"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.