"Oh, all of them. The Lensmand wants me to go and be assistant there again, and the doctor wants me to drive for him, and the parson's wife said more than once she misses me to lend a hand, if it wasn't such a long way to go. How was it with that strip of hill, Isak--the bit you sold? Did you get as much for it as they say?" "Ay, 'tis no lie," answered Isak. "But what did Geissler want with it, anyway? It lies there still--curious thing! Year after year and nothing done." It was a curious thing; Isak had often wondered about it himself; he had spoken to the Lensmand about it, and asked for Geissler's address, thinking to write to him ... Ay, it was a mystery. "'Tis more than I can say," said Isak. Brede made no secret of his interest in this matter of the sale. "They say there's more of the same sort up there," he said, "besides yours. Maybe there's more in it than we know. 'Tis a pity that we should sit here like dumb beasts and know nothing of it all. I've thought of going up one day myself to have a look." "But do you know anything about metals and such-like?" asked Isak. "Why, I know a bit. And I've asked one or two others. Anyhow, I'll have to find something; I can't live and keep us all here on this bit of a farm. It's sheer impossible. 'Twas another matter with you that's got all that timber and good soil below. 'Tis naught but moorland here." "Moorland's good soil enough," said Isak shortly. "I've the same myself." "But there's no draining it," said Brede.... "It can't be done." But it could be done. Coming down the road that day Isak noticed other clearings; two of them were lower down, nearer the village, but there was one far up above, between Breidablik and Sellanraa--ay, men were beginning to work on the land now; in the old days when Isak first came up, it had lain waste all of it. And these three new settlers were folks from another district; men with some sense in their heads, by the look of things. They didn't begin by borrowing money to build a house; no, they came up one year and did their spade work and went away again; vanished as if they were dead. That was the proper way; ditching first, then plough and sow. Axel Ström was nearest to Isak's land now, his next-door neighbour. A clever fellow, unmarried, he came from Helgeland. He had borrowed Isak's new harrow to break up his soil, and not till the second year had he set up a hayshed and a turf hut for himself and a couple of animals. He had called his place Maaneland, because it looked nice in the moonlight. He had no womenfolk himself, and found it difficult to get help in the summer, lying so far out, but he managed things the right way, no doubt about that. Not as Brede Olsen did, building a house first, and then coming up with a big family and little ones and all, with neither soil nor stock to feed them. What did Brede Olsen know of draining moorland and breaking new soil?