"What was that!" Jean exclaimed. "It was almost like a bullet."

"Nay, nay," said Jack, indulging in a very sorry joke. "It is a ducklet."

"A ducklet? What ducklet?"

"That, my dear sister, was the whistle from the wing of a wild duck, darting into the darkness at a couple of hundred miles an hour. He had just got his eye on you."

"More likely on the gun," said Jean, for we had included a cheap shot-gun among the articles considered indispensable. "Wait until Frank gets after him."

I was greatly flattered by Jean's wholly unwarranted confidence in my marksmanship and eager to justify it at the earliest moment.

"No time like the present," said I, picking up the gun and filling my pocket with cartridges. "Besides, we have a surprise to show you."

So we started out in the gathering darkness, I going first, as became the bearer of the gun; Jean at my heels; Jack and Marjorie a little in the rear. Down the steep edge of the gully we worked, and then along by the marge of the brown snow-water which rippled happily over beds of bending gra.s.s. It was quite dark in the little valley, and I had to hold Jean's hand to guard against the possibility of her slipping into the stream.

At a short distance we came to the spot where the valley broadened out and the little grove of trees had found its place of shelter from Chinook winds in winter and prairie fires in spring and fall. The air was full of the sweet scent of bursting willow buds and balm-o'-Gilead, and as we picked our steps as noiselessly as we could the slightly stirring limbs above us wrought their dark tracery against the blue and starry heaven.

"Oh, Frank! You never told me of this! How wonderful!"

"Wait until you see the pond," I whispered, as one who keeps the best to the last. "We did not select Fourteen and Twenty-two without a reason."

There was no path between the slim, close-growing trunks of poplar and balm, and we had to make progress as best we could. . . . Jack and Marjorie had fallen considerably behind.

Then, suddenly, the still waters of the pond burst upon our view, and at the same moment, as though the very heavens conspired to set the stage to the best advantage, a blood-red moon sent its first pinion of light sweeping down from the north-east and splashing burnt-orange and ochre across the slightly ruffled surface of the pond. We stood for a time as mortals transfixed, watching the great red globe drawing swiftly into the blue above, until its light painted Jean's face and mine. In the moonlight her fine features were wonderful, irresistible . . . . .

We were brought to earth by a flutter and splashing in the water. Two ducks, sweeping swiftly down out of the darkness, alighted not a dozen yards in front of us, and directly in the line of light. I drew my gun to my shoulder, and even as I did so their murmured grumblings, sibilant almost as the lisp of water on a gravelly sh.o.r.e, came to our ears, and they began to swim slowly about in graceful little circles. There was even a motion about the head of the male, as he brought it close to that of his mate, that was surely nothing short of a caress.

"Don't, Frank, don't; you mustn't!" Jean exclaimed suddenly.

Her arm darted out in front of me, seized the barrel of the gun and drew it swiftly to one side. I had been taking a most deliberate aim, to justify the high opinion already referred to, but at Jean's sudden interference I pressed the trigger, or, as I always claimed, it pulled itself against my finger, and went off. There was a loud report, and the sound of shot harmlessly lashing the water.

"Did you get him--did you get him?" shouted Marjorie and Jack, rushing down upon us.

"No, I didn't get him," I explained. "I didn't even try to get him. I just wanted to see how far the gun would carry."

"I wouldn't let him," said Jean. "It would have been a--just a horrible thing to shoot one of those poor creatures, the very first night we were here! How beautiful they were, and how--how loving!" She said the last word with a bashful, falling inflection that was wonderful to hear.

"It's much more horrible to have no wild duck--ducklet I mean--for to-morrow's dinner," said Jack.

"And those cartridges cost ever so much; what is it?--three or four cents each," Marjorie remonstrated. "Well, let's go back."

We returned to our camp and started to make ready for the night. But Jack, true to his promise, gathered up his blankets, waded the cold stream, and slept under the stars of Twenty-two. We had begun our "period of residence."

CHAPTER VII.

The morning was another gorgeous burst of sunshine. There had been an early dew, and as the sunlight swept along the prairies every blade of gra.s.s was hung with diamonds. When I was able to shed my blankets--I have always had a way of getting into intricate entanglements with the bed clothes--I filled my lungs with the fresh oxygen, thumped my chest with my fists, and, looking out over the sparkling prairie, breathed a sort of prayer of possession--"It's mine; it's mine!" Then I found my soap and towel and hustled down to the stream for my morning wash.

The girls, too, were early about. As I came up from the stream I met Jean going down, wearing a blanket, Indian fashion, for lack of a bathrobe. A week on a dusty trail had made the presence of snow water, as deep as one wanted it, a peculiar luxury.

"Gee, but it's good to be alive!" she exclaimed, swinging her arms, to the peril of her costume. "Does one always feel like this on the prairies?"

"Always mildly intoxicated, so Jake says, but those are not his words.

That's why Westerners are more optimistic--and more reckless--than Easterners. Always an atmosphere jag under their belts."

"Here's to Jake," she cried. "Have one with me!" as she took a great chestful of fresh air. "See you at breakfast--if I'm sober enough!"

That day, and those that followed, were busy, busy days. The oxen were tired and footsore with their long journey, and we decided to let them rest, but Jack and I took no holiday. I was determined that on the very first day I would plant some crop on my farm, so I started at once to spade up land for a garden. Have you ever turned the first sod on a quarter section with a spade, and then stopped and looked over the vast expanse before you? It made me humble, but not discouraged. There is something almost sacramental in turning over the fresh sod of the prairies--sod which no plow, no human hand, has ever turned before. If you have a mind for serious thinking it brings you very close to your Creator. Perhaps that is why I preferred to dig that first little plot with a spade instead of making use of Buck and Bright on the plow. Buck and Bright were not conducive to piety.

After all, it is remarkable how much prairie sod one can turn over in a day with a spade--sod with no stones nor tough, brushy roots to interrupt progress, but only the gentle sc.r.a.ping of steel against loam and the ripping of little gra.s.sy tendons to mark your time as, foot by foot, you throw the trenches of civilization one furrow farther west. By mid-afternoon I had spaded quite a sizable garden plot. Then I broke the clods as best I could and planted a few rows of potatoes. The following day I continued my digging, and that evening, with a.s.sistance from Jean and Marjorie, planted onions, carrots, beets, lettuce and radish.

We agreed that by the third day the oxen should be ready for the road again, and Jack was away soon after sunrise of the bright spring morning. He took the trail for the railway station some thirty miles to the south, and the sound of his wagon rumbling along over the soft earth came floating back on the breeze as a sort of accompaniment to the bellicose voice which Jack affected when he was ox-driving. The forenoon was well gone before the slow-moving speck faded out of sight on the skyline.

My next effort was the digging of a cellar. The location of our shack had to be decided upon, and for this I called Marjorie and Jean into council. We agreed that it should be close to one brow of the ravine, and that Jack should build his close to the other, so that each would command an unbroken view of his neighbour. Perhaps even then we had some premonition of the spectre of Loneliness creeping down upon us through the night-mists of the summer or the snow-wraiths of the blizzard, and already we were planning our lines of defence.

"How many rooms will there be?" asked Jean. "Let me see--reception-room, living-room, parlor, dining-room--you must at least have that."

"We shall," I said, "and one door will lead into them all. A room is anything you call it. We can change the name as we change the purpose.

One moment it is kitchen, the next, living-room, and so on."

"Draw a plan of it," said Marjorie, turning up the planed side of a h.o.a.rd. So I sat down and drew a plan, while the girls watched over my shoulders with as much intentness as though I were an architect designing a palace.

"The house will be one storey," I explained, "and long, and narrow, because that is the simplest as well as the cheapest way to build it, and we are to be our own carpenters. The walls will be of shiplap, covered with matched siding, with tarpaper between. The roof will be of two thicknesses of boards, bent to a gentle oval over a stout ridge-pole, and again with tarpaper between. You have no idea how much the West owes to tarpaper. Wherever the new settler goes, goes tarpaper.

I would almost say," I continued, warming up to my subject, "that if a flag is ever needed for these western prairies it should be a banner of tarpaper, nailed between two laths. 'O say, does the tarpaper banner still wave?'--you see, it has possibilities."

"But isn't it awfully smelly stuff?" said Jean, who had a strain of delicacy in her that at times conflicted with her surroundings.

"Ah, that is one of its chief virtues. You may not know yet, but you will learn--at least, so Jake a.s.sured me--that population is not nearly so scarce on the prairies as it seems. He says that the inmates of one of these little bachelor shacks in many cases number literally millions.

Millions. Well--they don't like tarpaper. Blessed be tarpaper!

"The house is to be fourteen feet wide, so that sixteen-foot boards will bend just the right length for the roof. The main room--which is to be all the rooms you mentioned, Jean, and the kitchen as well--will be in the centre of the building. It will be fourteen feet square--like that.

At the south end of the building, where the sun will shine in spring and flowers will grow up the wall, will be a room eight by fourteen--Marjorie's. At the north end, where the winter winds will hit us first, will be a room eight by fourteen--Frank's. That's all."

"And the windows?" said Marjorie.

"A window in the south for you, a window in the north for me, a window in the west for the living-room, and a door in the east for us all."

"How simple--and delightful!" Jean trilled. "And is Jack's house--our house--to be the same?"

"That is the intention. Of course, these plans are subject to approval or rejection by the feminine vote, but Jack and I talked it over with Jake, and we figured this was the best we could afford, and the most we could get for the money."

Marjorie seemed to be studying deeply. "Then your window will look across the valley into Jean's," she said suddenly.

Now this was something which I had planned with, it seemed to me, consummate cleverness. I had thought that on dark nights and stormy nights, when the wind was whining dolefully about the gables, my light in my window might be--well, Jean might like to see it there. Still, it was surely right that Jean should occupy a south room, the same as Marjorie. I was provoked at Marjorie for--for finding me out.

"Why, Marjorie, I am surprised," I began, as severely as I could, but Jean cut me short. "I move the adoption of the plan," she said.