“Do you dare us to try?” Nevada poured nuggets from one palm to the other. “That might be a good investment, when we’ve made our clean-up in the river bed.” She smiled dreamily at her handful of gold. “That’s a wonderful idea. We need some wonderful idea to work on, after the dam is in and the gold is out. You can’t,” she looked up wistfully at Rawley, “you can’t live with a tremendous idea all your life and suddenly drop back to three meals a day and which dress shall you wear. One would go mad. It--it’s like taking the mainspring out of life.” Johnny Buffalo nodded his head in significant approval. “A man can only wait, then, until it is time to go,” he said with quiet decision. “Very well. I’ll speak to the Peace Conference about the Gulf Stream,” Rawley assured her gravely. “In case I am unable to reserve it for you--would the Gulf of Mexico do, or the Mississippi River, perhaps?” “We’re accustomed to cracking our whip over fresh water,” Nevada retorted. “I should prefer to have the Mississippi, please.” Johnny Buffalo glanced toward the wheel chair, gazed at it intently and nodded his head. “You will succeed and fail in the succeeding,” he intoned solemnly. “In the failure you will rise to greater things. It is so. My sergeant never speaks what is not true.” Eyes moved guardedly to meet other eyes that understood, conveying a warning that the old man must be humored. Johnny Buffalo stood up, his face turned toward the wheel chair. He seemed to be listening. His eyes brightened. The wrinkles in his bronzed old face deepened and radiated joy. “It is good! I need not wait--I go now!” He took an eager step and wavered there. Peter and Rawley, rising together, caught the old man in their arms as he went down, falling slowly like a straight, old tree whose roots have snapped with age. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE THE EAGLE LOOKS UPON A GREAT RIVER Rawley drove down El Dorado Canyon, now silent in mid-afternoon, with not a sound of stamp mill or compressor or the mingled voices of men at work. Techatticup stood forlorn, deserted save by one old man who bore himself proudly because he was the guardian there. The war, the labor question, the slump in metals, had done their work. It seemed to Rawley as if the nation were taking a long breath, making ready to go forward again more resistlessly than before. He missed Johnny Buffalo terribly; but if he could, he would not have called him back. Johnny would have had a dreary time of it, alone all these long months when Rawley’s work had held close to the affairs of the government.