"I see," said the other thoughtfully. "Wonder where that dappled gray mare he owns is grazing. I'd like to take a look at 'er."

"I think you will see her grazing in the pasture," said Baptiste curiously.

"How--what kind of animal is it?"

"Why, she's a hum-dinger," returned Baptiste more curiously. His curiosity aroused the other, who, looking at him said:

"Well, you see the old man is to be sold out--foreclosed, and I thought I'd take a look at his stuff and if I thought there was anything in it, I might save the old scout the humiliation by buying it."

"T' hell you say!" exclaimed Baptiste.

"Oh, yes. Hadn't you heard about it?"

"This is my first knowledge of it."

"Yes, the sheriff's coming to get the stuff Tuesday--that is, providing the old man don't come across with a couple of hundred before that time, and it is not likely he can, I don't think."

"Well, well!" Baptiste exclaimed, thinking of the worry he had observed in the faces of Agnes and her father, and at last beginning to understand.'

"Yes, it's rather bad, that. But this follows the old gent from where he comes, and he is not known here, so I guess I'll mosey along and take a look at the stuff--just a glance at it from the road, you understand.

And if things look good, I'll drop by 'n see him later." Whereupon they went their way cheerfully, while Baptiste resumed his, thoughtfully.

He returned to his house by a roundabout way, and, later, hitching a team to a light buggy, he drove into the town where Jack traded and looked up the banker.

"Say, Brookings," he opened, "what kind of deal is the old Scotchman up against out there? You understand."

"Oh, yes!" exclaimed the cashier. "The old man out there on the Watson homestead! Well, it seems like the old fellow stands a good chance of being sold out." He then explained to Baptiste regarding the note and the circumstances.

"That don't look just right to me," muttered Baptiste when he had heard the circumstances.

"Well, now, it _isn't_ right. But what can be done?"

"Can't you loan the old man the money?"

"I could; but I don't like letting credit to strangers and renters. If he could get a good man on his note I'd fix it out for him, since we've just received quite a sum for deposit."

"Well, if I should go it," said Baptiste suggestively. The other looked quickly up.

"Why, you! Gee, I'd take care of him for ten times the amount if you'd put your 'John Henry' on the note."

"Well, I'll be in town early in the morning," said Baptiste, turning to drive away.

"All right, Jean. Sure! I'll look for you."

The day was bright and lovely for driving, and Baptiste drove to his homestead, and from there to the Reynolds' where he had dinner and visited late. The next morning he went to the town, and when Jack Stewart, exhausted by the strain of worry under which he was laboring, came into town, having decided to try and sell the mare and one of the other horses, thereby leaving him only one with which to complete the cultivating of his corn and the reaping of his crops, he was called into the bank.

"Now if you'll just sign this, Mr. Stewart," said Brookings, "you can have until December first on that stuff."

"You mean the note!" the old man exclaimed, afraid to believe that he had heard aright.

"Yes, the note that is about to be foreclosed. You've been granted an extension." Jack Stewart was too overcome to attempt to comment. The realization that he was to be allowed to go on and not be sold out or be forced to dispose of his little stock at such a critical time, was too much for words. He caught up the pen, steadied his nerves, and wrote his name, not observing that the banker held a blotter over the lower line of the note. Jean Baptiste had cautioned him to do this. In view of the circumstances he had not wished Stewart or Agnes to know that he had gone on the note.

Jack Stewart hurried home in a fever of excitement. He could not get there fast enough. He thought of Agnes, he did not wish her to have a minute more grief than what she had endured. He reached home and stumbled into the house, and to Agnes he said:

"Oh, girl, girl, girl! They have extended the note! The sheriff is not coming! We are saved, saved, saved!" He was too overcome with emotion and joy then to proceed. He sank into a chair, while Agnes, carried away with excitement over the news, caressed him; said words of love and care until both had been exhausted by their own emotions. When they at last became calm, she turned to her father who now walked the floor in great joy.

"How did they come to extend the note, father?"

"Why--why, dear, that had never occurred to me! I became so excited when they told me that I had been granted an extension, I can only recall that I signed the note and almost ran out of the bank. The man had to call me back to give me my old note and mortgage. I don't know why they granted the extension." He stood holding his chin now and looking down at the floor as if trying to understand after all how it happened. Then his eyes opened suddenly wide. "Why, and, do you know, now, since I come to think of it, they did not take a new mortgage on the stock."

"I don't believe that the administrator had anything to do with it," she said after a time. "I know that man. He would sell his mother out into the streets. Now I wonder who has influenced the bank into giving us this time...."

"Bless me, dear lord. But right now I am too tickled to try to think who. To be saved is enough all at once. Later, I shall try to figure out who has been my benefactor." And with this he left the house and went to walk with his joy in the fields where George was plowing corn, unconscious of the fact that the team he was driving was to have been seized on the morrow and sold for debt.

"Now I wonder _who_ saved papa," Agnes said to herself, taking a seat by the window and gazing abstractedly out into the road. She employed her wits to estimate what had brought it about, and as she sat there, Jean Baptiste came driving down the road. He had not been there since breakfast the morning before. He had taken his morning's meal at the restaurant in the town. As he drove down the slope that began above the house wherein she sat, his dark face was lighted with a peaceful smile.

He drove leisurely along, concerned with the bright prospects of his four hundred acres of crop. He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he passed on by without seeing Agnes at the window; without even looking toward the house.

Upon seeing him Agnes had for the moment forgotten what she was thinking about. But when he had passed by, she was suddenly struck with an inspiration. She jumped quickly to her feet: She raised her hands to her breast and held them there as if to still a great excitement, as she cried:

"Jean! Jean, Jean Baptiste! It was you, you, who did it. It was you who saved my father, saved me; saved us all! Oh, my Jean!"

She was overcome then with a great emotion. She sank slowly upon a chair. And as she did so sobs broke from her lips and she wept long and silently.

CHAPTER XVI

BILL PRESCOTT PROPOSES

Summertime over the prairie country; summertime when the rainfall has been abundant, is a time of happiness to all settlers in a new land. And such a summer it was in the land of our story. God had been unusually kind to the settlers; he had blessed them with abundant moisture; with sunshine, not too warm and not too cold. The railroad was under course of construction and would be completed far enough west for the settlers from the most remote part--from the farthest corner of the reservation to journey with their grain or hogs, chickens or cattle to it and return to home the same day. And now the fields which had been seeded to winter wheat had turned to gold. Only a few thousand acres had been sowed over the county, and of this amount one hundred thirty acres grew on the homestead of Jean Baptiste. The season for its growth had been ideal, and the prospects for a bumper yield was the best. Ripe now, and ready to cut, the air was filled with its aroma.

He had brought a new self-binder from Gregory which now stood in the yard ready for action, its various colors green, red, blue and white, resplendent in the sunlight.

So now we see Jean Baptiste the cheerful, Jean Baptiste the hopeful, with hopes in a measure about realized; Jean Baptiste the Ethiopian in a country where he alone was black. He whistles at times, he sings, he is merry, cheery and gay.

But while Jean Baptiste was happy, cheerful and gay, there was in him what has been, what always will be that which makes us appreciate the courage that is in some men.

Bill Prescott, from the first day he had seen Agnes, had considered a match between her and himself a suggestive proposition. Bill Prescott might be referred to as a "feature." He was not so fortunate as to have been born handsome, and could not be called attractive. He had not, moreover, improved the situation by cultivation of wit, of art or pride.

The West had meant no more to him than had the East, the South--or the West Indies, for that matter. Because Bill had no homestead, no deeded land, and had not tried to get any. His wealth consisted of a few horses, among which, an old, worn out, bought-on-credit-stallion, was his pride.

Of this stallion Bill talked. He told of his pedigree, tracing him back almost to the Ark. He was fond of tobacco, was Bill Prescott; he chewed, apparently, all the time. He had lost his front teeth; wore his thin hair long, and upon his small head a hat, oiled to the point where its age was a matter for conjecture. He had apparently appreciated that the wind blew outrageously over those parts at times, and, therefore, had hung a leather string to his hat which he pulled down over the back of his head to hold his hat in place. This succeeded in frumpling the long, thin hair and kept it in a dishevelled condition.

Now Bill had been a frequent caller at the Stewarts' home since they had come West. He did not always take the trouble to remove his hat when inside. That he was fond of Agnes was apparent, and smiled always upon seeing her, and at such times showed where his front teeth had been but where tobacco more frequently now was, with lazy delight.

He called this day wearing a clean, patched jumper over his cotton shirt. When once inside, sprawling his legs before him, and while Jack Stewart worked in the sun outside, repairing harness, he said to Agnes: