But, as the Doge and Mary were to find, they were alone among Little Riversites in thinking that the breaking of Pedro Nogales’s wrist was horrible.  Jim Galway, who had witnessed the affair, took a radically contrary view, which everyone else not of the Leddy partisanship readily accepted.  Despite the frequency of Jack’s visits to the Ewold garden and all the happy exchange of pleasantries with his hosts, the community could not escape the thought of a certain latent hostility toward Jack on the part of the Doge, the more noticeable because it was so out of keeping with his nature.

“Doge, sometimes I think you are almost prejudiced against Jack Wingfield because he didn’t let Leddy have his way,” said Jim, with an outright frankness that was unprecedented in speaking to Jasper Ewold.  “You’re such a regular old Quaker!”

“But that little Mexican panting in abject fear against the hedge!” persisted the Doge.

“A nice, peaceful little Mexican with a knife, sneaking up to plant it in Jack’s neck!”

“But Jack is so powerful!  And his look!  I was so near I could see it well as he towered over Nogales!”

“Yes, no mistaking the look.  I saw it in the arroyo.  It made me think of what the look of one of those old sea-fighters might have been like when they lashed alongside and boarded the enemy.”

“And the crack of the bone!” continued the Doge.

“Would you have a man turn cherub when he has escaped having his jugular slashed by a margin of two or three inches?  Would you have him say, ’Please, naughty boy, give me your knife?  You mustn’t play with such things!’”

“No!  That’s hyperbole!” the Doge returned with a lame attempt at a laugh.

“Mebbe it is, whatever hyperbole is,” said Jim; “but if so, hyperbole is a darned poor means of self-defence.  Yes, the trouble is you are against Jack Wingfield!”

“Yes, I am!” said the Doge suddenly, as if inward anger had got the better of him.

“And the rest of us are for him!” Jim declared sturdily.

“Naturally! naturally!” said the Doge, passing his hand over his brow.  “Yes, youth and color and bravery!” He shook his head moodily, as if Jim’s statement brought up some vital, unpleasant, but inevitable fact to his mind.

“It’s beyond me how anybody can help liking him!” concluded Galway stubbornly.

“I like him—­yes, I do like him!  I cannot help it!” the Doge admitted rather grudgingly as he turned away.

“So we weren’t so far apart, after all!” Galway hastened to call after the Doge in apology for his testiness.  “We like him for what he has been to us and will always be to us.  That’s the only criterion of character in Little Rivers according to your own code, isn’t it, Jasper Ewold?”

“Exactly!” answered the Doge over his shoulder.

The community entered into a committee of the whole on Jack Wingfield.  With every citizen contributing a quota of personal experience, his story was rehearsed from the day of his arrival to the day of his departure.  Argument fluctuated on the question of whether or not he would ever return, with now the noes and now the ayes having it.  On this point Jim had the only first-hand evidence.