"And you, yourself, will settle?"
"Yes; I will build my shanty, and clear a little land this fall and winter; then I can begin at once next spring."
"And cattle?"
"I will rear also, of course—'tis the chief source of profit."
"And do you really think that, in a few years, one may earn enough to—to——"
"To keep a wife," said Schwarz, with a laugh.—"Eh! that was what you were going to say?"
Werner coloured up to the eyes.
"Why, of course," continued Schwarz, who noticed it, with a smile. "It is only as a farmer that you have a prospect of soon being enabled to marry; it is even, to a certain extent, a necessary consequence, for a bachelor's household in the bush is rather too dull an affair. Have you got a little wife already!"
"I? No, Heaven forbid!"
"Halloa! don't rear on your hind legs directly!" said Schwarz; "I didn't want to inquire too minutely. But, be that as it may, we can try it, at all events—if you don't like it, why, Lord bless you, you can give it up again. One takes to something else—better luck next time."