"They're all sure of that when they start," said Duval, sarcastically. "But I want to disillusion you. If you contest the place then do so with a realization of what we are up against. Don't go down there with any 'rough stuff' or with a delusion that you are going to meet a weakling. Go down there with the calm, considerate understanding that you are going to vie with a man all through, and that man is Jean Baptiste. And while I'll take the case and do what I can, before we start, I'd advise that you keep away from that fellow as much as possible."
"Well, now, to be frank, Duval," said Crook, "What do you think of it anyhow?"
Duval regarded him closely a moment out of his small eyes. And then spoke slowly, easily, carefully. "Well, Crook, being frank with you, I don't think you can beat that fellow fairly. No one will beat Jean Baptiste in a fair fight. But of course," he added, "there are other ways. Yes, and when the time is right—if ever, you may try the other way."
CHAPTER XI
REVEREND McCARTHY PAYS A VISIT
"WELL," said Baptiste to his wife, following the service of the summons. "We're up against a long, irksome and expensive contest case." Under his observation had come many of such. Only those who have homesteaded or have been closely related to such can in full appreciate the annoyance, the years of annoyance and uncertainty with which a contest case is fraught. Great fiction has been created from such; greater could be. Oh, the nerve racking, the bitterness and very often the sinister results that have grown out of one person trying to secure the place of another without the other's consent. Murder has been committed times untold as a sequel—but getting back to Jean Baptiste and his wife.
He was inclined to be more provoked than ordinarily, for the reason that by sending his wife—at least taking her to the homestead, he knew he could have avoided the contest. As a rule places are not contested altogether without a cause. He felt that it was—and it no doubt was—due to his effort to farm his own land and assist his folks in holding their claims as well. He had discovered before he married Orlean that she was likely to prove much unlike his sister, who possessed the strength of her convictions, for she was on the clinging vine order. Being extremely childish, this was further augmented by a stream of letters from Chicago, giving volumes of advice in regards to something the advisors had not a very keen idea of themselves. He also was cautioned not to expose her. So she had, in truth only gone to her homestead when taken by him, returning when he did as well. The fact that he had arranged in regards to the renting of his land the next season would be no evidence to assist him before the bar that would hear his case.
The contest against his wife's homestead did not, of course alter his plans in any way. He would continue along the lines he had started. But there were other things that came to annoy him at the same time. Chiefly among these was his wife's father. Always there had to be some ado when it came to him. He had reared his daughter, as before intimated, to consider him of the world's greatest men—especially the Negro race's, and to avoid friction, Baptiste came gradually to see that he would almost have to be beholden unto this creature in whom he was positively not very deeply interested.
N. Justine McCarthy's accomplishments were of a nature which Baptiste would rather have avoided. The fact that he had been a Presiding Elder in one of the leading denominations of Negro churches out of which he managed to filch about a thousand a year, was in a measure foreign to his son-in-law. And the Reverend was not an informed or practical man.