"Did Peakslow say anything to you about our folks?" Rufe asked.
"I rather think he did!" said Jack; and he repeated the story of the land robbery.
Rufe showed his contempt for it by a scornful laugh. "I'll tell you just what there is in it; and it will show you the sort of man you have to deal with. We haven't an inch of his land. Do you think father is a man to crowd a neighbor?"
"And a neighbor like Peakslow! That's just what I told him," said Jack.
"You see," said Rufe, "these claims through here were all taken up before the government survey. Most of the settlers were decent men; and they knew that when the survey came to be made, there would be trouble about the boundaries, if they didn't take measures beforehand to prevent it. So they formed a society to protect each other against squatters and claim-jumpers, and particularly to settle disputed boundary questions between themselves. They all signed a paper, agreeing to 'deed and redeed,'—that is, if your land adjoined mine, and the government survey didn't correspond with our lines, but gave you, for instance, a part of the land I had improved, then you agreed to redeed that part to me, for the government price; just as I agreed to redeed to my neighbors what the survey might give me of their claims."
"I understand," said Jack.
"Well, father and almost everybody in the county joined the society; but there were some who didn't. Peakslow was one."
"What were his objections?"
"He couldn't give any good ones. All he would say was, 'I'll see; I'll think about it.' He was just waiting to see if there was any advantage to be gained over his neighbors by not joining with them. Finally, the survey came through; and the men run what they called a 'random line,' which everybody thought, at first, was the true line. According to that, the survey would have given us a big strip of Peakslow's farm, including his house and barn. That frightened him. He came over, and shook his fist in father's face, and threatened I don't know what, if he took the land.
"'You really think I ought to redeed to you all your side of our old line?' says father.