Isak had the ten Daler for that year—­it was the money he had got for his loads of wood, and for the cheeses Inger had laid by.  He paid the amount, and had still a small sum left.

“It’s a lucky thing for you the Department didn’t get to hear about your wife,” said the Lensmand.  “Or they might have sold to some one else.”

“Ay,” said Isak.  He asked about Inger.  “Is it true that she’s gone away for eight years?”

“That is so.  And can’t be altered—­the law must take its course.  As a matter of fact, the sentence is extraordinarily light.  There’s one thing you must do now—­that is, to set up clear boundaries between your land and the State’s.  A straight, direct line, following the marks I set up on the spot, and entered in my register at the time.  The timber cleared from the boundary line becomes your property.  I will come up some time and have a look at what you have done.”

Isak trudged back to his home.

Chapter VIII

Time flies?  Ay, when a man is growing old.  Isak was not old, he had not lost his vigour; the years seemed long to him.  He worked on his land, and let his iron beard grow as it would.

Now and again the monotony of the wilderness was broken by the sight of a passing Lapp, or by something happening to one of the animals on the place, then all would be as before.  Once there came a number of men at once; they rested at Sellanraa, and had some food and a dish of milk; they asked Isak and Oline about the path across the hills; they were marking out the telegraph line, they said.  And once came Geissler—­Geissler himself, and no other.  There he came, free and easy as ever, walking up from the village, two men with him, carrying mining tools, pick and spade.

Oh, that Geissler!  Unchanged, the same as ever; meeting and greeting as if nothing had happened, talked to the children, went into the house and came out again, looked over the ground, opened the doors of cowshed and hayloft and looked in.  “Excellent!” said he.  “Isak, have you still got those bits of stone?”

“Bits of stone?” said Isak, wondering.

“Little heavy lumps of stone I saw the boy playing with when I was here once before.”

The stones were out in the larder, serving as weights for so many mouse-traps; Isak brought them in.  Geissler and the two men examined them, talking together, tapped them here and there, weighed them in the hand.  “Copper,” they said.

“Could you go up with us and show where you found them?” asked Geissler.

They all went up together; it was not far to the place where Isak had found the stones, but they stayed up in the hills for a couple of days, looking for veins of metal, and firing charges here and there.  They came down to Sellanraa with two bags filled with heavy lumps of stone.

Isak had meanwhile had a talk with Geissler, and told him everything as to his own position:  about the purchase of the land, which had come to a hundred Daler instead of fifty.