“Why?” asked Phil.
“Too hard work, that and the cost of getting started.”
“We expect to work hard; we realized that we should be obliged to before we came out here.”
“You sure will, especially as you don’t know anything about clearing ground or planting. Why not take something easy—a job with me, say?”
“You call this work felling and sawing trees ‘easy’?” asked Ted.
“No, I didn’t mean that. I want some men to keep books—one in camp here and one at Peleg’s store. His accounts are in a terrible mess. Understand, I don’t mean he’s dishonest, but they are so mixed up it’s an awful job to find out how much a man owes the company. Jonson was owing six dollars when I discharged him, but until I looked up the records to close his account, I didn’t know it. What do you say? I couldn’t offer you more than fifty a month and board, but there’s no place where you can spend anything in these woods.”
“Much obliged, but we can’t do it,” replied Phil, after looking at his brother.
“Why not? You boys ain’t got the slightest idea of the work and trouble of taking up a homestead. When men brought up on farms give it up, what show have you? Just talk with the jacks when they come in for grub. Every other one of them, almost, has sunk all he had on a claim and then woke up and got into logging, where there is real money. I can tell you of—”
“There’s no need,” interrupted Ted. “We came out here to take up a homestead and we shall do it. Because others quit is no sign that we shall. Besides, our case is different.” And on account of the kind interest the foreman had evinced, the boy told him of the little mother ill at home.
“You’ve sure got pluck,” commented Steve, when the story was finished. “But what made you come to Chikau? If I’d been you, I’d have gone into Canada. There you can get what they call ‘a ready-made home.’ The government, after looking you up and finding you O. K., not only gives you a quarter section, but builds a house and barn on it for you, and will loan you from five hundred to five thousand dollars with which to equip, stock, and get your farm started.”