l responded. "But we're neighbors, all right. Did you
notice a cabin about half a mile west of here? That's our place--when
we're at home."

"So?" The word escaped with the peculiar rising inflection of the
Teuton. "I haf saw dot cabin veil ve come here. But I dink it vass
abandon. Und I pick dis place mitout hope off a neighbor. Id iss goot
lant. Veil, let us to der house go. Id vill rest der mule--und
Gretchen, der cow. Hah!"

He rolled a blue eye on his incongruous team, and grinned widely.

"Come," he invited; "mine vife vill be glat."

They found her a matron of thirty-odd; fresh-cheeked, round-faced like
her husband, typically German, without his accent of the Fatherland.
Hazel at once appropriated the baby. It lay peacefully in her arms,
staring wide-eyed, making soft, gurgly sounds.

"The little dear!" Hazel murmured.

"Lauer, our name iss," the man said casually, when they were seated.

"Wagstaff, mine is," Bill completed the informal introduction.

"So?" Lauer responded. "Id hass a German sount, dot name, yes."

"Four or five generations back," Bill answered. "I guess I'm as
American as they make 'em."

"I am from Bavaria," Lauer told him. "Vill you shmoke? I light mine
bibe--mit your vife's permission."

"Yes," he continued, stuffing the bowl of his pipe with a stubby
forefinger, "I am from Bavaria. Dere I vass upon a farm brought oop.
I serf in der army my dime. Den Ameriga. Dere I marry my vife, who is
born in Milvaukee. I vork in der big brreweries. Afder dot I learn to
be a carpenter. Now I am a kink, mit a castle all mine own, I am no
more a vage slafe."

He laughed at his own conceit, a great, roaring bellow that filled the
room.

"You're on the right track," Bill nodded. "It's a pity more people
don't take the same notion. What do you think of this country, anyway?"

"It iss goot," Lauer answered briefly, and with unhesitating certainty.
"It iss goot. Vor der boor man it iss--it iss salfation. Mit fife
huntret tollars und hiss two hants he can himself a home make--und a
lifing be sure off."

Beside Hazel Lauer's wife absently caressed the blond head of her
four-year-old daughter.

"No, I don't think I'll ever get lonesome," she said. "I'm too glad to
be here. And I've got lots of work and my babies. Of course, it's
natural I'd miss a woman friend running in now and then to chat. But a
person can't have it all. And I'd do anything to have a roof of our