"It will he no joke if Spoof is lost on the prairie," she returned; "no joke for any of us. For example, there will be no marriage in this house, so far as I am concerned, if anything happens to Spoof." "Isn't that rather mixing the issue?" I said, perhaps a little testily. "Spoof has nothing to do with our marriage." "No, but _I_ have," she answered, with a pointedness that could not be escaped. "You make a mountain out of a mole-hill," Jack told her, sharply. "One would think it was Spoof you were in love with, instead of Frank." "If I discuss that at all I will discuss it with Frank, alone," she retorted, with some heat. The color which had fled her face for a moment had come back in a flood, filling her cheeks and forehead, overflowing down her neck and into her hair. If Jean the placid, Jean the mild-mannered, Jean the amiable was lovely, Jean the aroused, Jean the defiant, was adorable. I made that appraisal even while in her eyes I read something akin to my death warrant. "I was quite serious in what I said, Frank," she continued, after a moment. "If it makes any difference to you perhaps you will follow Spoof. He hasn't the prairie sense that you have; he may be lost by this time. Fortunately there is no ground-drift, and his tracks will show." "Of course, if you think there is any danger, I'll go," I agreed, eager for a way out of an awkward position, and lacerated at heart by a sense of the breach that had occurred between us. So Jack and I set out to follow Spoof's tracks. We traced him without difficulty to Burke's. "Has Spoof been here?" we asked our American neighbour when he came to the door. "Spoof? I should say he has. By this time he's half way to Andy Smith's. Unfortunately I didn't have a left-hand monkey wrench," said Burke, with a chuckle, "but I reckoned likely Andy Smith would have one, having been a ship builder. Spoof wouldn't stay to eat, but he drank a cup of tea and steamed away." We explained that we were tracking Spoof in case he became lost, but avoided any reference to the ultimatum that had sent us after him. Declining the invitation of Burke and his wife to stay and eat, we pushed on. About half way to Andy Smith's we met Spoof coming back. Andy had not seen the joke when it was first presented, and in his analysis of it had revealed it to Spoof as soon as he recognized it himself. This was fortunate for Spoof, as otherwise he would doubtless have been sent to Ole Hansen's in continuation of his quest. As Spoof came up to us his face twisted in a broad grin. "Did you get a left-hand wrench?" we asked. "No, but I found out what a cogitation nut is. This is it," and he tapped his head with his knuckles, "only it doesn't cogitate very well." The three of us linked arms, Spoof in the middle, and trudged back toward Burke's. "Mighty decent of you to come after me," said Spoof, at length. "Yes, wasn't it?" we agreed.