“What! a homestead, here, Wayland?  D’ y’r homesteaders farm on th’ perpendicular, or the level; an’ what will they grow on these rocks?”

The Ranger had reined in his pony and was running his glance up the precipice face for the posts marking the bounds.

“What do they grow?  Water-power, I guess!  I’m looking for the lines.  The fellow has his posts in for a wire fence; he couldn’t get a hundred and sixty acres on the level; and the posts run up the face, by George he’s blanketed a cool square mile, mostly on the up and down.”

“Your territory, Wayland?”

The Ranger had turned looking back up the Pass.

“The trail marks the lower bounds of the N. F., but this fellow’s line runs clear up above the trail.  If you bunch this fellow’s claim with the Sheriff’s, they’ve got forty miles of the Pass corked up:  no way to bring the timber above down but by the River; and they’ve got the River; and if possession is nine points in the law, they’ve got our Forest road besides.  We’ll have to give that fellow warning and if he doesn’t move, break his fence down.”

“Gutt dae.”  A big burly Swede came forward from the miner’s tent.

“Are you one of the new settlers?” asked Wayland.

“Yaw!  A gott pig—­varm!  Tra—­vor—­years mak’ pig money liffin’ y’ere!  Mae voman, Ae send her vork citie; Ae build mae house y’re!”

“All these children yours?”

“Yaw!” The man smiled bigly, incredulous that any one could doubt.

“Have you filed for a homestead for each of them?”

“Yaw!” The man smiled more pleased than ever, indicating the numerous olive branches by a wave of his hand.  “Gott gutt pig varm!  Pat, Pat Prydges . . . he sae he pay mae voman, one-huntred; mae, two huntred; mae chil’en . . .” he smiled again, bigly and blandly, “mabbee, five, ten.  Yaw—?”

“One hundred and sixty acres each:  twelve hundred acres for the kids, not one of age, a quarter section to the man!” Then turning back from Matthews to the foreign settler.

“You’ve got a thundering big farm?”

“Yaw!  Ae mak’ a pig yob of itt!”

“By George, I should think you do make a big job of it!  This is the way those two-thousand acres of coal lands were swiped!  Are you the fellow I gave a permit to cut timber up on the Ridge?  What did you change your homestead for?”

The Swede stood smiling showing all his white teeth and wrinkling his nose and absorbing the meaning of the Ranger’s questions into his skull.

“Pat did utt,” he said.

“Who?  Oh, Bat!” He looked at Matthews.  “Do you mind riding back over the Pass trail; so we can go to the Ridge by the Gully, the way the outlaws escaped?  I want to see where this fellow’s upper lines run.”

They rode back in silence almost all the way, coming up to the top shoulder of the precipice where the outlaws had come tumbling down on Matthews’ hiding place a few weeks before.  Wayland followed the lines of the newly planted posts, where the wire had not yet been strung.