"I thought that would get her, but she was as imperv'ous to compliments as an ox to an oration, so to speak. "'Very well,' says she. 'If you won't take a homestead, I will.' "'You can't,' says I, with sudden boldness. 'You ain't a widow.' "With that she gives me another o' those through-the-gizzard-and-nailed-to-the-wall looks o' hers. 'I will be, in about twenty seconds,' she says, 'if there's any more discussion,' she says. So here we are." "Have you located?" I asked Jake, when he was silent for a minute, and seemed to have dropped off into meditation. "Yep. It was easy fer me, knowin' as I do ev'ry willow between the Souris an' the Saskatch'wan. You remember section Sixteen, that you fellows were lookin' at? I didn't figger it was good enough fer you, bein' clients o' mine, but it would do me in a pinch, so I jus' filed on it myself." "Aha!" said Jack, who was always a little shrewder than I. "So that is why we couldn't get Sixteen. Surely you weren't contemplating matrimony so far back as that?" "Not exac'ly contemplatin' it, but takin' precautions." Jake admitted. "Rather lets the wind out of your fine story," was Jack's comment. "How much do we take for gospel, and how much for romance?" Jake clambered to his feet and struck a pose intended to be heroic. "Behold in me a young bridegroom," he orated. "Would you expec' me, on an auspicious occasion like this, to stick stric'ly to the map? Out o' the fullness o' my heart I have given you good measure." We expressed the hope that Bella Donna would prove a sticker. "She will," Jake prophesied. "Of course that ain't her real name; I jus' gave you that fer--fer instance, an' her first name's Bella, so it's half true, which is a pretty good average in this country. Wait 'til you see us, a-chariotin' behind the flyin' ants over to Fourteen an' Twenty-two! I'm figgerin' on organizin' a school distric' right away." We gave Jake our blessing and watched him ride off in his wobbly democrat with its spring seat up-tilted to larboard and his fat figure settling down like a sack with a hat on it. But Jake was evidently in good spirits, for before he had gone beyond ear-shot we heard him singing, "O my darling, O my darling, O my darling, Clementine," and we knew that all was well with him, at least for the present. Sitting on the grassy knoll, digesting our lunch by the aid of the straws which each of us was unconsciously chewing, we watched Jake until he was a speck in the distance. "What do you make of it?" said I at last. "I'm not saying," was Jack's cautious rejoinder. "Either he's married, or he isn't." Jack had not forgotten the incident of Sittin' Crow.