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When Jack looked away at the water-hole Prather's fingers slipped to his own six-shooter and rested there, twitching nervously; and in the rear Firio was watching both him and Nogales shrewdly. From any outward sign now, Jack might have been starting on another journey with quiet eagerness; a journey that might end at a precipice a few yards ahead or at the other side of the world.
When he fat he eat less on trail!" explained Firio, becoming almost voluble. "All ready for trail!" he hinted. "Not now, Firio," said Jack. "And, Firio, there's a package at the station, a big, flat case. It came by express on the same train with me the most precious package in the world. See that it is taken to the house." "Sí! You ride?" asked Firio, offering P.D.'s reins. "No, we'll all walk."
She says being busy doesn't matter to you. She says the stories just pop out. So I transmit her request. "P.D. waiting!" breathed Jack. "No changing Firio! He is like the pass. I wonder how Wrath of God and Jag Ear are!" He wrote a story for Belvy.
John Wingfield, Sr. half rose in a sudden movement, as if he were about to go, but remained in response to another emotion that was stronger than the impulse. "And Jack? He kept his head! He figured out his chances coolly! Now, that trick he played by going up on the ridge under cover of darkness?" "No trick!" said Firio resentfully, in instinctive defence. "That the place to fight!
"You mean the Indian and the burro with the silver bells that came over the pass some time before you?" Of course they belonged to him, she was thinking, even as she made the inquiry. This play cowboy, with his absurdly enormous silver spurs, would naturally put bells on his burro. "Yes, I sent Firio with Wrath of God and Jag Ear on ahead and told him to wait at the foot of the descent.
If not, put your hat up there beside mine. You can do that without exposing yourself." Jack's tone was that of one who urges a tired man to take a few more steps, or an invalid without any appetite to try another sup of broth. It had no hint of irony. "No matter," said Firio. "Leddy know he can't fight. Leddy know there is only two of us!"
But he found a more responsive correspondent in Jim Galway; and this was the letter he received: "DEAR JACK: "The whole valley is not yet sprouting with dates as you said it would from your thinking of us. Maybe we didn't use the right seed. Your ranch is still called Jack's ranch, and Firio is doing his best and about the best I ever knew in an Indian.
Already Firio, riding Wrath of God, had started, and the bells of Jag Ear were jingling, while the rifles, their bores so clean from Firio's care, danced with the gleams of sunset in their movement with the burro's jogging trot. Jack sprang into the saddle, his face lighting as the foot came home in the stirrup. "It will be all right!" he called back.
A neigh by P.D., a break into a trot by him and Wrath of God, and Firio was saying to Nogales: "You went right through the sand!" "Sí!" answered Pedro, with a grin. Still Prather did not so much as turn his head to get a glimpse of Jack, nor did he offer any sign of knowledge of Jack's presence when Jack reined alongside him so close that their stirrup leathers were brushing.
Jack had stroked Pedro's head while the bone was being set. He had arranged for Pedro's care. And now he was in his own yard with Jag Ear and the ponies, rubbing their muzzles alternately in silent impartiality, his head bowed reflectively as Firio came around the corner of the house.
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