“I don’t know. People talk a lot. Around here the women and children all have to work. I saw her on the hay-stack last year. I’ve seen lots of others. Soon after, there was a child, born dead. She’s never been up again.”

“But why not send for a doctor?”

“Nobody here sends for the doctor. He’d charge twenty-five or thirty dollars to come …”

THE WEEK WENT BY. On Sunday Niels and Nelson were idle.

In the afternoon many people called at the farm in the bush, the women to look in on Mrs. Amundsen; the men, to gossip in the kitchen … Where did they all come from in this wilderness?

Some of the callers were Germans, some Swedes and Icelanders, two or three English or Canadian.

The men wore sheep-skins, big boots, and flannelette shirts; most of the women, dark, long skirts, shawls over their shoulders, and white or light-coloured head-kerchiefs. Many of them had babies along which they nursed without restraint.

Nelson knew them all; but it struck Niels that both he and his friend were outside of things. Many spoke German which Amundsen seemed to understand though he spoke it only in a broken way. Apart from the Canadians, one single couple—elderly Swedes—used English exclusively. To Niels it seemed that they were handling it with remarkable fluency. Their name was Lund.

Mr. Lund was between fifty-five and sixty years old: a man who once must have been of powerful build; but he seemed to be nearly blind; and as he walked about, he groped his way as if all his members were disjointed. When he sat down, he either reclined or bent forward, resting his elbows on table or knees. The hair on the huge dome of his head was scanty, grey, straggling; a short, grey beard covered his chin.

His wife was by ten years his junior: a big, fleshy woman of florid features who must have been attractive in the past. She was lively, in a coarse, good-humoured way, not without wit; and she treated her husband with a sort of contemptuous indulgence.

Both man and wife were shabby; though Mrs. Lund wore a glaring waist which would have drawn attention in a city and seemed entirely out of place where she was. Her black hair might have been a beauty if it had been kept tidy.

These were the people for whom Niels and Nelson were to dig the second well.

To Niels it was a foreign crowd. He had no contact with them. He felt lonesome, forlorn …

Then Mrs. Lund ran across him.

“So you have only just come into the country, Mr. Lindstedt?” she asked with the air of a lady of the world, speaking Swedish. “And what do you mean to do?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Make some money and take up a homestead, I suppose …”

“Mr. Lindstedt,” she said, leaning over from her seat on a big, old-country trunk, “why don’t you buy?”

“Buy?” His tone was vacant surprise.

“Sure. This isn’t the old country, you know. Lots of people in this country buy without a cent of money.