Watchfully, respecting the son’s silence, the father’s lips tightened, his chin went out slightly and his brows drew together in a way that indicated that he did not consider the battle over.  At length, Jack’s head came up and his face had the strength of a youthful replica of the ancestor’s, radiant in gratitude, and in his eyes for the first time, in looking into his father’s, were trust and affection.  There was no word, no other demonstration except the steady, liquid look that spoke the birth of a great, understanding comradeship.  The father fed his hunger for possession, which had been irresistibly growing in him for the last two months, on that look.  He saw his son’s strength as something that had at last become malleable; and this was the moment when the metal was at white heat, ready for knowing turns with the pincers and knowing blows of the hammer.

The message from Jim Galway was still on the table where the father had laid it after reading.  Now he pressed his fingers on it so hard that the nails became a row of red spots.

“And the telegram, Jack?” he asked.

Jack stared at the yellow slip of paper as the symbol of problems that reappeared with burning acuteness in his mind.  It smiled at him in the satire of John Prather triumphing in Little Rivers.  It visualized pictures of lean ranchers who had brought him flowers in the days of his convalescence; of children gathered around him on the steps of his bungalow; of all the friendly faces brimming good-will into his own on the day of his departure; of a patch of green in desert loneliness, with a summons to arms to defend its arteries of life.

“They want me to help—­I half promised!” he said.

“Yes.  And just how can you help?” asked his father, gently.

“Why, that is not quite clear yet.  But a stranger, they made me one of themselves.  They say that they need me.  And, father, that thrilled me.  It thrilled the idler to find that there was some place where he could be of service; that there was some one definite thing that others thought he could do well!”

The father proceeded cautiously, reasonably, with his questions, as one who seeks for light for its own sake.  Jack’s answers were luminously frank.  For there was always to be truth between them in their new fellowship, unfettered by hopes or vagaries.

“You could help with your knowledge of law?  With political influence?  Help these men seasoned by experience in land disputes in that region?”

“No!”

“And would Jasper Ewold, whom I understand is the head and founder of the community, want you to come?  Has he asked you?” the father continued, drawing in the web of logic.

“On the contrary, he would not want me.”

“And Miss Ewold?  Would she want you?”

There Jack hesitated.  When he spoke, however, it was to admit the fact that was stabbing him.

“No, she would not.  She has dismissed me.  But—­but I half promised,” he added, his features setting firmly as they had after Leddy had fired at him.  “It seems like duty, unavoidable.”