for him, but Geissler must have gone
some distance, it seemed, for he gave no answer when they shouted. The
gentlemen looked at their watches, and were plainly annoyed at first,
and said: "We're not going to fool about here waiting like this. If
Geissler wants to sell, he must be on the spot." Oh, but they changed
their tone in a little while; showed no annoyance after a while, but
even began to find something amusing in it all, to jest about it. Here
were they in a desperate case; they would have to lie out there in
the desolate hills all night. And get lost and starve to death in the
wilds, and leave their bones to bleach undiscovered by their mourning
kin--ay, they made a great jest of it all.

At last Geissler came. Had been looking round a bit--just come from
the cattle enclosure. "Looks as if that'll be too small for you soon,"
said he to Isak. "How many head have you got up there now altogether?"
Ay, he could talk like that, with those fine gentlemen standing there
watch in hand. Curiously red in the face was Geissler, as if he had
been drinking. "Puh!" said he. "I'm all hot, walking."

"We half expected you would be here when we came," said one of the
gentlemen.

"I had no word of your wanting to see me at all," answered Geissler,
"otherwise I might have been here on the spot."

Well, and what about the business now? Was Geissler prepared to accept
a reasonable offer today? It wasn't every day he had a chance of
fifteen or twenty thousand--what? Unless, of course.... If the money
were nothing to him, why, then....

This last suggestion was not to Geissler's taste at all; he was
offended. A nice way to talk! Well, they would not have said it,
perhaps, if they had not been annoyed at first; and Geissler, no
doubt, would hardly have turned suddenly pale at their words if he had
not been out somewhere by himself and got red. As it was, he paled,
and answered coldly:

"I don't wish to make any suggestion as to what you, gentlemen, may be
in a position to pay--but I know what I am willing to accept and what
not. I've no use for more child's prattle about the mine. My price is
the same as yesterday."

"A quarter of a million _Kroner_?"

"Yes."

The gentlemen mounted their horses." Look here," said one, "we'll go
this far, and say twenty-five thousand."

"You're still inclined to joke, I see," said Geissler. "But I'll make
_you_ an offer in sober earnest: would you care to sell your bit of a
mine up there?