“And you have no plans?” Jack asked.

“None.”

“And the Doge?”

“None.  What can the old man do?  Though nobody exactly blames him, a good many aren’t of a mind to consult him at all.  The crisis has passed beyond him.  Three or four men, good men, too, were inclined to have it out with John Prather; but that would have precipitated a general fight with Leddy’s gang.  The conservatives got the hot-heads to wait till you came.  You see, the trouble with every suggestion is that pretty much everybody is against it except the fellow who made it.  The more we have talked, the more we have drifted back to you.  It’s a case of all we’ve got in the world and standing together, and we are ready to get behind you and take orders, Jack.”

“Yes, ready to fight at the drop of the hat, seh, or to sit still on our doorsteps with our tongues in our cheeks and doing the wives’ mending, as you say!” declared Bob Worther.  “It’s right up to you!”

“You are all of the same opinion?” asked Jack.

They were, with one voice, which was not vociferous.  For theirs was that significantly quiet mood of an American crowd when easy-going good nature turns to steel.  Their partisanship in pioneerdom had not been with six-shooters, but with the ethics of the Doge; and such men when aroused do not precede action with threats.

“All right!” said Jack.

There was a rustle and an exchange of satisfied glances and a chorus of approval like an indrawing of breath.

“First, I will see the Doge,” Jack added; “and then I shall go to the house.”

Galway, Dr. Patterson, Worther, and three or four others went on with him toward the Ewold bungalow.  They were halted on the way by Pete Leddy, Ropey Smith, and a dozen followers, who appeared from a side street and stopped across Jack’s path, every one of them with a certain slouching aggressiveness and staring hard at him.  Pete and Ropey still kept faith with their pledge to Jack in the arroyo.  They were without guns, but their companions were armed in defiance of the local ordinance which had been established for Jack’s protection.

“Howdy do, Leddy?” said Jack, as amiably as if there had never been anything but the pleasantest of relations between them.

“Getting polite, eh!  Where’s your pretty whistle?” Leddy answered.

“I put it in storage in New York,” Jack said laughing; then, with a sudden change to seriousness:  “Leddy, is it true that you and John Prather have got the water rights to this town?”

“None of your d——­d business!” Leddy rapped out.  “The only business I’ve got with you has been waiting for some time, and you can have it your way out in the arroyo where we had it before, right now!”

“As I said, Pete, I put the whistle in storage and I have already apologized for the way I used it,” returned Jack.  “I can’t accommodate you in the arroyo again.  I have other things to attend to.”