"I shall be wonderfully interested in her," Spoof said, gaily, but it seemed to me that his mind had suddenly gone all a-ramble. There was a moment's silence, then he took up the thread again. "I once knew a little boy of that name--Gerald--was much attached to him. Strange how an incident--a name, for example--will recall a whole chain of memories." What memories of Spoof's was aroused he did not say, but he sang no more, and presently decided it was time to go home. CHAPTER X. It was the first day of August of that first year on the prairies that Jack and I hitched the oxen to the wagon, threw on board a kit consisting mainly of a change of clothes and a blanket for each of us, said a brave but undemonstrative good-bye to the girls, and turned our faces to the older settlements. We had seen Mrs. Alton's new house--twelve feet square, it was, and eight feet high to the plates--under way; we had Spoof's promise that twice a day he would study the shack at Fourteen with his field glass for the flag that Marjorie would nail to the roof in case of any emergency; we had laid up fuel and supplies against the immediate needs of the girls during our absence, and now we were setting forth to earn what money we could during the short season of high wages. Our own oat field could wait; we would cut it for feed, anyway, and a little frost wouldn't matter. One thing--two things, to be exact--worried me more on that day of parting than I would have cared to confess. One of those things was Spoof, and the other was Harold Brook, of the Mounted Police. Brook might be expected to call any day on his return journey to headquarters;--I had hoped that that would be over before I left, and many a glance I shot at the sky-line to the north-west of Fourteen, but without catching a glimpse of the red tunic riding down upon us, as it had done once before, apparently out of the heavens. The subject was a peculiarly difficult one. For days I questioned myself whether or not I should have a frank discussion of it with Jean, but I finally decided to say nothing, at least for the present. It was a thing which I could not even mention without seeming to cast a reflection on Jean's loyalty, and loyalty, as I have discovered, is one of those qualities which does not improve under questioning. Every question aimed at loyalty seems to knock a beam out of its structure, and I began to suspect that I could not spare any beams from my particular air-castle. So I decided on the bold course of taking everything for granted, and when I said good-bye to Jean I gave no hint of the matter that was uppermost in my thoughts. But Jean, being a woman, probably knew all about it; perhaps the extra warmth and pressure of her hand was an answer to the question which I had not the courage to ask.