The town, which was not supposed to ask about pasts, could not help puzzling about his.  What was the story of this teller of stories?  The secluded little community was in a poor way to find out, even if the conscientious feeling about a custom had not been a restraint that kept wonder free from inquiring hints.  They took him for what he was in all their personal relations; that was the delightful way of Little Rivers, which inner curiosity might not alloy.  His broader experience of that world over the pass which stretched around the globe and back to the other range-wall of the valley, seemed only to make him fall more easily into the simple ways of the fellow-ranchers of the Doge’s selection, who were genuine, hall-marked people, whatever the origin from which the individual sprang.  He knew the fatigue of productive labor as something far sweeter than the fatigue that comes from mere exercise, and the neophyte’s enthusiasm was his.

“I’m sitting at the outer edge of the circle,” he told Jim Galway.  “But when my first crop is harvested I shall be on the inside—­a real rancher!”

“You’ve already got one foot over the circle,” said Jim.

“And with my first crop of dates I’ll be in the holy of holies of pastoral bliss!”

“Yes, I should say so!” Jim responded, but in a way that indicated surprise at the thought of Jack’s remaining in Little Rivers long enough for such a consummation.

When his alfalfa covered the earth with a green carpet Jack was under a spell of something more than the never-ending marvel of dry seeds springing into succulent abundance without the waving of any magic wand.

“I made it out of the desert!” he cried.  “It laughs in triumph at the bare stretches around it, waiting on water!”

“That is it,” said Jim; “waiting on water!”

“The promise of what might come!”

“It will come!  Some day, Jack, you and I will ride up into the river canyon and I will show you a place where you can see the blue sky between precipitous walls two hundred feet high.  The abyss is so narrow you can throw a stone across it.”

“What lies beyond?” asked Jack, his eyes lighting vividly.

“A great basin which was the bed of an ancient lake before the water wore its way through.”

“A dam between those walls—­and you have another lake!”

“Yes, and the spring freshets from the northern water-shed all held in a reservoir—­none going to waste!  And, Jack, as population spreads the dam must come.”

“Why, the Doge has a kingdom!”

“Yes, that’s the best of it, the rights being in his hands.  He shares up with everybody and we get it when he dies.  That’s why we are ready to accept the Doge’s sentiments as kind of gospel.  If ornamental hedges waste water and bring bugs and are contrary to practical ranching ideas, why—­well, why not?  It’s our Little Rivers to enjoy as we please.  We aren’t growing so fast, but we’re growing in a clean, beautiful way, as Jasper Ewold says.  What if that river was owned by one man!  What if we had to pay the price he set for what takes the place of rain, as they do in some places in California?  We’re going to say who shall build that dam!”