"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!"
"Think of it! Think of it!" Jack half whispered, his imagination in play. "Plot after plot being added to this little oasis until it extends from range to range, one sea of green! Many little towns, with Little Rivers the mother town, spreading its ideas! Yes, think of being in at the making of a new world, seeing visions develop into reality as, stone by stone, an edifice rises! I—I—" Jack paused, a cloud sweeping over his features, his eyes seeming to stare at a wall. His body alone seemed in Little Rivers, his mind on the other side of the pass. He was in one of those moods of abstraction that ever made his fellow-ranchers feel that he would not be with them permanently.
Indeed, he had whole days when his smile had a sad turn; when, though he spoke pleasantly, the inspiration of talk was not in him and when Belvy Smith could not rouse any action in the cat with two black stripes down its back. But many Little Riversites, including the Doge, had their sad days, when they looked away at the pass oftener than usual, as if seeing a life-story framed in the V. His came usually, as Mrs. Smith observed, when he had a letter from the East. And it was then that he would pretend to cough to Firio. These mock coughing spells were one of the few manifestations that made the impassive Firio laugh.
"Now you know I am not well, don't you, Firio?" he would ask, waggishly, the very thought seeming to take him out of the doldrums. "I could never live out of this climate. Why, even now I have a cough, kuh-er!"
Firio had turned a stove cook. He accepted the humiliation in a spirit of loyalty. But often he would go out among the sagebrush and return with a feathery tribute, which he would broil on a spit in a fire made in the yard. Always when Jack rode out to meet Mary at the foot of the range, Firio would follow; and always he had his rifle. For it was part of Jack's seeming inconsistency, emphasizing his inscrutability, that he would never wear his revolver. It hung beside Pete's on the wall of the living-room as a second relic. Far from being a quarrel-maker, he was peaceful to the point of Quakerish predilection.
"Nobody ever hears anything of Leddy," said Jim; "but he will never forget or forgive, and one day he will show up unexpectedly."