We will not stop to inquire how often, while thus engaged, Siebert and Herbold were dragged from their horses by dangling creeping plants and vines, or lost their seats by sudden shying, or stumbling, or leaping of their beasts, and kissed the earth any way but gently. They progressed very slowly with their charge, and it was near sunset of the second day before they reached the neighbourhood of the settlement, and heard the strokes of the workmen's axes at regular intervals.
* * * * * *
But it is high time that we should return to the settlement once more, where those two villains were steadily progressing towards the execution of their criminal plan. But as Normann wished to await the return of Siebert, senior, he and Turner assisted the emigrants with their work, partly to pass the time, but partly, also, in order to restore their former friendly footing more and more. The settlers had thus just concluded two new fenced inclosures, wherein the expected horses and cows were to be kept, for they could not yet make up their minds that the cattle should be allowed to run at liberty in the woods all the winter.
Even Hehrmann, who, as he could not forget the last scene on board the steamer, had carefully observed Normann the first day or two, appeared to allow his suspicions to be lulled, when he noted his open and candid behaviour. One could plainly see in every one of the doctor's movements how much afflicted he was that he should have been the cause of a company of Germans—of people who were his friends—being cheated and defrauded, and how he now strained every nerve to repair, as far as lay in his power, the evil, although it had not been caused by his own act. He had, on that very day even, assured Hehrmann and Becher, that not only did he not entertain the slightest doubt, but that, indeed, he was firmly convinced, that the rascally land-jobber could be successfully brought to account.
The settlers had succeeded, with the assistance of the doctor and the American, in laying "the worm," as the lower row of rails laid in zig-zag is called, and to erect the whole fence faultlessly, so that Mr. Becher, when he surveyed the successful work with self-satisfied look, observed, smilingly, that now the drovers might arrive as soon as they pleased with their beasts, and that Wolfgang would stare to see such a workmanlike performance, as he had before hazarded an opinion that probably he should have to pull the fence down again, if it were not firm enough.
"Wolfgang!" said Dr. Normann, who now heard his name for the first time, inasmuch as hitherto, when the absent had been spoken of, only Siebert and Herbold had been named. "Wolfgang!—the name sounds quite German; does that gentleman belong to your association?"
"He is a German settler," Becher answered, "to whom the cordwood beside the Mississippi belongs, which you probably noticed piled up."
"Has he also lately come over from Germany?" asked Normann, and that with more interest than might have been expected about a stranger.
"No, he formerly lived in Arkansas," was the answer, "and probably has been some years here in Tennessee."
"A singular case," said Trevor (or Turner) in the Pennsylvanian dialect—"a very singular case, that a Backwoodsman should clear out eastward; an American never would have done that."