“You!” he said to Jack.  And of the Sargent, after equally deliberate observation, he said:  “A lady!”

That seemed about all there was to say and expressed the thought of the onlookers.

“And, Firio, now it’s the trail!” said Jack.

“Si, si!” said Firio, ever so softly.  “We take rifles?”

“Yes.  Food for a week and two-days’ water.”

It pleased Jack to hang the portraits while Firio was putting on Jag Ear’s pack; and he made it a ceremony in which his silence was uninterrupted by the comments of the ranchers.  They stood in wondering awe before John Wingfield, Knight, hung where he could watch the Eternal Painter at his sunset displays and looking at the “Portrait of a Lady” across the breadth of the living-room, whose neutral tones made a perfect setting for their dominant genius.

“I believe they are at home,” said Jack, with a fond look from one to the other, when Firio came to say that everything was ready.

“Senor Jack,” whispered Firio insinuatingly, “for the trail you wear the grand, glad trail clothes and the big spurs.  I keep them shiny—­the big spurs!” He was speaking with the authority of an expert in trail fashions, who would consider Jack in very bad form if he refused.

“Why, yes, Firio, yes; it is so long since we have been on the trail!” And he went into the bedroom to make the change.

“I’ve never seen him quite so dumb quiet!” said Worther.

Jack certainly had been quiet, ominously quiet and self-contained.  When he came out of the bedroom he was without the jaunty freedom of manner that Little Rivers always associated with his full regalia.  In place of the dreamy distances in his eyes on such occasions were a sad preoccupation and determination.  When they went outside to Firio and the waiting ponies, the Eternal Painter was in his evening orgy of splendor.  But even Jack did not look up at the sky this time as he walked along in silence with his fellow-citizens to the point where the farthest furrow of his ranch had been drawn across the virgin desert.  His foot was already in the stirrup when Jim Galway spoke the thought of all: 

“Jack, there’s only two of you, and if it happened that you met Leddy—­”

“It is Prather that I want to see,” Jack answered.

“But Leddy’s whole gang!  We don’t know what your plans are, but if there’s going to be a mix-up, why, we’ve got to be with you!”

“No!” said Jack, decidedly.  “Remember, Jim, you were to trust me.  This is a mission that requires only two; it is between Prather and me.  We are going to get acquainted for the first time.”

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.