oge returned with a lame attempt at a laugh.

"Mebbe it is, whatever hyperbole is," said Jim; "but if so, hyperbole is
a darned poor means of self-defence. Yes, the trouble is you are against
Jack Wingfield!"

"Yes, I am!" said the Doge suddenly, as if inward anger had got the
better of him.

"And the rest of us are for him!" Jim declared sturdily.

"Naturally! naturally!" said the Doge, passing his hand over his brow.
"Yes, youth and color and bravery!" He shook his head moodily, as if
Jim's statement brought up some vital, unpleasant, but inevitable fact
to his mind.

"It's beyond me how anybody can help liking him!" concluded Galway
stubbornly.

"I like him--yes, I do like him! I cannot help it!" the Doge admitted
rather grudgingly as he turned away.

"So we weren't so far apart, after all!" Galway hastened to call after
the Doge in apology for his testiness. "We like him for what he has been
to us and will always be to us. That's the only criterion of character in
Little Rivers according to your own code, isn't it, Jasper Ewold?"

"Exactly!" answered the Doge over his shoulder.

The community entered into a committee of the whole on Jack Wingfield.
With every citizen contributing a quota of personal experience, his story
was rehearsed from the day of his arrival to the day of his departure.
Argument fluctuated on the question of whether or not he would ever
return, with now the noes and now the ayes having it. On this point Jim
had the only first-hand evidence.

"He said to let things grow until he showed up or I heard from
him," said Jim.

"Not what I would call enlightening," said Bob Worther.

"That was his way of expressing it; but to do him justice, he showed what
a good rancher he was by his attention to the details that had to be
cared for," Jim added.

"He's like the spirit of the winds, I guess," put in Mrs. Galway.
"Something comes a-calling him or a-driving him, I don't know which.
Indeed, I'm not altogether certain that it isn't a case of Mary Ewold
this time!"

"Yes," agreed Jim. "The fighting look went out of his face when she
spoke, and when he saw how horrified she was, why, I never saw such a
change come over a man! It was just like a piece of steel wilting."

However, the children, who had no part in the august discussions of the
committee of the whole, were certain that their story-teller would come
back. Their ideas about Jack were based on a simple, self-convincing
faith of t