"All the world seems to circle around Gerald," she added, as though it were an after-thought. She made Jean and Marjorie sit down on a box on which she had spread a steamer rug. Jack and I stood at the door of the tent, where the setting sun blazoned our wind-tanned faces a ruddy red. "How healthy you men are!" she exclaimed, clasping her fingers in a nervous grip. "If only Gerald will grow up like that!" "We will come over when the men bring the lumber, and help them build your house," Jack volunteered. "The lumber--what lumber? Oh, the boards! Oh, how good of you!" The regard in which she held us appeared to rise another degree. "And are you carpenters, as well as farmers?" she asked. "How wonderfully clever your men are, here. I had to go to a doctor in Regina--Gerald had a rash, or something--it was in the evening and I found him at his house, building a chicken-coop. Jolly wonderful, isn't it?" As the shadow of the democrat filled the tent door we spoke of leaving. "Not until you have had tea," she insisted. "We shall have tea with biscuits and jam. I bought an oil stove in Regina--a most wonderful machine. We shall have it ready in a moment." While she started her oil stove she asked, casually enough, "And am I the only new-comer in all this big prairie which you have been having to yourselves?" "No; you are the second," I answered. "We already have one neighbour, a countryman of yours, down on section Two. Spoof, he calls himself, although that is not his real name." She was working over the stove, with her back toward us, and perhaps she dallied longer than there was any need for, but I took no notice of the matter at the time. "What a strange name," she said, after a while. . . . "Is he there now--I mean, have you seen him lately? A countryman of mine; you know, I must be interested in him," she added, brightly, turning her face to us again. Then we told of Spoof's unfortunate attempt to apply a Western corrective to his balky oxen. But she seemed to lose interest in the theme, and changed the conversation to some other topic. Suddenly she remembered her promise that we should see Gerald awake, and, disregarding our protests, she stirred him out of his sleep. His big, blue eyes blinked for a moment at the lamp which she had lighted; then slowly took in his visitors. When he had subjected us to a careful scrutiny he turned to his mother. "Dem Injuns," he remarked. "Oh, no, dear, these are not Indians. I am afraid I have let him think that all the people in this country are Indians," Mrs. Alton explained. "He is not the first Englishman who has thought that," Jack interrupted. "It's a somewhat common opinion."