A moment later Galway and the others saw him smiling with a hope that ran as high as his purpose, as he passed through the gateway of the hedge.

“It will all be right!” he told them.

With P.D. keeping his muzzle close to the middle of Jack’s back, the party started toward his house, which took them almost the length of the main street.

“Prather went by the range trail, of course?” Jack asked Galway.

“No, straight out across the desert,” said Galway.

“Straight out across the desert!” exclaimed Jack, mystified.

For one had a choice of two routes to Agua Fria, which was well over the border in Mexico.  Not a drop of water was to be had on the way across the trackless plateau, but halfway on the range trail was a camping-place, Las Cascadas, where a spring which spouted in a tiny cascade welcomed the traveller.  Under irrigation, most of the land for the whole stretch between the two towns would be fertile.  There was said to be a big underground run at Agua Fria that could be pumped at little expense.

“All I can make out of Prather’s taking a straight line, which really is slower, as you know, on account of the heavy sand in places, is to look over the soil,” said Galway.  “He may be preparing to get a concession in Mexico at the same time as on this side, so as to secure control of the whole valley.  It means railroads, factories, new towns, millions—­but you and I have talked all this before in our dreams.”

“Who was with him?” Jack asked.

“Pedro Nogales.  He seems to have taken quite a fancy to Pedro and Pedro is acting as guide.  Leddy recommended him, I suppose.”

“No one else?”

“No.”

“Good!” said Jack.

As they turned into the side street where the front of Jack’s bungalow was visible, Jim Galway observed that they had seen nothing of Leddy or any of his followers.

“Maybe he’s gone to join Prather,” said Bob Worther.

But Jack paid no attention to the remark.  He was preoccupied with the first sight of his ranch in over two months.

“It will be all right!” he called out to the crowd in his yard; for the others who had met him at the station were waiting for him there.  “Bob, those umbrella-trees could shade a thin, short man now, even if he didn’t hug the trunk!  Firio has done well, hasn’t he?” he concluded, after he had walked through the garden and surveyed the fields and orchards in fond comparison as to progress.

“The best I ever knew an Indian to do!” said Jim Galway.

“And everything kept right on growing while I was away!  That’s the joy of planting things.  They are growing for somebody, if not for you!”

Inside the house he found Firio, with the help of some of the ranchers, taking the pictures out of their cases.  Firio surveyed the buccaneer for some time, squinting his eyes and finally opening them saucer-wide in approval.