ght with you--everything! Jack had seen to that! He used his
head! He--he was strong, strong!"

Quite unconsciously, John Wingfield, Sr. rubbed his palms together.

"When you pleased you always rub your hands same as Mister Prather,"
observed Firio.

"Oh! Do I? I--" John Wingfield, Sr. clasped his fingers together
tightly. "Yes, and the finish of the fight--how was that?"

"Sometimes, when there no firing, Senor Jack and Leddy call out to each
other. Leddy he swear hard, like he fight. Senor Jack he sing back his
answers cheerful, like he fight. Toward morning we both wounded and
only Leddy and one other man alive on his side. When a cloud slip over
the moon and the big darkness before morning come, we creep down from
the ridge and with first light we bang-bang quick--and I no remember
any more."

"Forced the fighting--forced it right at the end!" cried John Wingfield,
Sr. in the flush of a great pride.

"The aggressive, that is it--that is the way to win, always!"

"But Senor Jack no fight just to win!" said Firio. "He no want to fight.
In the big darkness, before we crawl down to the water-hole, he call out
to Leddy to make quits. He almost beg Leddy. But Leddy, he say: 'I never
quit and I get you!' 'Sorry,' says Senor Jack, with the devil out again,
'sorry--and we'll see!' No, Senor Jack no like to fight till you make him
fight and the devil is out. He fight for water; he fight for peace. He no
want just to win and kill, but--but--" bringing his story to an end,
Firio looked hard at the father, his velvety eyes shot with a
comprehending gleam as he shrugged his shoulders--"but you no understand,
you and the mole!"

John Wingfield, Sr. shifted his gaze hurriedly from the little Indian.
His face went ashen and it was working convulsively as he assisted
himself to rise by gripping the veranda post.

"Why do you think that?" he asked.

"I know!" said Firio.

His lips closed firmly. That was all he had to say. John Wingfield, Sr.
turned away with the unsteady step of a man who is afraid of slipping or
stumbling, though the path was hard and even.

Out in the street he met the cold nods of the people of a town where his
son had a dominion founded on something that was lacking in his own. And
one of those who nodded to him ever so politely was a new citizen, who
had once been a unit of his own city within a city.

Peter Mortimer had arrived in Little Rivers only two days after his late
employer. Peter had be