him," said Jack.

"You see," said Rufe, "these claims through here were all taken up
before the government survey. Most of the settlers were decent men; and
they knew that when the survey came to be made, there would be trouble
about the boundaries, if they didn't take measures beforehand to prevent
it. So they formed a society to protect each other against squatters and
claim-jumpers, and particularly to settle disputed boundary questions
between themselves. They all signed a paper, agreeing to 'deed and
redeed,'--that is, if your land adjoined mine, and the government survey
didn't correspond with our lines, but gave you, for instance, a part of
the land I had improved, then you agreed to redeed that part to me, for
the government price; just as I agreed to redeed to my neighbors what
the survey might give me of their claims."

"I understand," said Jack.

"Well, father and almost everybody in the county joined the society; but
there were some who didn't. Peakslow was one."

"What were his objections?"

"He couldn't give any good ones. All he would say was, 'I'll see; I'll
think about it.' He was just waiting to see if there was any advantage
to be gained over his neighbors by _not_ joining with them. Finally, the
survey came through; and the men run what they called a 'random line,'
which everybody thought, at first, was the true line. According to that,
the survey would have given us a big strip of Peakslow's farm, including
his house and barn. That frightened him. He came over, and shook his
fist in father's face, and threatened I don't know what, if he took the
land.

"'You really think I ought to redeed to you all your side of our old
line?' says father.

"'Of course I do!' says Peakslow. 'It's mine; you never claimed it; and
I'll shoot the fust man who sets foot on 't, to take it away from me.'

"'Then,' says father, 'why don't you join the society, and sign the
agreement to redeed, with the rest of us? That will save trouble.'

"So Peakslow rushed off in a fearful hurry, and put his name to the
paper. Then--what do you think? The surveyors, in a few days, run the
correct line, and that gave Peakslow a strip of _our_ farm."

"Capital!" laughed Jack.

"It wasn't capital for us! He was then, if you will believe it, more
excited than when the boot seemed to be on the other leg. He vowed that
the random line was a mere pretence to get him to sign the agreement;
that it was all a fraud, which he never wo