he never understood more
than half of what Jack said, yet, in the measure of spirit, he understood
everything.

Now Jack was going mile after mile with nothing except occasional urging
words to P.D. His close-cut hair well brushed back from his forehead
revealed the sweep of his brow, lengthening his profile and adding to the
effect of his leanness. The moonlight on his face, which had lost its
tan, gave him an aspect of subdued and patient serenity in keeping with
the surroundings. You would have said that he could ride on forever
without tiring, and that he could go over a precipice now without even
seeing any danger sign. He had never been like this in all Firio's
memory. The silence became unsupportable for once to Indian taciturnity.
If Jack would not talk Firio would. Yes, he would ask a question, just to
hear the sound of a voice.

"We go to fight?"

"No, Firio."

"Not to fight Prather?"

"No."

"To fight Leddy?"

"I hope not."

"Why we go? Why so--why so--" he had not the language to express the
strange, brooding inquiry of his mind.

"I go to save Little Rivers."

"_Si_!" said Firio, but as if this did not answer his question.

"I go to get the end of a story, Firio--my story!" continued Jack. "I
have travelled long for the story and now I shall have it all from
John Prather."

"_Si, si_!" said Firio, as if all the knowledge in the world had flashed
into his head quicker than the hand of legerdemain could run the leaves
of a pack of cards through its fingers. "And then?"

At last Firio had won a smile from the untanned face which could not be
the same to him until it was tanned.

"Then I shall plant seeds and keep the ground around them soft and
the weeds out of it; and I shall wear my heart on my sleeve and lay a
siege--a siege in the open, without parallels or mines! A siege in
the open!"

Firio did not understand much about parallels or mines or, for that
matter, about sieges; but he could see the smile fading from Jack's lips
and could comprehend that the future of which Jack was speaking was very
far from another prospect, which was immediate and vivid in his mind.

"But you must fight Leddy! _Si, si_! You must fight Leddy first!"

"Then I must, I suppose," said Jack, absently. "All things in their turn
and time."

"_Si_!" answered Firio. All things in their turn and time! This desert
truth was bred in him through his ancestry, no less than in the Eternal
Painter himself.

Again