"But it will be all right, won't it. It's got to be all right!"
"I don't know, Joan. So help me, I don't know.... We can't both have the land. That's for sure. One of us will have to settle for someplace else."
"Suppose we did have to take another tract, Claude. Would you be disappointed—I mean, really disappointed.... After all, isn't the important thing the fact that we're here?"
Claude managed a smile. "I suppose so," he admitted. "It's just that it comes as sort of a letdown. For almost seven years now we've been looking at the pictures of this land. We knew where we'd build the house, what portion we'd farm.... I know every tree, every square inch of it.... And now—"
"But there's other land. We've only seen a small portion of the planet."
He shook his head.
"Not like this. This claim has everything. What's more, Whiting knows it. That's why he'll fight us on it all the way."
"They seem like nice people. Claude. Couldn't we talk to them ... make some sort of deal?"
"A deal? What sort of deal?"
"A hundred acres is a lot of land—an awful lot of land.... Maybe the Whitings would—"