A little curious to know the extent of this feeling, he entered one of the shops, and by one or two questions which judiciously betrayed his ownership of the property, he elicited only a tradesman’s interest in a possible future customer, and the ordinary curiosity about a stranger.  The barkeeper of the hotel was civil, but brief and gloomy.  He had heard the property was “willed away on account of some family quarrel which ’warn’t none of his’.”  Mr. Wells would find Buckeye Hollow a mighty dull place after the mines.  It was played out, sucked dry by two or three big mine owners who were trying to “freeze out” the other settlers, so as they might get the place to themselves and “boom it.”  Brown, who had the big house over the hill, was the head devil of the gang!  Wells felt his indignation kindle anew.  And this girl that he had ousted was Brown’s friend.  Was it possible that she was a party to Brown’s designs to get this three acres with the other lands?  If so, his long-suffering uncle was only just in his revenge.

He put all this diffidently before his partners on his return, and was a little startled at their adopting it with sanguine ferocity.  They hoped that he would put an end to his thoughts of backing out of it.  Such a course now would be dishonorable to his uncle’s memory.  It was clearly his duty to resist these blasted satraps of capitalists; he was providentially selected for the purpose—­a village Hampden to withstand the tyrant.  “And I reckon that shark of a lawyer knew all about it when he was gettin’ off that ‘purp stuff’ about people’s sympathies with the girl,” said Rice belligerently.  “Contest the will, would he?  Why, if we caught that Brown with a finger in the pie we’d just whip up the boys on this Ledge and lynch him.  You hang on to that three acres and the garden patch of your forefathers, sonny, and we’ll see you through!”

Nevertheless, it was with some misgivings that Wells consented that his three partners should actually accompany him and see him put in peaceable possession of his inheritance.  His instinct told him that there would be no contest of the will, and still less any opposition on the part of the objectionable relative, Brown.  When the wagon which contained his personal effects and the few articles of furniture necessary for his occupancy of the cabin arrived, the exaggerated swagger which his companions had put on in their passage through the settlement gave way to a pastoral indolence, equally half real, half affected.  Lying on their backs under a buckeye, they permitted Rice to voice the general sentiment.  “There’s a suthin’ soothin’ and dreamy in this kind o’ life, Jacksey, and we’ll make a point of comin’ here for a couple of days every two weeks to lend you a hand; it will be a mighty good change from our nigger work on the claim.”

In spite of this assurance, and the fact that they had voluntarily come to help him put the place in order, they did very little beyond lending a cheering expression of unqualified praise and unstinted advice.  At the end of four hours’ weeding and trimming the boundaries of the garden, they unanimously gave their opinion that it would be more systematic for him to employ Chinese labor at once.