d years ago I was offered the section that town now stands on,
for a team and a two weeks' grubstake for a man and his wife. They
wanted to get out, and they couldn't. I gave 'em the grub, and told 'em
it was worth the price of it to me not to own the land. Yes, sir--and I
meant it. I was that shortsighted. So were others. We thought the
country would never fill up, just as we thought the buffalo would never
be killed out, and we kept on drifting. When I woke up, the cheap lands
were about gone. And then, ten years late, I made my grab for a piece
of what was left. I hiked for this country that I knew ahead of
everybody, and I picked out the best bunch of stuff there was in it,
and I sat down to wait for the rush to catch up to me. Now it's caught
me and the rest of us who came in early. And now you people tell me
I've got to move off my reservation, and go away somewhere and begin
again. I won't do it--I tell you I won't! And, what's more, don't you
crowd me too hard--me and the rest of the boys--or there'll be hell
a-popping right here. Now, you mind what I'm telling you."

He spoke deliberately, evenly, without raising his voice. His manner,
even more than his words, expressed fixed determination. Farwell lifted
his eyebrows, and puckered his lips in a silent whistle. His diplomacy
was turning out badly, and he repressed an inclination to retort.

"Well, I'm sorry," he said. "I hoped we could fix this up. Think it
over, anyway."

"I've done my thinking."

"But, man, you're on the wrong side of the fence, and you know it. The
railway is too strong for you. What's the sense of bucking it?"

"Not much, maybe. I guess you mean well, and I take it friendly, but
this ain't a question of sense."

"Of what, then?"

"Of a man's right to keep what he's worked for, and to live on the land
he owns." McCrae replied. "That's the way I look at it."

It was the old question once more--older than the country, older than
the _Mayflower_, older than the Great Charter wrested from John the
King----the eternal battle between the common man and class or
privilege. Here, in the new country, in place of the divine right of
kings and the hereditary power of nobles, was substituted the might of
money, the power of the corporate body, itself a creation of law,
overriding the power which created it.

"Well, it's your funeral," said Farwell. "I can't help my job, just
remember that. And of course I've got to earn my pay."

"Sure," sa