Prather made a gesture of understanding
amusement to the mole.

"When you consider what confusion there must be in the workrooms, with
the storks flapping and screeching like newsboys outside the delivery
room," mused the Doge, "and when you consider the multitudinous
population of the earth, it's surprising that the good Lord is able to
furnish such a variety of faces as he does. But they do say that every
one of us has a few doubles. In the case of famous public men they get
their pictures in the papers."

"Yes, very few of us but have been mistaken for a friend by a stranger
passing in the street!" Prather suggested.

"Only to have the stranger see his mistake at a second glance; and on
second glance you do not look very much like Jack Wingfield," the Doge
concluded. "Just a coincidence in physiognomy!"

And Prather was very frank about his past.

"I have led rather a hard life," he said. "Though I was well brought up
my father left mother and me quite penniless. I had to fend for myself at
the age of sixteen. A friend gave me an opportunity to go to Goldfield at
the outbreak of the excitement there. The rough experience of a
mining-camp was not exactly to my taste, but it meant a livelihood. My
real interest has always been in irrigation farming. I would rather grow
a good crop than mine for gold. Well, I saved a little money at
Goldfield--saved it to buy land. But land is not the only consideration.
The surroundings, the people with whom you have to live count for a great
deal when you mean to settle permanently."

"Excellent!" declared the Doge. "A good citizen in full fellowship with
your neighbors! Exactly what we want in Little Rivers."

Prather had a complexion of that velvety whiteness that never tans.
His eyes were calm, yet attractive, with a peculiar insinuating charm
when he talked that made it seem easy and natural to respond to his
wishes. In listening he had an ingratiating manner that was
flattering to the speaker.

"A practical man!" the Doge said to Mary that evening. "The kind we need
here. He and I had a grand afternoon of it together. Every one of his
questions about soils and cultivation was to the point."

"Not one argument?" she asked.

"No, Mary; no time for argument."

"You do like people to agree with you, after all!" she hazarded. For she
did not like Prather.

"Pooh! Not a matter of agreement! No persiflage! No altitudinous
conversation of the kind that grows no crops. Pra