivers, his mind on the other side of the pass. He was in one of those moods of abstraction that ever made his fellow-ranchers feel that he would not be with them permanently.

Indeed, he had whole days when his smile had a sad turn; when, though he spoke pleasantly, the inspiration of talk was not in him and when Belvy Smith could not rouse any action in the cat with two black stripes down its back. But many Little Riversites, including the Doge, had their sad days, when they looked away at the pass oftener than usual, as if seeing a life-story framed in the V. His came usually, as Mrs. Smith observed, when he had a letter from the East. And it was then that he would pretend to cough to Firio. These mock coughing spells were one of the few manifestations that made the impassive Firio laugh.

"Now you know I am not well, don't you, Firio?" he would ask, waggishly, the very thought seeming to take him out of the doldrums. "I could never live out of this climate. Why, even now I have a cough, kuh-er!"

Firio had turned a stove cook. He accepted the humiliation in a spirit of loyalty. But often he would go out among the sagebrush and return with a feathery tribute, which he would broil on a spit in a fire made in the yard. Always when Jack rode out to meet Mary at the foot of the range, Firio would follow; and always he had his rifle. For it was part of Jack's seeming inconsistency, emphasizing his inscrutability, that he would never wear his revolver. It hung beside Pete's on the wall of the living-room as a second relic. Far from being a quarrel-maker, he was peaceful to the point of Quakerish predilection.

"Nobody ever hears anything of Leddy," said Jim; "but he will never forget or forgive, and one day he will show up unexpectedly."

"Not armed!" said Jack.

"Do you think he will keep his word?"

"I know he will. I asked him and he said he would."

"You're very simple, Jack. But mind, he can keep his word and still use a gun outside the town!"

"So he might!" admitted Jack, laughing in a way that indicated that the subject was distasteful to him; for he would never talk of the duel.

Now we come to that little affair of Pedro Nogales. Pedro was a half-breed, whose God among men was Pete Leddy no less than Jack was Firio's and the Doge was Ignacio's. In his shanty back of Bill Lang's the Mexicans and Indians lost their remaining wages in gambling after he had filled them with mescal. It happened that Gonzalez, head man of the laborers under Bob Worther, who had saved quite a sum, came away penniless after taking but one drink. Every ounce of Bob's avoirdupois was in a rage.

"It's time we cleaned out Pedro's place, seh!" he told Jack; "and you and
Jim Galway have got to help me do it!"

"I don't like to get into a row," said Jack very soberly.

"Then I'll undertake the job alone," Bob retorted. "That will be a good deal worse, for when I get going I lose my temper and I tell you, seh, I've got a lot to lose! And, Jack, are you going to stand by and see robbery done by the meanest, most worthless greaser in the valley—and a good Indian the victim?"

"Yes, Jack," said Jim, "you've got such a formidable reputation since your set-to with Leddy that the Indians think you are a regular master of magic. You're just the one to make Pedro come to terms."

"A formidable reputation without firing a shot!" admitted Jack quizzically, and consented.

"You'll surely want your gun this time!" Bob warned him.

"No," said Jack.

"But—"

"I have hung up my gun!" Jack said decisively. "We'll try to handle this peacefully. Come on!"

"Well, we've got our guns, anyway!" Jim put in.

It was mid-afternoon, a slack hour for Pedro's kind of trade, and the shanty was empty of customers when the impromptu vigilance committee entered. Pedro himself was half dozing in the faro dealer's chair. His small, ferret eyes flashed a spark at the visitors as he rose, but he was politeness itself.

"SeÑores! It is great honor! Be seated, seÑores!" he said with eloquent deference.

The very sight of him set all the ounces in Bob quivering in an outburst:

"No chairs for us! You fork over Gonzalez's money that you tricked out of him!"

"I take Gonzalez's money! I? SeÑores?"

"It's a hundred and twenty dollars that he earned honestly, and the quicker you lay your hands on it the better for you!" Bob roared back.

Pedro was quite impassive.

"SeÑores, if Gonzalez need money—seÑores, I honest man! SeÑores, sit down! We talk!" Pedro dropped back into his chair and his hand, with cat-like quickness, shot under the faro table.

Jack had come through the door after Jim and Bob. He was standing a little behind them, and while they had been watching Pedro's face he had watched Pedro's movements.

"Pedro, take your hand out from under the table and without your gun!" said Jack; and Jim Galway caught a thrill in Jack's voice that he had heard in the arroyo.

Pedro looked into SeÑor Don't Care's eyes and saw a bead, though they were not looking along the glint of a revolver barrel.

"SÍ, seÑor!" said Pedro, settling back in the chair with palms out in intimation of his pacific intentions.

"Now, Pedro, you have Gonzalez's money, haven't you?" Jack went on, in the reasoning fashion that he had adopted to Leddy in the store. "And you aren't going to make yourself or Bob trouble. You are going to give it back!"

"SÍ, seÑor!" said Pedro wincing.

While he was producing the money and counting it, his furtive glance kept watch of Jack. Then, as the committee turned to go, he suddenly exclaimed with angry surprise and disillusion:

"You got no gun!"

While Jim and Bob waited for Jack to precede them out of the door Jim had time to note Pedro's baleful, piercing look at Jack's back.

"Just as I told you, Jack—and I reckon you saved a big row. You just put a scare into that hellion with a word, like you had a thousand devils in you!" said Jim.

"It's all over!" Jack answered, looking more hurt than pleased over the congratulations. "Very fortunately over."

"But," Jim observed, tensely, "Pedro is not only Leddy's bitter partisan and ready to do his bidding, Pedro's a bit loco, besides—the kind that hesitates at nothing when he gets a grudge. You've got to look out for him."

"Oh, no!" said Jack, in the full swing of a SeÑor Don't Care mood.

Jim and Bob began to entertain the feelings of Mary on the pass, when she thought of Jack as walking over precipices regardless of danger signs. After all, did he really know how to shoot? If he would not look after himself, it was their duty to look after him. Jim suggested that the rule which Jack had made for Leddy should have universal application. No one whosoever should wear arms in Little Rivers without a permit. The new ordinance had the Doge's approval; and Jim and Bob, both of whom had permits, kept watch that it was enforced, particularly in the case of Pedro Nogales.

Meanwhile, Jack kept the ten-hour-a-day law. His alfalfa was growing with prolific rapidity, but Firio had the air of one who waits between journeys.

"Never the trail again?" he asked temptingly, one day.

"Never the trail again!" Jack declared firmly.

"SÍ, sÍ, sÍ—the trail again!"

"You think so? Then why do you ask?"

"To make a question," answered Firio. "The big sadness will be too strong. It will make you move—sÍ!"

"The big sadness!" Jack exclaimed. He seized Firio by the shoulders and looked narrowly at him, and Firio met the gaze with soft, puzzling lights in his eyes. "Ho! ho! A big sadness! How do you know?" he laughed.

"I learn on the trail when I watch you look at the stars. And SeÑorita Ewold, she know; but she think the big sadness a devil. She—" and he paused.

"She—yes?" Jack asked.

"She—" Firio started again.

Jack suddenly raised his hands from Firio's shoulders in a gesture of interruption. It was not exactly Firio's place to hazard opinions about Mary Ewold.

"Never mind!" he said, rather sharply.

But Firio proceeded fixedly to finish what he had to say.

"She has a big sadness, which makes her ride to the pass. She rides out so she can ride back smiling."

"Firio, don't mistake your imagination for divination!" Jack warned him.

As Firio did not understand the meaning of this he said nothing. Probably he would have said nothing even if he had understood.

"I'll show you the nature of the big sadness and that the devil is a joy devil when we harvest our first crop of alfalfa," Jack concluded. "Then I shall make a holiday! Then I shall be a real rancher and something is going to happen!"

"The trail!" exclaimed Firio, and the soft light in his eyes flashed. "SÍ! The trail and the big spurs and the revolver in the holster!"

"No!"

But Firio said "SÍ"! with the supreme confidence of one who holds that belief in fulfilment will make any wish come true.