country better than I used to."

"There's been some work put into it since you left," Olaf remarked.

"Exactly. I think it's about ready to live in now--and I'm
about ready to settle down." Nils saw his brother lower his big
head ("Exactly like a bull," he thought.) "Mother's been persuading
me to slow down now, and go in for farming," he went on lightly.

Olaf made a deep sound in his throat. "Farming ain't learned
in a day," he brought out, still looking at the ground.

"Oh, I know! But I pick things up quickly." Nils had not meant
to antagonize his brother, and he did not know now why he was doing
it. "Of course," he went on, "I shouldn't expect to make a big
success, as you fellows have done. But then, I'm not ambitious.
I won't want much. A little land, and some cattle, maybe."

Olaf still stared at the ground, his head down. He wanted to
ask Nils what he had been doing all these years, that he didn't
have a business somewhere he couldn't afford to leave; why he
hadn't more pride than to come back with only a little sole-leather
trunk to show for himself, and to present himself as the only
failure in the family. He did not ask one of these questions, but
he made them all felt distinctly.

"Humph!" Nils thought. "No wonder the man never talks, when
he can butt his ideas into you like that without ever saying a
word. I suppose he uses that kind of smokeless powder on his wife
all the time. But I guess she has her innings." He chuckled, and