"Well, when we got down to facts she had come in the hope of raising money by means of homesteading so that she could educate the boy. Fancy that, and me associating her with blackmail! But when she found, through old Jake, that I had located here, she wasn't above following. And yet she was afraid of me; afraid she'd meet me somewhere; afraid I'd come over to her homestead; and all the time hoping I would! Women are strange creatures. "Well, we talked it all over, and"--and for the first time in his narrative Spoof's face lighted with a gentle smile--"I didn't go back to Two last night at all. We're planning a sort of quinquennial honeymoon progress about the district, and, properly enough, our first call is at Fourteen. And now that that's off my chest, behold a man happy once more. I am amazed at the folly that denied me all these years---- Men, too, are strange creatures. "There's just one thing--a very insignificant thing compared with Alice's happiness, and mine, and Gerald's, but it's this: In taking up her homestead she had to declare herself a widow. She did it for the boy's sake, and she knows she will have to give up the claim, but will she get into further trouble? Will they let it go at that?" That was a poser, and I turned it over in my mind for some minutes. "Better see Jake about that," I suggested. "He'll find a way." "That's right!" said Spoof. "Jake's the boy. And he owes me something yet on that cogitation nut transaction. "Just one more thing," Spoof resumed, after a little. "I've told you a great deal more than I propose to tell anyone else. It seemed to me that you--and Jean--had a peculiar right to know." * * * * * Almost before we knew it the springtime was upon us. It came suddenly, out of a March sky and a south-west wind, and the hard, illimitable distances of winter softened and mellowed before our eyes. The drifts fell away; brown spots came out on the edge of the gully; little streamlets cataracted over its banks; blue snow-water gathered in its depressions; adventurous early gophers sent their challenge from bank to bank. The waters in the gully gathered and grew; presently they were forcing ahead, into and under and over the drifts that barred their way; their pleasant gurglings came up through the clear, calm, lengthening twilights. The bare fields came forth; the dark brown clodded earth looked up in a million mimic mountain peaks through a wrinkled blanket of snow; the grass stirred on the prairies; a flush of green ran down the long shadows of the evening. Once more was the world alive!