they just as well go up and look
at the places at once? It wasn't far. Samples--oh, sacks of them,
whole packing-cases full. No, he had not brought them with him, they
were at home--he could run down and fetch them. But it would be
quicker just to run up into the hills and fetch some more, if they
would only wait.

The men shook their heads and went on their way.

Brede looked after them with an injured air. If he had felt a glimmer
of hope for the moment, it was gone now; fate was against him, nothing
ever went right. Well for Brede that he was not easily cast down; he
looked after the men as they rode away, and said at last: "Wish you a
pleasant journey!" And that was all.

But now he was humble again in his manner towards Geissler, his former
chief, and no longer treated him as an equal, but used forms of
respect. Geissler had taken out his pocket-book on some pretext or
other, and any one could see that it was stuffed full of notes.

"If only Lensmand could help me a bit," said Brede.

"Go back home and work your land properly," said Geissler, and helped
him not a bit.

"I might easily have brought up a whole barrow-load of samples, but
wouldn't it have been easier to go up and look at the place itself
while they were here?"

Geissler took no notice of him, and turned to Isak: "Did you see what
I did with that document? It was a most important thing--a matter
of several thousand _Kroner_. Oh, here it is, in among a bundle of
notes."

"Who were those people?" asked Brede. "Just out for a ride, or what?"

Geissler had been having an anxious time, no doubt, and now he cooled
down. But he had still something of life and eagerness in him, enough
to do a little more; he went up into the hills with Sivert, and took a
big sheet of paper with him, and drew a map of the ground south of the
lake--Heaven knows what he had in mind. When he came down to the farm
some hours later, Brede was still there, but Geissler took no notice
of his questions; Geissler was tired, and waved him aside.

He slept like a stone till next morning early, then he rose with the
sun, and was himself again. "Sellanraa," said he, standing outside and
looking all round.

"All that money," said Isak; "does it mean I'm to have it all?"

"All?" said Geissler. "Heavens, man, can't you see it ought to have
been ever so much more? And it was my business really to pay you,
according to our contract; but you saw how things were--it was the
only wa