“We want you and though we don’t suppose you can come, we simply had to let you know.

“JAMES R. GALWAY.”

“It is Greek to me,” said the father.  “From your Little Rivers friends, I judge.”

“Yes.  I suppose that we may as well begin with it, as it drove everything else out of my mind for the moment.”

John Wingfield, Sr. swung around in his chair, with his face in the shadow.  His attitude was that of a companionable listener who is prepared for any kind of news.

“As you will, Jack,” he said.  “Everything that pertains to you is my interest.  Go ahead in your own way.”

“It concerns John Prather.  I don’t know that I have ever told you about him in my talks of Little Rivers.”

“John Prather?” The father reflectively sounded the name, the while he studied the spiral of smoke rising from his cigar.  “No, I don’t think you have mentioned him.”

It was Jack’s purpose to take his father entirely into his confidence; to reveal his own mind so that there should be nothing of its perplexities which his father did not understand.  He might not choose a logical sequence of thought or event, but in the end nothing should be left untold.  Indeed, he had not studied how to begin his inquiries.  That he had left to take care of itself.  His chief solicitude was to keep his mind open and free of bitterness whatever transpired, and it was evident that he was under a great strain.

He told of the coming of John Prather to Little Rivers while he was absent; of the mention of the likeness by his fellow-ranchers; and of the fears entertained by Jim Galway and Mary.  When he came to the scene in the store that afternoon it was given in a transparent fulness of detail; while all his changing emotions, from his first glimpse of Prather’s profile to the effort to speak with him and the ultimatum of Prather’s satirical gesture, were reflected in his features.  He was the story-teller, putting his gift to an unpleasant task in illumination of sober fact and not the uses of imagination; and his audience was his father’s cheek and ear in the shadow.

“Extraordinary!” John Wingfield, Sr. exclaimed when Jack had finished, glancing around with a shrug.  “Naturally, you were irritated.  I like to think that only two men have the Wingfield features—­the features of the ancestor—­yes, only two:  you and I!”

“It was more than irritation; it was something profound and disturbing, almost revolting!” Jack exclaimed, under the disagreeable spell of his vivid recollection of the incident.  “The resemblance to you was so striking, father, especially in the profile!” Jack was leaning forward, the better to see his father’s profile, dim in the half light.  “Yes, recognizable instantly—­the nose and the lines about the mouth!  You have never met anyone who has seen this man?  You have never heard of him?” he asked, almost morbidly.

John Wingfield, Sr. broke into a laugh, which was deprecatory and metallic.  He looked fairly into Jack’s eyes with a kind of inquiring amazement at the boy’s overwrought intensity.