perity brings us something besides the bees. It
brings those who would share the honey without work," said he. "It brings
the Bill Lang hive and Pete Leddy."

At the mention of the name, Jack's and Mary's glances met.

"You have promised not to tell," hers was saying.

"I will not," his was answering.

But clearly he had grasped the fact that Little Rivers was getting out of
its patron's hands, and every honest man in that community wanted to be
rid of Pete Leddy.

"I should think your old friend, Cosmo de' Medici, would have found a
way," Jack suggested.

"Cosmo is for talk," said Mary. "At heart father is a Quaker."

"Some are for lynching," said Jasper Ewold, thoughtfully. "Begin to
promote order with disorder and where will you end?" he inquired,
belligerently. "This is not the Middle Ages. This is the Little Rivers
of peace."

Then, after a quotation from Cardinal Newman, which seemed pretty
far-fetched to deal with desert ruffians, he was away again, setting out
fruit trees and fighting the scale.

"And our Date Tree Wonderful!" he continued. "This year we get our first
fruit, unless the book is wrong. You cannot realize what this first-born
of promise means to Little Rivers. Under the magic of water it completes
the cycle of desert fecundity, from Scotch oats and Irish potatoes to the
Arab's bread. Bananas I do not include. Never where the banana grows has
there been art or literature, a good priesthood, unimpassioned
law-makers, honest bankers, or a noble knighthood. It is just a little
too warm. Here we can build a civilization which neither roasts us in
summer nor freezes us in winter."

There was a fluid magnetism in the rush of Jasper Ewold's junketing
verbiage which carried the listener on the bosom of a pleasant stream.
Jack was suddenly reminded that it must be very late and he had far
overstayed the retiring hour of the desert, where the Eternal Painter
commands early rising.

"Going--going so soon!" protested Jasper Ewold.

"So late!" Jack smiled back.

To prove that it was, he called attention to the fact, when they passed
through the living-room to the veranda, that not a light remained in any
ranch-house.

"I have not started my talk yet," said Jasper. "But next time you come I
will really make a beginning--and you shall see the Date Tree Wonderful."

"I go by the morning train," Jack returned.

"So! so!" mused Jasper. "So! so!" he objected, but not gloomily. "I get a
good listen