One thing—two things, to be exact—worried me more on that day of parting than I would have cared to confess. One of those things was Spoof, and the other was Harold Brook, of the Mounted Police. Brook might be expected to call any day on his return journey to headquarters;—I had hoped that that would be over before I left, and many a glance I shot at the sky-line to the north-west of Fourteen, but without catching a glimpse of the red tunic riding down upon us, as it had done once before, apparently out of the heavens.
The subject was a peculiarly difficult one. For days I questioned myself whether or not I should have a frank discussion of it with Jean, but I finally decided to say nothing, at least for the present. It was a thing which I could not even mention without seeming to cast a reflection on Jean's loyalty, and loyalty, as I have discovered, is one of those qualities which does not improve under questioning. Every question aimed at loyalty seems to knock a beam out of its structure, and I began to suspect that I could not spare any beams from my particular air-castle. So I decided on the bold course of taking everything for granted, and when I said good-bye to Jean I gave no hint of the matter that was uppermost in my thoughts. But Jean, being a woman, probably knew all about it; perhaps the extra warmth and pressure of her hand was an answer to the question which I had not the courage to ask.
On the second day out, as we halted on the side of a little knoll to let the oxen graze and to eat our lunch, we were suddenly aware of the rumble of an approaching vehicle and the tones of a lusty voice, lifted in something evidently intended for song. Even before we had identified the "flyin' ants" we caught the burden of the refrain——
"Lived a min-er, a forty-nine-er, An' his daugh-ter, Sweet Marie."
"It's Jake, of all the world!" shouted Jack, and together we rushed down upon him. His pudgy form, sheltered from the hot sun by a broad felt hat, lolled on one end of the seat of his democrat. He was alone, and the springs of the seat, from being often ridden on by one person only, had a way of listing to the right and allowing Jake to find his own centre of gravity. In such matters Jake followed the line of least resistance, and bumped along contentedly on the low end of the seat while the other end projected itself abruptly into the atmosphere. His eyes were closed, or nearly so; a healthy freshet of tobacco juice meandered across his chin, and his red, sunburned face was so expressionless that at first we thought he had not seen us. Not until we were at his very wheel did he pull the horses up and show an interest in the surroundings.
"Hello, Sittin' Crow!" was his greeting. "Dang it, stand still a minute, you piebald lump o' fox-bait"—this to one of the bronchoes, switching at a horse-fly—"don' you know your friends when you meet 'em? Well, how goes it on the gopher ranch?"
We shook hands and made him stop and eat with us. "Well, if you're sure there's no dang'rous Injuns 'roun' here," he demurred.
Jake was fresh charged with Regina gossip, and that of the country for two hundred miles around. The settlers were streaming in, he said, but the country was so big it was just like pouring water in the sea. "Only more profitable," he added, thumping his hip pocket.
"This locatin' game is like a pint flask—all right while it lasts, but it don' get anywhere," Jake continued. "I've made some lumps o' easy money, but while I was doin' it other fellers that I brung into the bald-headed were busy bustin' the sod, an' to-day, dang me, they're better off 'n I am. Fellows with no more brains than a grindstone! Got a farm an' stock an' a wife an' kids, an' let me tell you, Crow, them last two is genooine collaterals. So I figgers to myself, 'Jake, you've trod the primrose cow-path, or whatever it is, long enough. It's time to get down to business.'"
"Yep," said Jake, taking a fresh mouthful of tobacco to give his words time to sink in. "After I saw you fellows trailin' those two fine girls out into the bald-headed I says to myself, 'Jake, this one-horse business is out o' date. Better get into double harness.' So bein' a man of action I wrote out an ad. an' put it in a big paper in the States. Here it is:"