"Of course," admitted Baptiste. "But it is not practical to invest in big houses in the beginning, you know. We must first build a good big barn, and that, I cannot even as yet afford."

"Places his horses before his wife, of course," muttered the Reverend, but obligingly unheard.

"And you say you intend to move it. Where? Not away down on that farm southeast?" he said, standing outside and looking up at the building.

"Oh, no," Baptiste returned shortly. "Onto Orlean's place, west of here."

"Oh. How far is that?"

"Not so far. About fifty miles."

"Good lord!" And the Reverend could say no more.

CHAPTER XIV

Table of Contents

THE CONTEST

MOVING a building fifty miles across even a prairie is not an easy task, and before Jean Baptiste reached his wife's homestead with the building he had purchased, he had suffered much grief. And with the Reverend along, ever ready to keep their minds alive to the fact, it was made no easier. But because he was so chronic, he was left to grumble while his son-in-law labored almost to distraction into getting the building to the place before he would be compelled to turn back and face the contest which was scheduled for an early hearing. They succeeded in getting it within twenty miles of the claim when they were compelled to abandon the task for the time and return to Gregory to fight the contest.

This developed at times into a rather heated argument, and a prolonged one that tried the patience of all, dragging over a period of three days. It became obvious during the proceedings that the contestant and his cohorts desired as much as possible to keep away from Baptiste and on the other hand to concentrate their cross-fire upon his wife. But, expecting this, they found him on his guard, countering them at every angle, and, assisted by an able land attorney, he was successful in upsetting in a large way, their many, subtle and well laid plans, causing them to fail in making the showing they had expected to.

To begin with their corroborating witness, James J. Spaight, developed before the close to more definitely corroborate for the defense. He had come to the trial with false testimony prepared, and had, under a fusillade of cross-examinations, broken down and impaired and weakened the prosecution. In all such cases the one contesting is placed at a moral disadvantage, and the fact that Crook was a banker, fully able to have purchased relinquishment as others over all the county had done, was ever in the witness' mind, and did not help his case. Baptiste's wife proved much stronger after the first day. This was due largely to the fact that her father had been present on the first day, and had kept her so much alive to what she was sacrificing in struggling to assist her husband in his ambition to be rich, until she was perceptibly weak. The time limit on his ticket having about expired he had been compelled to return to Chicago the morning of the second day of the trial.