"Now it's my turn," said Spoof, but Jake interrupted.
"As it happened, I was down in Regina on business connected with my estate when news o' this approachin' tie-up on Fourteen reached me, by means of a note from Spoof," Jake explained. "At first I couldn't make head or hinder of it, it was so bad wrote. So I took it to a young fellow I know with lots o' learnin'; got to know him on account o' the int'rest he usta take in the people on Twenty-two; he found out I located youse boys an' girls and usta come roun' pretty reg'lar askin' questions casual-like, an' I says to him, 'How many shirts does a fellow get on this laundry ticket?' Well, he read it over slow to himself, an' then he jus' sits lookin' at nothin' till I begun to think maybe there was some bad langwidge such as he couldn't repeat in my presence. An' after awhile he says, 'Jake, jus' another mirage; you know, those phenom'na'—that's what he called it—'on the prairie that makes you think things is what they ain't. Let's go down town,' he says, an' on the way he tells me what's in the ticket. Well, I thought he was leadin' for a bar, which is the best place I know of to raise a new mirage when your old one goes bust, but danged if he don' head me into a jewelry store. And there he buys this."
Jake delved into a pocket and brought out a little gold pendant, a chaste and delicate example of the goldsmith's art. He held it for a moment to the admiring gaze of all present before resuming his narrative.
"'Give that,' my friend says, 'with my good wishes an' a touch o' my regrets, to the young lady on Twenty-two, with the compliments o' Sergeant Brook,' he-says," and so Jake placed the little golden trinket in Jean's hands. . . . . It was a difficult situation. Jean's first impulse was to hand it back.
"Better accept it," I whispered to her. "The fewer explanations the better."
"But it—it's a wedding present," she remonstrated. "How can I . . . ?"
"Keep it until you need it," I suggested. Jean was very lovely in the heightened color of her embarrassment, and as her hand fell by my side I seized it surreptitiously in my own.
"Oh, Jean, why not make it to-night?" I whispered, mad with her beauty and her nearness.
"It's quite impossible," she answered, but she did not immediately withdraw her hand. She left me marvelling more and more over the tantalizing complexity of her attitude toward me.
Fortunately, the interest of those about us had been quickly rearrested by Jake. "Havin' a little weakness o' my own," Jake was continuing, "although I never said nothin' about it, not wishing to take advantage o' my young friend, Sittin' Crow, or to start a scene with Bella Donna, I bought its mate fer the lady on Fourteen." And with this little speech he placed another pendant in the hands of Marjorie.