“Si, senor!” said Pedro wincing.

While he was producing the money and counting it, his furtive glance kept watch of Jack.  Then, as the committee turned to go, he suddenly exclaimed with angry surprise and disillusion: 

“You got no gun!”

While Jim and Bob waited for Jack to precede them out of the door Jim had time to note Pedro’s baleful, piercing look at Jack’s back.

“Just as I told you, Jack—­and I reckon you saved a big row.  You just put a scare into that hellion with a word, like you had a thousand devils in you!” said Jim.

“It’s all over!” Jack answered, looking more hurt than pleased over the congratulations.  “Very fortunately over.”

“But,” Jim observed, tensely, “Pedro is not only Leddy’s bitter partisan and ready to do his bidding, Pedro’s a bit loco, besides—­the kind that hesitates at nothing when he gets a grudge.  You’ve got to look out for him.”

“Oh, no!” said Jack, in the full swing of a Senor Don’t Care mood.

Jim and Bob began to entertain the feelings of Mary on the pass, when she thought of Jack as walking over precipices regardless of danger signs.  After all, did he really know how to shoot?  If he would not look after himself, it was their duty to look after him.  Jim suggested that the rule which Jack had made for Leddy should have universal application.  No one whosoever should wear arms in Little Rivers without a permit.  The new ordinance had the Doge’s approval; and Jim and Bob, both of whom had permits, kept watch that it was enforced, particularly in the case of Pedro Nogales.

Meanwhile, Jack kept the ten-hour-a-day law.  His alfalfa was growing with prolific rapidity, but Firio had the air of one who waits between journeys.

“Never the trail again?” he asked temptingly, one day.

“Never the trail again!” Jack declared firmly.

“Si, si, si—­the trail again!”

“You think so?  Then why do you ask?”

“To make a question,” answered Firio.  “The big sadness will be too strong.  It will make you move—­si!”

“The big sadness!” Jack exclaimed.  He seized Firio by the shoulders and looked narrowly at him, and Firio met the gaze with soft, puzzling lights in his eyes.  “Ho! ho!  A big sadness!  How do you know?” he laughed.

“I learn on the trail when I watch you look at the stars.  And Senorita Ewold, she know; but she think the big sadness a devil.  She—­” and he paused.

“She—­yes?” Jack asked.

“She—­” Firio started again.

Jack suddenly raised his hands from Firio’s shoulders in a gesture of interruption.  It was not exactly Firio’s place to hazard opinions about Mary Ewold.

“Never mind!” he said, rather sharply.

But Firio proceeded fixedly to finish what he had to say.

“She has a big sadness, which makes her ride to the pass.  She rides out so she can ride back smiling.”