pity that we should sit
here like dumb beasts and know nothing of it all. I've thought of
going up one day myself to have a look."

"But do you know anything about metals and such-like?" asked Isak.

"Why, I know a bit. And I've asked one or two others. Anyhow, I'll
have to find something; I can't live and keep us all here on this bit
of a farm. It's sheer impossible. 'Twas another matter with you that's
got all that timber and good soil below. 'Tis naught but moorland
here."

"Moorland's good soil enough," said Isak shortly. "I've the same
myself."

"But there's no draining it," said Brede.... "It can't be done."

But it could be done. Coming down the road that day Isak noticed other
clearings; two of them were lower down, nearer the village, but there
was one far up above, between Breidablik and Sellanraa--ay, men were
beginning to work on the land now; in the old days when Isak first
came up, it had lain waste all of it. And these three new settlers
were folks from another district; men with some sense in their heads,
by the look of things. They didn't begin by borrowing money to build
a house; no, they came up one year and did their spade work and went
away again; vanished as if they were dead. That was the proper way;
ditching first, then plough and sow. Axel Stroem was nearest to Isak's
land now, his next-door neighbour. A clever fellow, unmarried, he came
from Helgeland. He had borrowed Isak's new harrow to break up his
soil, and not till the second year had he set up a hayshed and a turf
hut for himself and a couple of animals. He had called his place
Maaneland, because it looked nice in the moonlight. He had no
womenfolk himself, and found it difficult to get help in the summer,
lying so far out, but he managed things the right way, no doubt about
that. Not as Brede Olsen did, building a house first, and then coming
up with a big family and little ones and all, with neither soil nor
stock to feed them. What did Brede Olsen know of draining moorland and
breaking new soil?

He knew how to waste his time idling, did Brede. He came by Sellanraa
one day, going up to the hills--simply to look for precious metals. He
came back the same evening; had not found anything definite, he said,
but certain signs--and he nodded. He would come up again soon, and go
over the hills thoroughly, over towards Sweden.

And sure enough, Brede came up again. He had taken a fancy to the
work, no doubt; but he called it telegrap