"It's simple, all right," Jack agreed. "Our friend Jake seems to be a good adviser. Did he give you any other hints?" "Lots of them, but I'm afraid he's a bit of a spoofer. Told me to catch four gophers and tie them by the hind legs to the four corners of my farm, and their squealing would warn all the other gophers off. I tried it but it didn't make a bit of difference. In fact, gophers seem to be about all I'm raising this year--gophers and sunflowers. His wild duck trap was no success, either. Jake showed me how to make a trap for wild ducks, and told me to put some buffalo bones in it and I would catch all the ducks I could eat. Said the ducks had to have the bone material for shells for the eggs, and would go anywhere to get it. I set two traps, but so far I haven't caught a duck." "But did you put any tiger lilies in with the bones?" Jack inquired, with a face that had its struggles to keep straight. "Tiger lilies? No, he didn't mention that." "Oh, that's a serious oversight," said Jack, who was rapidly taking on the ways of the West. "Tiger lilies are the main part of the trap. You see, the ducks cannot see the bones at night, and so they are guided by the scent of the tiger lilies, which always grow around deposits of buffalo bones. Just gather a few fresh lilies every evening and lay them on the bones and you'll be surprised at the result." In following this discussion I had not been observing Jean, or I should have seen the gathering storm in time, perhaps, to have averted it. Now she sprang in front of us like a mother bird at bay. If Jean, passive, was beautiful, Jean, aroused, was magnificent. I sensed _that_ even while swept off my feet by the blast of her indignation. "It's a lie!" she exclaimed. "It's all a pack of lies! They're--they're 'spoofing' you, as you call it." She turned her withering glance particularly upon her brother, but I did not quite escape it. "They take advantage of your strangeness to the country to make you appear foolish--they, who don't know Rembrandt from Mozart, or----or----" Jean paused in her tirade, stuck for a figure that would express her contempt for us. It was the first time I had seen Jean in the grip of a righteous and belligerent indignation. She had revealed a new side of her nature that was wonderful, adorable; perhaps a bit dangerous. The poignancy of her beauty was not lessened by the knowledge that I had fallen a number of degrees in her estimation, and that Spoof had doubtless ascended a proportionate distance. Spoof was the first to get his balance. "Why, why--that's all right," he exclaimed. "Quite all right. A ripping good joke, I call it. I must work that on the Governor when he comes to visit me. I shall have him pulling tiger lilies for my duck traps,--see if I don't!" "That will be when he comes for the polar bear you have promised him," said Jack, slyly. "You see, Jean, Spoof is a bit of a spoofer himself."