Page:Cornelia Meigs-The Pirate of Jasper Peak.djvu/129

 where he hunted and fished would be lost to  him if settlers came. He threatened openly that any man who worked longer on the road would  be shot in the dark some night, and he got the  women whispering that the whole affair was a  mad scheme that could come to nothing. So they doubted and hesitated and finally lost heart. And that was the end of our road-building.”

“But not the end forever, surely,” Hugh said.

“No, for I made up my mind that if I could not persuade them at that end I could show them  at this. I staked out a claim for a farm of my own, and I mean to live here until it is mine and  those people in Rudolm see that it can be done  and that Jake’s threats must come to nothing in  the end. It takes fourteen months to prove up on a claim, but my time is almost done.”

“And you have lived in this lonely place so long as that,” Hugh exclaimed. “How did you ever hold to that one idea for all this time?”

“I did not,” admitted Oscar, “for I went off on a wild goose chase, but I came back again. When I went down to Rudolm last April and