Spoof took off his helmet and sat down in the shade. A ring of dust had formed on his fair temples and forehead and his brown hair was curly with perspiration. He was a young man good to look at; straight and lean, but not too spare; with white teeth that flashed behind lips always ready to spring to a smile beneath a sandy mustache that had more in it of promise than of realization. His hands were small and finely formed, with long, delicate fingers, and he gave his nails a degree of attention not often found among those so close to the realities of life as were we pioneers. "Have you tried playing to them?" said Jack, harking back to the oxen. "They are said to be very responsive to music." "I shall try no more experiments on the bullocks," Spoof returned, pointedly; "not, at least, while I have neighbours at hand who will serve the purpose as well. But that reminds me----" Opening the banjo case he produced, not only a banjo, but a box of candy, which he had managed to smuggle into it. "The ladies, I hope, will accept," said he, tendering the candy to Jean. "If accompanied by a serenade in our honour?" was her quick rejoinder. "But not until after I have had a bath, and have somewhat recovered my wind," Spoof pleaded, and was excused. It was evening before he took up his banjo, but almost with the first sweep of its clamoring strings he started vibrations which seemed to catch our little band of exiles somewhere about the heart and squeeze us suddenly hollow with loneliness. Then he sang, dipping into little fragments of repertoire, until at last he hit upon something that Jean had learned before we left the East, and there her clear soprano joined his tenor as naturally as one brook mingles with another and both flow on, singing a new song which is all of the old one, and something more. I had never learned to sing, and while I felt the heart-tugs of their harmony there were other strings tugging at my heart as well. "But we forgot the greatest news," Jean exclaimed, in a pause after one of their selections. "We have neighbours--two new neighbours--three counting Sandy. They are living on Eighteen, to the east; surely you saw the tent?" "So I did," said Spoof, "but I thought it might be a wandering Indian family. Two, did you say? A married couple?" "No, a widow, Mrs. Alton, and her baby Gerald, the dearest little chap. He puts us down for Indians, and with some reason." "Gerald?" said Spoof. "How old is he?" "Just turned three, so Mrs. Alton told us. You should see her; not very big, but pluck to the marrow. She has taken a homestead so that she can raise the money to educate her boy. She is coming over as soon as she is settled, and we must have you meet her. She's English, and you'll love her." Jean's frankness rather set me at ease again. Evidently I was magnifying the grip that Spoof was gaining upon her. She was content that he should love his new English neighbor.