“Yes, much—­leading an aimless life.”

“Then he must be the one that I was taken for in Salt Lake City one day.  The man who called out to me saw his mistake, just as you did, when he saw my full face;” and again Prather made a gesture of understanding amusement to the mole.

“When you consider what confusion there must be in the workrooms, with the storks flapping and screeching like newsboys outside the delivery room,” mused the Doge, “and when you consider the multitudinous population of the earth, it’s surprising that the good Lord is able to furnish such a variety of faces as he does.  But they do say that every one of us has a few doubles.  In the case of famous public men they get their pictures in the papers.”

“Yes, very few of us but have been mistaken for a friend by a stranger passing in the street!” Prather suggested.

“Only to have the stranger see his mistake at a second glance; and on second glance you do not look very much like Jack Wingfield,” the Doge concluded.  “Just a coincidence in physiognomy!”

And Prather was very frank about his past.

“I have led rather a hard life,” he said.  “Though I was well brought up my father left mother and me quite penniless.  I had to fend for myself at the age of sixteen.  A friend gave me an opportunity to go to Goldfield at the outbreak of the excitement there.  The rough experience of a mining-camp was not exactly to my taste, but it meant a livelihood.  My real interest has always been in irrigation farming.  I would rather grow a good crop than mine for gold.  Well, I saved a little money at Goldfield—­saved it to buy land.  But land is not the only consideration.  The surroundings, the people with whom you have to live count for a great deal when you mean to settle permanently.”

“Excellent!” declared the Doge.  “A good citizen in full fellowship with your neighbors!  Exactly what we want in Little Rivers.”

Prather had a complexion of that velvety whiteness that never tans.  His eyes were calm, yet attractive, with a peculiar insinuating charm when he talked that made it seem easy and natural to respond to his wishes.  In listening he had an ingratiating manner that was flattering to the speaker.

“A practical man!” the Doge said to Mary that evening.  “The kind we need here.  He and I had a grand afternoon of it together.  Every one of his questions about soils and cultivation was to the point.”

“Not one argument?” she asked.

“No, Mary; no time for argument.”

“You do like people to agree with you, after all!” she hazarded.  For she did not like Prather.

“Pooh!  Not a matter of agreement!  No persiflage!  No altitudinous conversation of the kind that grows no crops.  Prather wants to learn, and he’s got good, clean ideas, with a trained and accurate mind—­the best possible combination.  I hope he will stay for the very reason that he is not the kind that takes up a plot of land for life on an impulse, which usually results in turning on the water and getting discouraged because nature will not do the rest.  But he is very favorably impressed.  He said that after Goldfield Little Rivers was like Paradise—­practical Paradise.  Good phrase, practical Paradise!”