ks interested him less than at first--and when he saw that neither
field nor meadow had turned green in the course of the night, he lost
heart, never thinking of how the water flowed, and flowed all the
time, and spread out farther and farther over the ground. He backed
down a little, and said now: "It may take time--you won't see any
change perhaps before tomorrow again. But it'll be all right, never
fear."

Later in the day Brede Olsen came lounging in; he had brought some
samples of rock he wanted Geissler to see. "And something out of the
common, this time, to my mind," said Brede.

Geissler would not look at the things. "That the way you manage a
farm," he asked scornfully, "pottering about up in the hills looking
for a fortune?"

Brede apparently did not fancy being taken to task now by his former
chief; he answered sharply, without any form of respect, treating the
ex-Lensmand as an equal: "If you think I care what you say ..."

"You've no more sense than you had before," said Geissler. "Fooling
away your time."

"What about yourself?" said Brede. "What about you, I'd like to know?
You've got a mine of your own up here, and what have you done with it?
Huh! Lies there doing nothing. Ay, you're the sort to have a mine,
aren't you? He he!"

"Get out of this," said Geissler. And Brede did not stay long, but
shouldered his load of samples and went down to his own _menage_,
without saying good-bye.

Geissler sat down and began to look over some papers with a thoughtful
air. He seemed to have caught a touch of the fever himself, and wanted
now to look over that business of the copper mine, the contract, the
analyses. It was fine ore, almost pure copper; he must do something
with it, and not let everything slide.

"What I really came up for was to get the whole thing settled," he
said to Isak. "I've been thinking of making a start here, and that
very soon. Get a lot of men to work, and run the thing properly. What
do you think?"

Isak felt sorry for the man, and would not say anything against it.

"It's a matter that concerns you as well, you know. There'll be a lot
of bother, of course; a lot of men about the place, and a bit rowdy at
times, perhaps. And blasting up in the hills--I don't know how you'll
like that. On the other hand, there'll be more life in the district
where we begin, and you'll have a good market close at hand for farm
produce and that sort of thing. Fix your own price, too."

"Ay," sai