Part 13 (1/2)

”He is not the first Englishman who has thought that,” Jack interrupted.

”It's a somewhat common opinion.”

Mrs. Alton accepted the criticism deftly. ”So it is,” she admitted, ”but then, you see, we _like_ Indians, just as we like people of all strange colors, which is something you Americans”--she used the word in its continental sense--”have not learned to do. No, Gerald, these are not Red Indians, with feathers and paint and bows and arrows, but white people like Mumsy and you, only very much wiser. They are friends from Fourteen and Twenty-two--it _is_ Fourteen and Twenty-two, isn't it?--you see how I am picking up your way of knowing places by number rather than by name--and they have come for a little visit with Gerald and Mumsy and Sandy. Now say 'How do you do, Miss Lane.'”

But Gerald was not in exhibition mood. ”Dem Injuns,” he insisted, and with that we had to be satisfied.

At length, with a.s.surances that we would repeat our visit soon, and a promise from Mrs. Alton that she would return it when the men had her house under way, we clambered into our wagon and started the oxen on their slow, lumbering gait homeward. Sandy saw us properly off the place, and even stood at attention until we faded out of sight in the twilight. There is likely to be a nip to the night air on the prairies even in midsummer, and Jean, I noticed, snuggled comfortably beside me on the board across the wagon box which served as a seat. . . . Or perhaps it was that for the first time in months the latent motherhood in her nature had been stirred into consciousness.

It was Sunday before we heard or saw anything more of Spoof. A hot summer wind was chasing little scurries of dust and billowing our oat field like a lake of turquoise green when suddenly his tall form loomed up on the rough trail which already wriggled across the prairie from Fourteen to Two. He had discarded coat and waist-coat; in a khaki-colored s.h.i.+rt and corduroy breeches and leggings and an Indian helmet which he had dug up from somewhere he was a picturesque and striking figure as he strode into the grateful shade of the shanty.

Under his arm he carried a banjo case.

”I'm tired after a busy week,” he explained, ”so I didn't bring the bullocks. Moreover, their behavior last Sunday was not exemplary. But I say,” he continued, ”there must be something in that remedy of yours, after all. They haven't balked since.”

”They have learned that you are a man of desperate measures,” said Jack.

”They have that. And besides, I fell in with a cow puncher on my way to town; his horse had gone lame and he took a lift with me. He was a veritable mine of expletives.”

Spoof took off his helmet and sat down in the shade. A ring of dust had formed on his fair temples and forehead and his brown hair was curly with perspiration. He was a young man good to look at; straight and lean, but not too spare; with white teeth that flashed behind lips always ready to spring to a smile beneath a sandy mustache that had more in it of promise than of realization. His hands were small and finely formed, with long, delicate fingers, and he gave his nails a degree of attention not often found among those so close to the realities of life as were we pioneers.

”Have you tried playing to them?” said Jack, harking back to the oxen.

”They are said to be very responsive to music.”

”I shall try no more experiments on the bullocks,” Spoof returned, pointedly; ”not, at least, while I have neighbours at hand who will serve the purpose as well. But that reminds me----”

Opening the banjo case he produced, not only a banjo, but a box of candy, which he had managed to smuggle into it.

”The ladies, I hope, will accept,” said he, tendering the candy to Jean.

”If accompanied by a serenade in our honour?” was her quick rejoinder.

”But not until after I have had a bath, and have somewhat recovered my wind,” Spoof pleaded, and was excused.

It was evening before he took up his banjo, but almost with the first sweep of its clamoring strings he started vibrations which seemed to catch our little band of exiles somewhere about the heart and squeeze us suddenly hollow with loneliness. Then he sang, dipping into little fragments of repertoire, until at last he hit upon something that Jean had learned before we left the East, and there her clear soprano joined his tenor as naturally as one brook mingles with another and both flow on, singing a new song which is all of the old one, and something more.

I had never learned to sing, and while I felt the heart-tugs of their harmony there were other strings tugging at my heart as well.

”But we forgot the greatest news,” Jean exclaimed, in a pause after one of their selections. ”We have neighbours--two new neighbours--three counting Sandy. They are living on Eighteen, to the east; surely you saw the tent?”

”So I did,” said Spoof, ”but I thought it might be a wandering Indian family. Two, did you say? A married couple?”

”No, a widow, Mrs. Alton, and her baby Gerald, the dearest little chap.

He puts us down for Indians, and with some reason.”

”Gerald?” said Spoof. ”How old is he?”

”Just turned three, so Mrs. Alton told us. You should see her; not very big, but pluck to the marrow. She has taken a homestead so that she can raise the money to educate her boy. She is coming over as soon as she is settled, and we must have you meet her. She's English, and you'll love her.”

Jean's frankness rather set me at ease again. Evidently I was magnifying the grip that Spoof was gaining upon her. She was content that he should love his new English neighbor.