The Flying U's Last Stand
by B. M. Bower · English · Gutenberg #1740 · 448,051 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Flying U's Last Stand
Author: B. M. Bower
Release date: May 1, 1999 [eBook #1740]
Most recently updated: March 9, 2018
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1740
Credits: Produced by Mary Starr, and David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLYING U'S LAST STAND ***
Produced by Mary Starr
THE FLYING-U'S LAST STAND
By B. M. Bower
CONTENTS
1. OLD WAYS AND NEW
2. ANDY GREEN'S NEW ACQUAINTANCE
3. THE KID LEARNS SOME THINGS ABOUT HORSES
4. ANDY TAKES A HAND IN THE GAME
5. THE HAPPY FAMILY TURN NESTERS
6. THE FIRST BLOW IN THE FIGHT
7. THE COMING OF THE COLONY
8. FLORENCE GRACE HALLMAN SPEAKS PLAINLY
9. THE HAPPY FAMILY BUYS A BUNCH OF CATTLE
10. WHEREIN ANDY GREEN LIES TO A LADY
ll. THE MOVING CHAPTER IN EVENTS
12. SHACKS, LIVESTOCK AND PILGRIMS PROMPTLY AND PAINFULLY
REMOVED
13. IRISH WORKS FOR THE CAUSE
14. JUST ONE THING AFTER ANOTHER
15. THE KID HAS IDEAS OF HIS OWN
16. “A RELL OLD COWPUNCHER”
17. “LOST CHILD”
18. THE LONG WAY ROUND
19. HER NAME WAS ROSEMARY
20. THE RELL OLD COWPUNCHER GOES HOME
21. THE FIGHT GOES ON
22. LAWFUL IMPROVEMENTS
23. THE WATER QUESTION AND SOME GOSSIP
24. THE KID IS USED FOR A PAWN IN THE GAME
25. “LITTLE BLACK SHACK'S ALL BURNT UP!”
26. ROSEMARY ALLEN DOES A SMALL SUM IN ADDITION
27. “IT'S AWFUL EASY TO GET LOST”
28. AS IT TURNED OUT
THE FLYING U'S LAST STAND
CHAPTER 1. OLD WAYS AND NEW
Progress is like the insidious change from youth to old age, except that
progress does not mean decay. The change that is almost imperceptible
and yet inexorable is much the same, however. You will see a community
apparently changeless as the years pass by; and yet, when the years have
gone and you look back, there has been a change. It is not the same.
It never will be the same. It can pass through further change, but it
cannot go back. Men look back sick sometimes with longing for the things
that were and that can be no more; they live the old days in memory--but
try as they will they may not go back. With intelligent, persistent
effort they may retard further change considerably, but that is the most
that they can hope to do. Civilization and Time will continue the march
in spite of all that man may do.
That is the way it was with the Flying U. Old J. G. Whitmore fought
doggedly against the changing conditions--and he fought intelligently
and well. When he saw the range dwindling and the way to the watering
places barred against his cattle with long stretches of barbed wire, he
sent his herds deeper into the Badlands to seek what grazing was in the
hidden, little valleys and the deep, sequestered canyons. He cut more
hay for winter feeding, and he sowed his meadows to alfalfa that he
might increase the crops. He shipped old cows and dry cows with his fat
steers in the fall, and he bettered the blood of his herds and raised
bigger cattle. Therefore, if his cattle grew fewer in number, they
improved in quality and prices went higher, so that the result was much
the same.
It began to look, then, as though J. G. Whitmore was cunningly besting
the situation, and was going to hold out indefinitely against the
encroachments of civilization upon the old order of things on the range.
And it had begun to look as though he was going to best Time at his own
game, and refuse also to grow old; as though he would go on being the
same pudgy, grizzled, humorously querulous Old Man beloved of his men,
the Happy Family of the Flying U.
Sometimes, however, Time will fill a four-flush with the joker, and then
laugh while he rakes in the chips. J. G. Whitmore had been going his way
and refusing to grow old for a long time--and then an accident, which
is Time's joker, turned the game against him. He stood for just a second
too long on a crowded crossing in Chicago, hesitating between going
forward or back. And that second gave Time a chance to play an accident.
A big seven-passenger touring car mowed him down and left him in a heap
for the ambulance from the nearest hospital to gather on its stretcher.
The Old Man did not die; he had lived long on the open range and he was
pretty tough and hard to kill. He went back to his beloved Flying U,
with a crutch to help him shuffle from bed to easy chair and back again.
The Little Doctor, who was his youngest sister, nursed him tirelessly;
but it was long before there came a day when the Old Man gave his crutch
to the Kid to use for a stick-horse, and walked through the living room
and out upon the porch with the help of a cane and the solicitous arm
of the Little Doctor, and with the Kid galloping gleefully before him on
the crutch.
Later he discarded the help of somebody's arm, and hobbled down to the
corral with the cane, and with the Kid still galloping before him on
“Uncle Gee Gee's” crutch. He stood for some time leaning against the
corral watching some of the boys halter-breaking a horse that was later
to be sold--when he was “broke gentle”--and then he hobbled back again,
thankful for the soft comfort of his big chair.
That was well enough, as far as it went. The Flying U took it for
granted that the Old Man was slowly returning to the old order of life,
when rheumatism was his only foe and he could run things with his old
energy and easy good management. But there never came a day when the Old
Man gave his cane to the kid to play with. There never came a day when
he was not thankful for the soft comfort of his chair. There never came
a day when he was the same Old Man who joshed the boys and scolded them
and threatened them. The day was always coming--of course!--when his
back would quit aching if he walked to the stable and back without a
long rest between, but it never actually arrived.
So, imperceptibly but surely, the Old Man began to grow old. The thin
spot on top of his head grew shiny, so that the Kid noticed it and made
blunt comments upon the subject. His rheumatism was not his worst foe,
now. He had to pet his digestive apparatus and cut out strong coffee
with three heaping teaspoons of sugar in each cup, because the Little
Doctor told him his liver was torpid. He had to stop giving the Kid
jolty rides on his knees,--but that was because the Kid was getting too
big for baby play, the Old Man declared. The Kid was big enough to ride
real horses, now, and he ought to be ashamed to ride knee-horses any
more.
To two things the Old Man clung almost fiercely; the old regime of
ranging his cattle at large and starting out the wagons in the spring
just the same as if twenty-five men instead of twelve went with them;
and the retention of the Happy Family on his payroll, just as if they
were actually needed. If one of the boys left to try other things and
other fields, the Old Man considered him gone on a vacation and expected
him back when spring roundup approached.
True, he was seldom disappointed in that. For the Happy Family looked
upon the Flying U as home, and six months was about the limit for
straying afar. Cowpunchers to the bone though they were, they bent backs
over irrigating ditches and sweated in the hay fields just for the
sake of staying together on the ranch. I cannot say that they did it
uncomplainingly--for the bunk-house was saturated to the ridge-pole with
their maledictions while they compared blistered hands and pitchfork
callouses, and mourned the days that were gone; the days when they
rode far and free and scorned any work that could not be done from the
saddle. But they stayed, and they did the ranch work as well as the
range work, which is the main point.
They became engaged to certain girls who filled their dreams and
all their waking thoughts--but they never quite came to the point of
marrying and going their way. Except Pink, who did marry impulsively and
unwisely, and who suffered himself to be bullied and called Percy for
seven months or so, and who balked at leaving the Flying U for the city
and a vicarious existence in theaterdom, and so found himself free quite
as suddenly as he had been tied.
They intended to marry and settle down--sometime. But there was always
something in the way of carrying those intentions to fulfillment, so
that eventually the majority of the Happy Family found themselves not
even engaged, but drifting along toward permanent bachelorhood. Being of
the optimistic type, however, they did not worry; Pink having set before
them a fine example of the failure of marriage and having returned with
manifest relief to the freedom of the bunk-house.
CHAPTER 2. ANDY GREEN'S NEW ACQUAINTANCE
Andy Green, chief prevaricator of the Happy Family of the Flying U--and
not ashamed of either title or connection--pushed his new Stetson back
off his untanned forehead, attempted to negotiate the narrow passage
into a Pullman sleeper with his suitcase swinging from his right hand,
and butted into a woman who was just emerging from the dressing-room. He
butted into her so emphatically that he was compelled to swing his left
arm out very quickly, or see her go headlong into the window opposite;
for a fullsized suitcase propelled forward by a muscular young man may
prove a very efficient instrument of disaster, especially if it catches
one just in the hollow back of the knee. The woman tottered and grasped
Andy convulsively to save herself a fall, and so they stood blocking the
passage until the porter arrived and took the suitcase from Andy with a
tip-inviting deference.
Andy apologized profusely, with a quaint, cowpunchery phrasing that
caused the woman to take a second look at him. And, since Andy Green
would look good to any woman capable of recognizing--and appreciating--a
real man when she saw him, she smiled and said it didn't matter in the
least.
That was the beginning of the acquaintance. Andy took her by her plump,
chiffon-veiled arm and piloted her to her seat, and he afterward tipped
the porter generously and had his own belongings deposited in the
section across the aisle. Then, with the guile of a foreign diplomat, he
betook himself to the smoking-room and stayed there for three quarters
of an hour. He was not taking any particular risk of losing the
opportunity of an unusually pleasant journey, for the dollar he had
invested in the goodwill of the porter had yielded the information that
the lady was going through to Great Falls. Since Andy had boarded the
train at Harlem there was plenty of time to kill between there and Dry
Lake, which was his destination.
The lady smiled at him rememberingly when finally he seated himself
across the aisle from her, and without any serious motive Andy smiled
back. So presently they were exchanging remarks about the journey. Later
on, Andy went over and sat beside her and conversation began in earnest.
Her name, it transpired, was Florence Grace Hallman. Andy read it
engraved upon a card which added the information that she was engaged
in the real estate business--or so the three or four words implied.
“Homemakers' Syndicate, Minneapolis and St. Paul,” said the card. Andy
was visibly impressed thereby. He looked at her with swift appraisement
and decided that she was “all to the good.”
Florence Grace Hallman was tall and daintily muscular as to figure. Her
hair was a light yellow--not quite the shade which peroxide gives,
and therefore probably natural. Her eyes were brown, a shade too close
together but cool and calm and calculating in their gaze, and her
eyebrows slanted upward a bit at the outer ends and were as heavy as
beauty permitted. Her lips were very red, and her chin was very firm.
She looked the successful business woman to her fingertips, and she was
eminently attractive for a woman of that self-assured type.
Andy was attractive also, in a purely Western way. His gray eyes were
deceivingly candid and his voice was pleasant with a little, humorous
drawl that matched well the quirk of his lips when he talked. He was
headed for home--which was the Flying U--sober and sunny and with enough
money to see him through. He told Florence Hallman his name, and said
that he lived “up the road a ways” without being too definite. Florence
Hallman lived in Minneapolis, she said; though she traveled most of the
time, in the interests of her firm.
Yes, she liked the real estate business. One had a chance to see the
world, and keep in touch with people and things. She liked the West
especially well. Since her firm had taken up the homeseekers' line she
spent most of her time in the West.
They had supper--she called it dinner, Andy observed--together, and Andy
Green paid the check, which was not so small. It was after that, when
they became more confidential, that Florence Hallman, with the egotism
of the successful person who believes herself or himself to be of keen
interest to the listener spoke in greater detail of her present mission.
Her firm's policy was, she said, to locate a large tract of government
land somewhere, and then organize a homeseekers' colony, and settle
the land-hungry upon the tract--at so much per hunger. She thought it
a great scheme for both sides of the transaction. The men who wanted
claims got them. The firm got the fee for showing them the land--and
certain other perquisites at which she merely hinted.
She thought that Andy himself would be a success at the business. She
was quick to form her opinions of people whom she met, and she knew that
Andy was just the man for such work. Andy, listening with his candid,
gray eyes straying often to her face and dwelling there, modestly failed
to agree with her. He did not know the first thing about the real estate
business, he confessed, nor very much about ranching. Oh, yes--he lived
in this country, and he knew THAT pretty well, but--
“The point is right here,” said Florence Grace Hallman, laying her pink
fingertips upon his arm and glancing behind her to make sure that they
were practically alone--their immediate neighbors being still in the
diner. “I'm speaking merely upon impulse--which isn't a wise thing to
do, ordinarily. But--well, your eyes vouch for you, Mr. Green, and we
women are bound to act impulsively sometimes--or we wouldn't be women,
would we?” She laughed--rather, she gave a little, infectious giggle,
and took away her fingers, to the regret of Andy who liked the feel of
them on his forearm.
“The point is here. I've recognized the fact, all along, that we need
a man stationed right here, living in the country, who will meet
prospective homesteaders and talk farming; keep up their enthusiasm;
whip the doubters into line; talk climate and soil and the future of the
country; look the part, you understand.”
“So I look like a rube, do I?” Andy's lips quirked a half smile at her.
“No, of course you don't!” She laid her fingers on his sleeve again,
which was what Andy wanted--what he had intended to bait her into doing;
thereby proving that, in some respects at least, he amply justified Hiss
Hallman in her snap judgment of him.
“Of course you don't look like a rube! I don't want you to. But you
do look Western--because you are Western to the bone Besides, you look
perfectly dependable. Nobody could look into your eyes and even think
of doubting the truth of any statement you made to them.” Andy snickered
mentally at that though his eyes never lost their clear candor. “And,”
she concluded, “being a bona fide resident of the country, your word
would carry more weight than mine if I were to talk myself black in the
face!”
“That's where you're dead wrong,” Andy hastened to correct her.
“Well, you must let me have my own opinion, Mr. Green. You would be
convincing enough, at any rate. You see, there is a certain per cent
of--let us call it waste effort--in this colonization business. We
have to reckon on a certain number of nibblers who won't bite”--Andy's
honest, gray eyes widened a hair's breadth at the frankness of her
language--“when they get out here. They swallow the folders we send
out, but when they get out here and see the country, they can't see it
as a rich farming district, and they won't invest. They go back home and
knock, if they do anything.
“My idea is to stop that waste; to land every homeseeker that boards our
excursion trains. And I believe the way to do that is to have the right
kind of a man out here, steer the doubtfuls against him--and let his
personality and his experience do the rest. They're hungry enough to
come, you see; the thing is to keep them here. A man that lives right
here, that has all the earmarks of the West, and is not known to be
affiliated with our Syndicate (you could have rigs to hire, and drive
the doubtfuls to the tract)--don't you see what an enormous advantage
he'd have? The class I speak of are the suspicious ones--those who are
from Missouri. They're inclined to want salt with what we say about the
resources of the country. Even our chemical analysis of the soil, and
weather bureau dope, don't go very far with those hicks. They want to
talk with someone who has tried it, you see.”
“I--see,” said Andy thoughtfully, and his eyes narrowed a trifle. “On
the square, Miss Hallman, what are the natural advantages out here--for
farming? What line of talk do you give those come-ons?”
Miss Hallman laughed and made a very pretty gesture with her two ringed
hands. “Whatever sounds the best to them,” she said. “If they write and
ask about spuds we come back with illustrated folders of potato crops
and statistics of average yields and prices and all that. If it's dairy,
we have dairy folders. And so on. It isn't any fraud--there ARE
sections of the country that produce almost anything, from alfalfa to
strawberries. You know that,” she challenged.
“Sure. But I didn't know there was much tillable land left lying around
loose,” he ventured to say.
Again Miss Hallman made the pretty gesture, which might mean much or
nothing. “There's plenty of land 'lying around loose,' as you call it.
How do you know it won't produce, till it has been tried?”
“That's right,” Andy assented uneasily. “If there's water to put on
it--”
“And since there is the land, our business lies in getting people
located on it. The towns and the railroads are back of us. That is, they
look with favor upon bringing settlers into the country. It increases
the business of the country--the traffic, the freights, the merchants'
business, everything.”
Andy puckered his eyebrows and looked out of the window upon a great
stretch of open, rolling prairie, clothed sparely in grass that was
showing faint green in the hollows, and with no water for miles--as
he knew well--except for the rivers that hurried through narrow bottom
lands guarded by high bluffs that were for the most part barren. The
land was there, all right. But--
“What I can't see,” he observed after a minute during which Miss
Florence Hallman studied his averted face, “what I can't see is, where
do the settlers get off at?”
“At Easy street, if they're lucky enough,” she told him lightly. “My
business is to locate them on the land. Getting a living off it is
THEIR business. And,” she added defensively, “people do make a living on
ranches out here.”
“That's right,” he agreed again--he was finding it very pleasant to
agree with Florence Grace Hallman. “Mostly off stock, though.”
“Yes, and we encourage our clients to bring out all the young stock they
possibly can; young cows and horses and--all that sort of thing. There's
quantities of open country around here, that even the most optimistic
of homeseekers would never think of filing on. They can make out, all
right, I guess. We certainly urge them strongly to bring stock with
them. It's always been famous as a cattle country--that's one of our
highest cards. We tell them--”
“How do you do that? Do you go right to them and TALK to them?”
“Yes, if they show a strong enough interest--and bank account. I follow
up the best prospects and visit them in person. I've talked to fifty
horny-handed he-men in the past month.”
“Then I don't see what you need of anyone to bring up the drag,” Andy
told her admiringly. “If you talk to 'em, there oughtn't be any drag!”
“Thank you for the implied compliment. But there IS a 'drag,' as you
call it. There's going to be a big one, too, I'm afraid--when they get
out and see this tract we're going to work off this spring.” She stopped
and studied him as a chess player studies the board.
“I'm very much tempted to tell you something I shouldn't tell,” she said
at length, lowering her voice a little. “Remember, Andy Green was a very
good looking man, and his eyes were remarkable for their clear, candid
gaze straight into your own eyes. Even as keen a business woman as
Florence Grace Hallman must be forgiven for being deceived by them. I'm
tempted to tell you where this tract is. You may know it.”
“You better not, unless you're willing to take a chance,” he told her
soberly. “If it looks too good, I'm liable to jump it myself.”
Miss Hallman laughed and twisted her red lips at him in what might be
construed as a flirtatious manner. She was really quite taken with Andy
Green. “I'll take a chance. I don't think you'll jump it. Do you know
anything about Dry Lake, up above Havre, toward Great Falls--and the
country out east of there, towards the mountains?”
The fingers of Andy Green closed into his palms. His eyes, however,
continued to look into hers with his most guileless expression.
“Y-es--that is, I've ridden over it,” he acknowledged simply.
“Well--now this is a secret; at least we don't want those mossback
ranchers in there to get hold of it too soon, though they couldn't
really do anything, since it's all government land and the lease has
only just run out. There's a high tract lying between the Bear Paws
and--do you know where the Flying U ranch is?”
“About where it is--yes.”
“Well, it's right up there on that plateau--bench, you call it out here.
There are several thousand acres along in there that we're locating
settlers on this spring. We're just waiting for the grass to get nice
and green, and the prairie to get all covered with those blue, blue wind
flowers, and the meadow larks to get busy with their nests, and then
we're going to bring them out and--” She spread her hands again. It
seemed a favorite gesture grown into a habit, and it surely was more
eloquent than words. “These prairies will be a dream of beauty, in a
little while,” she said. “I'm to watch for the psychological time to
bring out the seekers. And if I could just interest you, Mr. Green, to
the extent of being somewhere around Dry Lake, with a good team that
you will drive for hire and some samples of oats and dry-land spuds and
stuff that you raised on your claim--” She eyed him sharply for one so
endearingly feminine. “Would you do it? There'd be a salary, and besides
that a commission on each doubter you landed. And I'd just love to have
you for one of my assistants.”
“It sure sounds good,” Andy flirted with the proposition, and let his
eyes soften appreciably to meet her last sentence and the tone in which
she spoke it. “Do you think I could get by with the right line of talk
with the doubters?”
“I think you could,” she said, and in her voice there was a cooing
note. “Study up a little on the right dope, and I think you could
convince--even me.”
“Could I?” Andy Green knew that cooing note, himself, and one a shade
more provocative. “I wonder!”
A man came down the aisle at that moment, gave Andy a keen glance and
went on with a cigar between his fingers. Andy scowled frankly, sighed
and straightened his shoulders.
“That's what I call hard luck,” he grumbled, “got to see that man before
he gets off the train--and the h--worst of it is, I don't know just what
station he'll get off at.” He sighed again. “I've got a deal on,” he
told her confidentially, “that's sure going to keep me humping if I pull
loose so as to go in with you. How long did you say?”
“Probably two weeks, the way spring is opening out here. I'd want you
to get perfectly familiar with our policy and the details of our scheme
before they land. I'd want you to be familiar with that tract and be
able to show up its best points when you take seekers out there. You'd
be so much better than one of our own men, who have the word 'agent'
written all over them. You'll come back and--talk it over won't you?”
For Andy was showing unmistakable symptoms of leaving her to follow the
man.
“You KNOW it,” he declared in a tone of “I won't sleep nights till this
thing is settled--and settled right.” He gave her a smile that rather
dazzled the lady, got up with much reluctance and with a glance that had
in it a certain element of longing went swaying down the aisle after the
man who had preceded him.
Andy's business with the man consisted solely in mixing cigarette smoke
with cigar smoke and of helping to stare moodily out of the window.
Words there were none, save when Andy was proffered a match and muttered
his thanks. The silent session lasted for half an hour. Then the man got
up and went out, and the breath of Andy Green paused behind his nostrils
until he saw that the man went only to the first section in the car and
settled there behind a spread newspaper, invisible to Florence Grace
Hallman unless she searched the car and peered over the top of the paper
to see who was behind.
After that Andy Green continued to stare out of the window, seeing
nothing of the scenery but the flicker of telegraph posts before his
eyes that were visioning the future.
The Flying U ranch hemmed in by homesteaders from the East, he saw;
homesteaders who were being urged to bring all the stock they could, and
turn it loose upon the shrinking range. Homesteaders who would fence
the country into squares, and tear up the grass and sow grain that might
never bear a harvest. Homesteaders who would inevitably grow poorer upon
the land that would suck their strength and all their little savings
and turn them loose finally to forage a living where they might.
Homesteaders who would ruin the land that ruined them.... It was not a
pleasing picture, but it was more pleasing than the picture he saw of
the Flying U after these human grass hoppers had settled there.
The range that fed the Flying U stock would feed no more and hide their
ribs at shipping time. That he knew too well. Old J. G. Whitmore and
Chip would have to sell out. And that was like death; indeed, it IS
death of a sort, when one of the old outfits is wiped out of existence.
It had happened before--happened too often to make pleasant memories for
Andy Green, who could name outfit after outfit that had been forced out
of business by the settling of the range land; who could name dozens
of cattle brands once seen upon the range, and never glimpsed now from
spring roundup until fall.
Must the Flying U brand disappear also? The good old Flying U, for whose
existence the Old Man had fought and schemed since first was raised the
cry that the old range was passing? The Flying U that had become a part
of his life? Andy let his cigarette grow cold; he roused only to swear
at the porter who entered with dust cloth and a deprecating grin.
After that, Andy thought of Florence Grace Hallman--and his eyes were
not particularly sentimental. There was a hard line about his mouth
also; though Florence Grace Hallman was but a pawn in the game, after
all, and not personally guilty of half the deliberate crimes Andy laid
upon her dimpled shoulders. With her it was pure, cold-blooded business,
this luring of the land-hungry to a land whose fertility was at best
problematical; who would, for a price, turn loose the victims of her
greed to devastate what little grazing ground was left.
The train neared Havre. Andy roused himself, rang for the porter and
sent him after his suitcase and coat. Then he sauntered down the aisle,
stopped beside Florence Grace Hallman and smiled down at her with a
gleam behind the clear candor of his eyes.
“Hard luck, lady,” he murmured, leaning toward her. “I'm just simply
loaded to the guards with responsibilities, and here's where I get off.
But I'm sure glad I met yuh, and I'll certainly think day and night
about you and--all you told me about. I'd like to get in on this land
deal. Fact is, I'm going to make it my business to get in on it. Maybe
my way of working won't suit you--but I'll sure work hard for any boss
and do the best I know how.”
“I think that will suit me,” Miss Hallman assured him, and smiled
unsuspectingly up into his eyes, which she thought she could read so
easily. “When shall I see you again? Could you come to Great Falls in
the next ten days? I shall be stopping at the Park. Or if you will leave
me your address--”
“No use. I'll be on the move and a letter wouldn't get me. I'll see yuh
later, anyway. I'm bound to. And when I do, we'll get down to cases.
Good bye.”
He was turning away when Miss Hallman put out a soft, jewelled hand.
She thought it was diffidence that made Andy Green hesitate perceptibly
before he took it. She thought it was simply a masculine shyness and
confusion that made him clasp her fingers loosely and let them go on the
instant. She did not see him rub his palm down the leg of his dark gray
trousers as he walked down the aisle, and if she had she would not have
seen any significance in the movement.
Andy Green did that again before he stepped off the train. For he felt
that he had shaken hands with a traitor to himself and his outfit, and
it went against the grain. That the traitor was a woman, and a charming
woman at that, only intensified his resentment against her. A man can
fight a man and keep his self respect; but a man does mortally dread
being forced into a position where he must fight a woman.
CHAPTER 3. THE KID LEARNS SOME THINGS ABOUT HORSES
The Kid--Chip's Kid and the Little Doctor's--was six years old and big
for his age. Also he was a member in good standing of the Happy Family
and he insisted upon being called Buck outside the house; within it the
Little Doctor insisted even more strongly that he answer to the many
endearing names she had invented for him, and to the more formal one of
Claude, which really belonged to Daddy Chip.
Being six years old and big for his age, and being called Buck by
his friends, the Happy Family, the Kid decided that he should have a
man's-sized horse of his own, to feed and water and ride and proudly
call his “string.” Having settled that important point, he began to cast
about him for a horse worthy his love and ownership, and speedily he
decided that matter also.
Therefore, he ran bareheaded up to the blacksmith shop where Daddy Chip
was hammering tunefully upon the anvil, and delivered his ultimatum from
the door way.
“Silver's going to be my string, Daddy Chip, and I'm going to feed him
myself and ride him myself and nobody else can touch him 'thout I say
they can.”
“Yes?” Chip squinted along a dully-glowing iron bar, laid it back upon
the anvil and gave it another whack upon the side that still bulged a
little.
“Yes, and I'm going to saddle him myself and everything. And I want you
to get me some jingling silver spurs like Mig has got, with chains that
hang away down and rattle when you walk.” The Kid lifted one small foot
and laid a grimy finger in front of his heel by way of illustration.
“Yes?” Chip's eyes twinkled briefly and immediately became intent upon
his work.
“Yes, and Doctor Dell has got to let me sleep in the bunk-house with the
rest of the fellers. And I ain't going to wear a nightie once more! I
don't have to, do I, Daddy Chip? Not with lace on it. Happy Jack says
I'm a girl long as I wear lace nighties, and I ain't a girl. Am I, Daddy
Chip?”
“I should say not!” Chip testified emphatically, and carried the iron
bar to the forge for further heating.
“I'm going on roundup too, tomorrow afternoon.” The Kid's conception
of time was extremely sketchy and had no connection whatever with the
calendar. “I'm going to keep Silver in the little corral and let him
sleep in the box stall where his leg got well that time he broke it.
I 'member when he had a rag tied on it and teased for sugar. And the
Countess has got to quit a kickin' every time I need sugar for my
string. Ain't she, Daddy Chip? She's got to let us men alone or there'll
be something doing!”
“I'd tell a man,” said Chip inattentively, only half hearing the
war-like declaration of his offspring--as is the way with busy fathers.
“I'm going to take a ride now on Silver. I guess I'll ride in to Dry
Lake and get the mail--and I'm 'pletely outa the makings, too.”
“Uh-hunh--a--what's that? You keep off Silver. He'll kick the daylights
out of you, Kid. Where's your hat? Didn't your mother tell you she'd tie
a sunbonnet on you if you didn't keep your hat on? You better hike back
and get it, young man, before she sees you.”
The Kid stared mutinously from the doorway. “You said I could have
Silver. What's the use of having a string if a feller can't ride it? And
I CAN ride him, and he don't kick at all. I rode him just now, in the
little pasture to see if I liked his gait better than the others. I rode
Banjo first and I wouldn't own a thing like him, on a bet. Silver'll do
me till I can get around to break a real one.”
Chip's hand dropped from the bellows while he stared hard at the Kid.
“Did you go down in the pasture and--Words failed him just then.
“I'd TELL a man I did!” the Kid retorted, with a perfect imitation
of Chip's manner and tone when crossed. “I've been trying out all the
darned benchest you've got--and there ain't a one I'd give a punched
nickel for but Silver. I'd a rode Shootin' Star, only he wouldn't stand
still so I could get onto him. Whoever broke him did a bum job. The
horse I break will stand, or I'll know the reason why. Silver'll stand,
all right. And I can guide him pretty well by slapping his neck. You did
a pretty fair job when you broke Silver,” the Kid informed his father
patronizingly.
Chip said something which the Kid was not supposed to hear, and sat
suddenly down upon the stone rim of the forge. It had never before
occurred to Chip that his Kid was no longer a baby, but a most
adventurous man-child who had lived all his life among men and whose
mental development had more than kept pace with his growing body. He had
laughed with the others at the Kid's quaint precociousness of speech and
at his frank worship of range men and range life. He had gone to some
trouble to find a tractable Shetland pony the size of a burro, and had
taught the Kid to ride, decorously and fully protected from accident.
He and the Little Doctor had been proud of the Kid's masculine traits as
they manifested themselves in the management of that small specimen of
horse flesh. That the Kid should have outgrown so quickly his content
with Stubby seemed much more amazing than it really was. He eyed the Kid
doubtfully for a minute, and then grinned.
“All that don't let you out on the hat question,” he said, evading the
real issue and laying stress upon the small matter of obedience, as is
the exasperating habit of parents. “You don't see any of the bunch going
around bareheaded. Only women and babies do that.”
“The bunch goes bareheaded when they get their hats blowed off in the
creek,” the Kid pointed out unmoved. “I've seen you lose your hat mor'n
once, old timer. That's nothing.” He sent Chip a sudden, adorable smile
which proclaimed him the child of his mother and which never failed to
thrill Chip secretly,--it was so like the Little Doctor. “You lend me
your hat for a while, dad,” he said. “She never said what hat I had to
wear, just so it's a hat. Honest to gran'ma, my hat's in the creek and
I couldn't poke it out with a stick or anything. It sailed into the
swimmin' hole. I was goin' to go after it,” he explained further,
“but--a snake was swimmin--and I hated to 'sturb him.”
Chip drew a sharp breath and for one panicky moment considered
imperative the hiring of a body-guard for his Kid.
“You keep out of the pasture, young man!” His tone was stern to match
his perturbation. “And you leave Silver alone--”
The Kid did not wait for more. He lifted up his voice and wept in
bitterness of spirit. Wept so that one could hear him a mile. Wept so
that J. G. Whitmore reading the Great Falls Tribune on the porch, laid
down his paper and asked the world at large what ailed that doggoned kid
now.
“Dell, you better go see what's wrong,” he called afterwards through the
open door to the Little Doctor, who was examining a jar of germ
cultures in her “office.” “Chances is he's fallen off the stable or
something--though he sounds more mad than hurt. If it wasn't for my
doggoned back--”
The Little Doctor passed him hurriedly. When her man-child wept, it
Needed no suggestion from J. G. or anyone else to send her flying to the
rescue. So presently she arrived breathless at the blacksmith shop' and
found Chip within, looking in urgent Need of reinforcements, and the Kid
yelling ragefully beside the door and kicking the log wall with vicious
boot-tees.
“Shut up now or I'll spank you!” Chip was saying desperately when his
wife appeared. “I wish you'd take that Kid and tie him up, Dell,” he
added snappishly. “Here he's been riding all the horses in the little
pasture--and taking a chance on breaking his neck! And he ain't
satisfied with Stubby--he thinks he's entitled to Silver!”
“Well, why not? There, there, honey--men don't cry when things go
wrong--”
“No--because they can take it out in cussing!” wailed the Kid. “I
wouldn't cry either, if you'd let me swear all I want to!”
Chip turned his back precipitately and his shoulders were seen to shake.
The Little Doctor looked shocked.
“I want Silver for my string!” cried the Kid, artfully transferring his
appeal to the higher court. “I can ride him--'cause I have rode him, in
the pasture; and he never bucked once or kicked or anything. Doggone it,
he likes to have me ride him! He comes a-runnin' up to me when I go down
there, and I give him sugar. And then he waits till I climb on his back,
and then we chase the other horses and play ride circle. He wants to
be my string!” Something in the feel of his mother's arm around his
shoulder whispered hope to the Kid. He looked up at her with his most
endearing smile. “You come down there and I'll show you,” he wheedled.
“We're pals. And I guess YOU wouldn't like to have the boys call you Tom
Thumb, a-ridin' Stubby. He's nothing but a five-cent sample of a horse.
Big Medicine says so. I--I'd rather walk than ride Stubby. And I'm
going on roundup. The boys said I could go when I get a real horse under
me--and I want Silver. Daddy Chip said 'yes' I could have him. And now
he's Injun-giver. Can't I have him, Doctor Dell?”
The gray-blue eyes clashed with the brown. “It wouldn't hurt anything
to let the poor little tad show us what he can do,” said the gray-blue
eyes.
“Oh--all right,” yielded the brown, and their owner threw the iron bar
upon the cooling forge and began to turn down his sleeves. “Why don't
you make him wear a hat?” he asked reprovingly. “A little more and he
won't pay any attention to anything you tell him. I'd carry out that
sunbonnet bluff, anyway, if I were you.”
“Now, Daddy Chip! I 'splained to you how I lost my hat,” reproached the
Kid, clinging fast to the Little Doctor's hand.
“Yes--and you 'splained that you'd have gone into that deep hole and
drowned--with nobody there to pull you out--if you hadn't been scared of
a water snake,” Chip pointed out relentlessly.
“I wasn't 'zactly scared,” amended the Kid gravely. “He was havin' such
a good time, and he was swimmin' around so--comf'table--and it wasn't
polite to 'sturb him. Can't I have Silver?”
“We'll go down and ask Silver what he thinks about it,” said the Little
Doctor, anxious to make peace between her two idols. “And we'll see if
Daddy Chip can get the hat. You must wear a hat, honey; you know what
mother told you--and you know mother keeps her word.”
“I wish dad did,” the Kid commented, passing over the hat question. “He
said I could have Silver, and keep him in a box stall and feed him my
own self and water him my own self and nobody's to touch him but me.”
“Well, if daddy said all that--we'll have to think it over, and consult
Silver and see what he has to say about it.”
Silver, when consulted, professed at least a willingness to own the Kid
for his master. He did indeed come trotting up for sugar; and when he
had eaten two grimy lumps from the Kid's grimier hand, he permitted
the Kid to entice him up to a high rock, and stood there while the Kid
clambered upon the rock and from there to his sleek back. He even waited
until the Kid gathered a handful of silky mane and kicked him on the
ribs; then he started off at a lope, while the Kid risked his balance
to cast a triumphant grin--that had a gap in the middle--back at his
astonished parents.
“Look how the little devil guides him!” exclaimed Chip surrenderingly.
“I guess he's safe enough, old Silver seems to sabe he's got a kid to
take care of. He sure would strike a different gait with me! Lord how
the time slides by; I can't seem to get it through me that the Kid's
growing up.”
The Little Doctor sighed a bit. And the Kid, circling grandly on the far
side of the little pasture, came galloping back to hear the verdict. It
pleased him--though he was inclined to mistake a great privilege for a
right that must not be denied. He commanded his Daddy Chip to open the
gate for him so he could ride Silver to the stable and put him in the
box stall; which was a superfluous kindness, as Chip tried to point out
and failed to make convincing.
The Kid wanted Silver in the box stall, where he could feed him and
water him his own self. So into the box stall Silver reluctantly went,
and spent a greater part of the day with his head stuck out through the
window, staring enviously at his mates in the pasture.
For several days Chip watched the Kid covertly whenever his small feet
strayed stableward; watched and was full of secret pride at the manner
in which the Kid rose to his new responsibility. Never did a “string”
receive the care which Silver got, and never did rider sit more proudly
upon his steed than did the Kid sit upon Silver. There seemed to be
practically no risk--Chip was amazed at the Kid's ability to ride.
Besides, Silver was growing old--fourteen years being considered ripe
old age in a horse. He was more given to taking life with a placid
optimism that did not startle easily. He carried the Kid's light weight
easily, and he had not lost all his springiness of muscle. The Little
Doctor rode him sometimes, and loved his smooth gallop and his even
temper; now she loved him more when she saw how careful he was of the
Kid. She besought the Kid to be careful of Silver also, and was most
manfully snubbed for her solicitude.
The Kid had owned Silver for a week, and considered that he was
qualified to give advice to the Happy Family, including his Daddy Chip,
concerning the proper care of horses. He stood with his hands upon his
hips and his feet far apart, and spat into the corral dust and told
Big Medicine that nobody but a pilgrim ever handled a horse the way
Big Medicine was handling Deuce. Whereat Big Medicine gave a bellowing
haw-haw-haw and choked it suddenly when he saw that the Kid desired him
to take the criticism seriously.
“All right, Buck,” he acceded humbly, winking openly at the Native Son.
“I'll try m'best, old-timer. Trouble with me is, I never had nobody to
learn me how to handle a hoss.”
“Well, you've got me, now,” Buck returned calmly. “I don't ride MY
string without brushing the hay out of his tail. There's a big long
hay stuck in your horse's tail.” He pointed an accusing finger, and Big
Medicine silently edged close to Douce's rump and very carefully removed
the big, long hay. He took a fine chance of getting himself kicked, but
he did not tell the Kid that.
“That all right now, Buck?” Big Medicine wanted to know, when he had
accomplished the thing without accident.
“Oh, it'll do,” was the frugal praise he got. “I've got to go and feed
my string, now. And after a while I'll water him. You want to feed your
horse always before you water him, 'cause eatin' makes him firsty. You
'member that, now.”
“I'll sure try to, Buck,” Big Medicine promised soberly, and watched the
Kid go striding away with his hat tilted at the approved Happy-Family
angle and his small hands in his pockets. Big Medicine was thinking of
his own kid, and wondering what he was like, and if he remembered his
dad. He waved his hand in cordial farewell when the Kid looked back
and wrinkled his nose in the adorable, Little-Doctor smile he had, and
turned his attention to Deuce.
The Kid made straight for the box stall and told Silver hello over the
half door. Silver turned from gazing out of the window, and came
forward expectantly, and the Kid told him to wait a minute and not be so
impatience Then he climbed upon a box, got down a heavy canvas nose-bag
with leather bottom, and from a secret receptacle behind the oats box he
brought a paper bag of sugar and poured about a teacupful into the bag.
Daddy Chip had impressed upon him what would be the tragic consequences
if he fed oats to Silver five times a day. Silver would die, and it
would be the Kid that killed him. Daddy Chip had not said anything about
sugar being fatal, however, and the Countess could not always stand
guard over the sugar sack. So Silver had a sweet taste in his mouth
twelve hours of the twenty-four, and was getting a habit of licking his
lips reminiscently during the other twelve.
The Kid had watched the boys adjust nose bags ever since he could
toddle. He lugged it into the stall, set it artfully upon the floor and
let Silver thrust in his head to the eyes: then he pulled the strap over
Silver's neck and managed to buckle it very securely. He slapped the
sleek neck afterward as his Daddy Chip did, hugged it the way Doctor
Dell did, and stood back to watch Silver revel in the bag.
“'S good lickums?” he asked gravely, because he had once heard his
mother ask Silver that very question, in almost that very tone.
At that moment an uproar outside caught his youthful attention. He
listened a minute, heard Pink's voice and a shout of laughter, and ran
to see what was going on; for where was excitement, there the Kid was
also, as nearly in the middle of it as he could manage. His going would
not have mattered to Silver, had he remembered to close the half-door of
the stall behind him; even that would not have mattered, had he not left
the outer door of the stable open also.
The cause of the uproar does not greatly matter, except that the Kid
became so rapturously engaged in watching the foolery of the Happy
Family that he forgot all about Silver. And since sugar produces thirst,
and Silver had not smelled water since morning, he licked the last sweet
grain from the inside of the nose bag and then walked out of the stall
and the stable and made for the creek--and a horse cannot drink with
a nose bag fastened over his face. All he can do, if he succeeds in
getting his nose into the water, is to drown himself most expeditiously
and completely.
Silver reached the creek unseen, sought the deepest hole and tried to
drink. Since his nose was covered with the bag he could not do so but he
fussed and splashed and thrust his head deeper until the water ran into
the bag from the top. He backed and snorted and strangled, and in a
minute he fell. Fortunately he struggled a little, and in doing so he
slid backward down the bank so that his head was up the slope a and the
water ran out of the bag, which was all that saved him.
He was a dead horse, to all appearances at least, when Slim spied him
and gave a yell to bring every human being on the ranch at a run. The
Kid came with the rest, gave one scream and hid his face in the Little
Doctor's skirts, and trembled so that his mother was more frightened
for him than for the horse, and had Chip carry him to the house where he
could not watch the first-aid efforts of the Happy Family.
They did not say anything, much. By their united strength they pulled
Silver up the bank so that his limp head hung downward. Then they began
to work over him exactly as if he had been a drowned man, except that
they did not, of course, roll him over a barrel. They moved his legs
backward and forward, they kneaded his paunch, they blew into his
nostrils, they felt anxiously for heart-beats. They sweated and gave up
the fight, saying that it was no use. They saw a quiver of the muscles
over the chest and redoubled their efforts, telling one another
hopefully that he was alive, all right. They saw finally a quiver of the
nostrils as well, and one after another they laid palms upon his heart,
felt there a steady beating and proclaimed the fact profanely.
They pulled him then into a more comfortable position where the sun
shone warmly and stood around him in a crude circle and watched for
more pronounced symptoms of recovery, and sent word to the Kid that his
string was going to be all right in a little while.
The information was lost upon the Kid, who wept hysterically in his
Daddy Chip's arms listen to anything they told him. He had seen Silver
stretched out dead, with his back in the edge of the creek and his feet
sprawled at horrible angles, and the sight obsessed him and forbade
comfort. He had killed his string; nothing was clear in his mind save
that, and he screamed with his face hidden from his little world.
The Little Doctor, with anxious eyes and puckered eyebrows, poured
something into a teaspoon and helped Chip fight to get it down the Kid's
throat. And the Kid shrieked and struggled and strangled, as is the way
of kids the world over, and tried to spit out the stuff and couldn't, so
he screamed the louder and held his breath until he was purple, and his
parents were scared stiff. The Old Man hobbled to the door in the midst
of the uproar and asked them acrimoniously why they didn't make that
doggoned Kid stop his howling; and when Chip, his nerves already
strained to the snapping point, told him bluntly to get out and mind
his own business, he hobbled away again muttering anathemas against the
whole outfit.
The Countess rushed in from out of doors and wanted to know what under
the shinin' sun was the matter with that kid, and advised his frantic
parents to throw water in his face. Chip told her exactly what he had
told the Old Man, in exactly the same tone; so the Countess retreated,
declaring that he wouldn't be let to act that way if he was her kid, and
that he was plumb everlastingly spoiled.
The Happy Family heard the disturbance and thought the Kid was being
spanked for the accident, which put every man of them in a fighting
humor toward Chip, the Little Doctor, the Old Man and the whole world.
Pink even meditated going up to the White House to lick Chip--or
at least tell him what he thought of him--and he had plenty of
sympathizers; though they advised him half-heartedly not to buy in to
any family mixup.
It was into this storm centre that Andy Green rode headlong with his own
burden of threatened disaster.
CHAPTER 4. ANDY TAKES A HAND IN THE GAME
Andy Green was a day late in arriving at the Flying U. First he lost
time by leaving the train thirty miles short of the destination marked
on his ticket, and when he did resume his journey on the next train, he
traveled eighty-four miles beyond Dry Lake, which landed him in Great
Falls in the early morning. There, with the caution of a criminal
carefully avoiding a meeting with Miss Hallman, he spent an hour in
poring over a plat of a certain section of Chouteau County, and in
copying certain description of unoccupied land.
He had not slept very well the night before and he looked it. He had
cogitated upon the subject of land speculations and the welfare of his
outfit until his head was one great, dull ache; but he stuck to his
determination to do something to block the game of the Homeseekers'
Syndicate. Just what that something would be he had not yet decided. But
on general principles it seemed wise to learn all he could concerning
the particular tract of land about which Florence Grace Hallman had
talked.
The day was past when range rights might be defended honorably with
rifles and six-shooters and iron nerved men to use them--and I fear
that Andy Green sighed because it was so. Give him the “bunch” and free
swing, and he thought the Homeseekers would lose their enthusiasm before
even the first hot wind blew up from the southwest to wither their
crops. But such measures were not to be thought of; if they fought at
all they must fight with the law behind them--and even Andy's optimism
did not see much hope from the law; none, in fact, since both the law
and the moneyed powers were eager for the coming of homebuilders into
that wide land. All up along the Marias they had built their board
shacks, and back over the benches as far as one could see. There was
nothing to stop them, everything to make their coming easy.
Andy scowled at the plat he was studying, and admitted to himself that
it looked as though the Home Seekers' Syndicate were going to have
things their own way; unless--There he stuck. There must be some
way out; never in his life had he faced a situation which had been
absolutely hopeless; always there had been some chance to win, if a man
only saw it in time and took it. In this case it was the clerk in the
office who pointed the way with an idle remark.
“Going to take up a claim, are you?”
Andy looked up at him with the blank stare of preoccupation, and changed
expression as the question filtered into his brain and fitted somehow
into the puzzle. He grinned, said maybe he would, folded the sheet of
paper filled with what looked like a meaningless jumble of letters
and figures, bought a plat of that township and begged some government
pamphlets, and went out humming a little tune just above a whisper. At
the door he tilted his hat down at an angle over his right eye and took
long, eager steps toward an obscure hotel and his meagre baggage.
There was no train going east until midnight, and he caught that train.
This time he actually got off at Dry Lake, ate a hurried breakfast, got
his horse out of the livery stable and dug up the dust of the lane with
rapid hoof-beats so that he rode all the way to the first hill followed
by a rolling, gray cloud that never quite caught him.
When he rode down the Hog's Back he saw the Happy Family bunched around
some object on the creek-bank, and he heard the hysterical screaming of
the Kid up in the house, and saw the Old Man limping excitedly up and
down the porch. A man less astute than Andy Green would have known that
some thing had happened. He hurried down the last slope, galloped along
the creek-bottom, crossed the ford in a couple of leaps and pulled up
beside the group that surrounded Silver.
“What's been taking place here?” he demanded curiously, skipping the
usual greetings.
“Hell,” said the Native Son succinctly, glancing up at him.
“Old Silver looked over the fence into Kingdom Come,” Weary enlarged the
statement a little. “Tried to take a drink with a nose bag on. I guess
he'll come through all right.”
“What ails the Kid?” Andy demanded, glancing toward the house whence
issued a fresh outburst of shrieks.
The Happy Family looked at one another and then at the White House.
“Aw, some folks hain't got a lick of sense when it comes to kids,” Big
Medicine accused gruffly.
“The Kid,” Weary explained, “put the nose bag on Silver and then left
the stable door open.”
“They ain't--spanking him for it, are they?” Andy demanded
belligerently. “By gracious, how'd a kid know any better? Little bit of
a tad like that--”
“Aw, they don't never spank the Kid!” Slim defended the parents loyally.
“By golly, they's been times when I would-a spanked him, if it'd been
me. Countess says it's plumb ridiculous the way that Kid runs over
'em--rough shod. If he's gittin' spanked now, it's the first time.”
“Well,” said Andy, looking from one to another and reverting to his own
worry as he swung down from his sweating horse, “there's something worse
than a spanked kid going to happen to this outfit if you fellows don't
get busy and do something. There's a swarm of dry-farmers coming in
on us, with their stock to eat up the grass and their darned fences
shutting off the water--”
“Oh, for the Lord's sake, cut it out!” snapped Pink. “We ain't in the
mood for any of your joshes. We've had about enough excitement for
once.”
“Ah, don't be a damn' fool,” Andy snapped back. “There's no josh about
it. I've got the whole scheme, just as they framed it up in Minneapolis.
I got to talking with a she-agent on the train, and she gave the whole
snap away; wanted me to go in with her and help land the suckers. I laid
low, and made a sneak to the land office and got a plat of the land, and
all the dope--”
“Get any mail?” Pink interrupted him, in the tone that took no notice
whatever of Andy's ill news.
“Time I was hearing from them spurs I sent for.” Andy silently went
through his pockets and produced what mail he had gleaned from the
post-office, and led his horse into the shade of the stable and pulled
off the saddle. Every movement betrayed the fact that he was in the
grip of unpleasant emotions, but to the Happy Family he said not another
word.
The Happy Family did not notice his silence at the time. But afterwards,
when the Kid had stopped crying and Silver had gotten to his feet and
wobbled back to the stable, led by Chip, who explained briefly and
satisfactorily the cause of the uproar at the house, and the boys had
started up to their belated dinner, they began to realize that for a
returned traveler Andy Green was not having much to say.
They asked him about his trip, and received brief answers. Had he been
anyone else they would have wanted to know immediately what was eatin'
on him; but since it was Andy Green who sat frowning at his toes and
smoking his cigarette as though it had no comfort or flavor, the boldest
of them were cautious. For Andy Green, being a young man of vivid
imagination and no conscience whatever, had fooled them too often with
his lies. They waited, and they watched him covertly and a bit puzzled.
Silence and gloom were not boon companions of Andy Green, at any time.
So Weary, having the most charitable nature of any among them, sighed
and yielded the point of silent contention.
“What was all that you started to tell us about the dry-farmers, Andy?”
he asked indulgently.
“All straight goods. But there's no use talking to you bone-heads.
You'll set around chewing the rag and looking wise till it's too late to
do anything but holler your heads off.” He got up from where he had been
lounging on a bench just outside the mess house and walked away,
with his hands thrust deep into his pockets and his shoulders drooped
forward.
The Happy Family looked after him doubtfully.
“Aw, it's just some darned josh uh his,” Happy Jack declared. “I know
HIM.”
“Look at the way he slouches along--like he was loaded to the ears with
trouble!” Pink pointed out amusedly. “He'd fool anybody that didn't know
him, all right.”
“And he fools the fellows that do know him, oftener than anybody else,”
added the Native Son negligently. “You're fooled right now if you think
that's all acting. That HOMBRE has got something on his mind.”
“Well, by golly, it ain't dry-farmers,” Slim asserted boldly.
“If you fellows wouldn't say it was a frame-up between us two, I'd go
after him and find out. But...”
“But as it stands, we'd believe Andy Green a whole lot quicker'n what we
would you,” supplemented Big Medicine loudly. “You're dead right there.”
“What was it he said about it?” Weary wanted to know. “I wasn't paying
much attention, with the Kid yelling his head off and old Silver gaping
like a sick turkey, and all. What was it about them dryfarmers?”
“He said,” piped Pink, “that he'd got next to a scheme to bring a big
bunch of dry-farmers in on this bench up here, with stock that they'd
turn loose on the range. That's what he said. He claims the agent wanted
him to go in on it.”
“Mamma!” Weary held a match poised midway between his thigh and his
cigarette while he stared at Pink. “That would be some mixup--if it was
to happen.” His sunny blue eyes--that were getting little crow's-feet
at their corners--turned to look after the departing Andy. “Where's the
josh?” he questioned the group.
“The josh is, that he'd like to see us all het up over it, and makin'
war-talks and laying for the pilgrims some dark night with our six-guns,
most likely,” retorted Pink, who happened to be in a bad humor because
in ten minutes he was due at a line of post-holes that divided the big
pasture into two unequal parts. “He can't agitate me over anybody's
troubles but my own. Happy, I'll help Bud stretch wire this afternoon if
you'll tamp the rest uh them posts.”
“Aw, you stick to your own job! How was it when I wanted you to help
pull the old wire off that hill fence and git it ready to string down
here? You wasn't crazy about workin' with bob wire then, I noticed. You
said--”
“What I said wasn't a commencement to what I'll say again,” Pink began
truculently, and so the subject turned effectually from Andy Green.
Weary smoked meditatively while they wrangled, and when the group broke
up for the afternoon's work he went unobtrusively in search of Andy.
He was not quite easy in his mind concerning the alleged joke. He had
looked full at the possibilities of the situation--granting Andy had
told the truth, as he sometimes did--and the possibilities had not
pleased him. He found Andy morosely replacing some broken strands in his
cinch, and he went straight at the mooted question.
Andy looked up from his work and scowled. “This ain't any joke with me,”
he stated grimly. “It's something that's going to put the Flying U
out of business if it ain't stopped before it gets started. I've been
worrying my head off ever since day before yesterday; I ain't in the
humor to take anything off those imitation joshers up there--I'll tell
yuh that much.”
“Well, but how do you figure it can be stopped?” Weary sat soberly down
on the oats box and absently watched Andy's expert fingers while they
knotted the heavy cotton cord through the cinch-ring. “We can't stand
'em off with guns.”
Andy dropped the cinch and stood up, pushing back his hat and then
pulling it forward into place with the gesture he used when he was very
much in earnest. “No, we can't. But if the bunch is game for it there's
a way to block their play--and the law does all our fighting for us. We
don't have to yeep. It's like this, Weary counting Chip and the Little
Doctor and the Countess there's eleven of us that can use our rights up
here on the bench. I've got it all figured out. If we can get Irish and
Jack Bates to come back and help us out, there's thirteen of us. And
we can take homesteads along the creeks and deserts back on the bench,
and--say, do you know how much land we can corral, the bunch of us? Four
thousand acres and if we take our claims right, that's going to mean
that we get a dead immortal cinch on all the bench land that's worth
locating, around here, and we'll have the creeks, and also we'll have
the breaks corralled for our own stock.
“I've gone over the plat--I brought a copy to show you fellows what we
can do. And by taking up our claims right, we keep a deadline from the
Bear Paws to the Flying U. Now the Old Man owns Denson's ranch, all
south uh here is fairly safe--unless they come in between his south line
and the breaks; and there ain't room for more than two or three claims
there. Maybe we can get some of the boys to grab what there is, and
string ourselves out north uh here too.
“That's the only way on earth we can save what little feed there is
left. This way, we get the land ourselves and hold it, so there don't
any outside stock come in on us. If Florence Grace Hallman and her bunch
lands any settlers here, they'll be between us and Dry Lake; and they're
dead welcome to squat on them dry pinnacles--so long as we keep their
stock from crossing our claims to get into the breaks. Savvy the burro?”
“Yes-s--but how'd yuh KNOW they're going to do all this? Mamma! I don't
want to turn dry-farmer if I don't have to!”
Andy's face clouded. “That's just what'll block the game, I'm afraid. I
don't want to, either. None of the boys'll want to. It'll mean going
up there and baching, six or seven months of the year, by our high
lonesomes. We'll have to fulfill the requirements, if we start
in--because them pilgrims'll be standing around like dogs at a picnic,
waiting for something to drop so they can grab it and run. It ain't
going to be any snap.
“And there's another thing bothers me, Weary. It's going to be one peach
of a job to make the boys believe it hard enough to make their entries
in time.” Andy grinned wrily. “By gracious, this is where I could see a
gilt-edged reputation for telling the truth!”
“You could, all right,” Weary agreed sympathetically. “It's going to
strain our swallowers to get all that down, and that's a fact. You ought
to have some proof, if you want the boys to grab it, Andy.” His face
sobered. “Who is this Florence person? If you could get some kinda
proof--a letter, say...”
“Easiest thing in the world!” Andy brightened at the suggestion. “She's
stopping at the Park, in Great Falls, and she wanted me to come up or
write. Anybody going to town right away? I'll send that foxy dame a
letter that'll produce proof enough. You've helped ma a lot, Weary.”
Weary scrutinized him sharply and puckered his lips into a doubtful
expression. “I wish I knew for a fact whether all this is straight
goods, Andy,” he said pensively. “Chances are you're just stringing me.
But if you are, old boy, I'm going to take it outa your hide--and don't
you forget that.” He grinned at his own mental predicament. “Honest,
Andy, is this some josh, or do you mean it?”
“By gracious, I wish it was a josh! But it ain't, darn it. In about
two weeks or so you'll all see the point of this joke--but whether the
joke's on us or on the homeseekers' Syndicate depends on you fellows.
Lord! I wish I'd never told a lie!”
Weary sat knocking his heels rhythmically against the side of the box
while he thought the matter over from start to hypothetical finish and
back again. Meanwhile Andy Green went on with his work and scowled over
his well-earned reputation that hampered him now just when he needed the
confidence of his fellows in order to save their beloved Flying U from
slow annihilation. Perhaps his mental suffering could not rightly be
called remorse, but a poignant regret it most certainly was, and a sense
of complete bafflement which came out in his next sentence.
“Even if she wrote me a letter, the boys'd call it a frame-up just the
same. They'd say I had it fixed before I left town. Doctor Cecil's up at
the Falls. They'd lay it to her.”
“I was thinking of that, myself. What's the matter with getting Chip to
go up with you? Couldn't you ring him in on the agent somehow, so he can
get the straight of it?”
Andy stood up and looked at Weary a minute. “How'd I make Chip believe
me enough to GO?” he countered. “Darn it, everything looked all smooth
sailing till I got back here to the ranch and the boys come at me with
that same old smart-aleck brand uh talk. I kinda forgot how I've lied
to 'em and fooled 'em right along till they duck every time I open my
face.” His eyes were too full of trouble to encourage levity in his
listener. “You remember that time the boys' rode off and left me laying
out here on the prairie with my leg broke?” he went on dismally. “I'd
rather have that happen to me a dozen times than see 'em set back and
give me the laugh now, just when--Oh, hell!” He dropped the finished
cinch and walked moodily to the door. “Weary, if them dry-farmers come
flockin' in on us while this bunch stands around callin' me a liar, I--”
He did not attempt to finish the sentence; but Weary, staring curiously
at Andy's profile, saw a quivering of the muscles around his lips and
felt a responsive thrill of sympathy and belief that rose above his long
training in caution.
Spite of past experience he believed, at that moment, every word which
Andy Green had uttered upon the subject of the proposed immigration. He
was about to tell Andy so, when Chip walked unexpectedly out of Silver's
stall and glanced from Weary to Andy standing still in the doorway.
Weary looked at him enquiringly; for Chip must have heard every word
they said, and if Chip believed it--
“Have you got that plat with you, Andy?” Chip asked tersely and with
never a doubt in his tone.
Andy swung toward him like a prisoner who has just heard a jury return
a verdict of not guilty to the judge. “I've got it, yes,” he answered
simply, with only his voice betraying the emotions he felt--and his eye?
“Want it?”
“I'll take a look at it, if it's handy,” said Chip.
Andy felt in his inside coat pocket, drew out a thin, folded map of that
particular part of the county with all the government land marked upon
it, and handed it to Chip without a word. He singled out a couple of
pamphlets from a bunch of old letters such as men are in the habit of
carrying upon their persons, and gave them to Chip also.
“That's a copy of the homestead and desert laws,” he said. “I guess you
heard me telling Weary what kinda deal we're up against, here. Better
not say anything to the Old Man till you have to; no use worrying
him--he can't do nothing.” It was amazing, the change that had come over
Andy's face and manner since Chip first spoke. Now he grinned a little.
“If you want to go in on this deal,” he said quizzically, “maybe it'll
be just as well if you talk to the bunch yourself about it, Chip. You
ain't any tin, angel, but I'm willing to admit the boys'll believe you;
a whole lot quicker than they would me.”
“Yes--and they'll probably hand me a bunch of pity for getting stung by
you,” Chip retorted. “I'll take a chance, anyway--but the Lord help you,
Andy if you can't produce proof when the time comes.”
CHAPTER 5. THE HAPPY FAMILY TURN NESTERS
“Say, Andy, where's them dry-farmers?” Big Medicine inquired at the top
of his voice when the Happy Family had reached the biscuit-and-syrup
stage of supper that evening.
“Oh, they're trying to make up their minds whether to bring the old
fannin'-mill along or sell it and buy new when they get here,” Andy
informed him imperturbably. “The women-folks are busy going through
their rag bags, cutting the buttons off all the pants that ain't worth
patching no more, and getting father's socks all darned up.”
The Happy Family snickered appreciatively; this was more like the Andy
Green with whom they were accustomed to deal.
“What's daughter doin', about now?” asked Cal Emmett, fixing his round,
baby-blue stare upon Andy.
“Daughter? Why, daughter's leaning over the gate telling him she
wouldn't never LOOK at one of them wild cowboys--the idea! She's
heard all about 'em, and they're too rough and rude for HER. And she's
promising to write every day, and giving him a lock of hair to keep in
the back of his dollar watch. Pass the cane Juice, somebody.”
“Yeah--all right for daughter. If she's a good looker we'll see if she
don't change her verdict about cowboys.”
“Who will? You don't call yourself one, do yuh?” Pink flung at him
quickly.
“Well, that depends; I know I ain't any LADY broncho--hey, cut it out!”
This last because of half a biscuit aimed accurately at the middle of
his face. If you want to know why, search out the history of a
certain War Bonnet Roundup, wherein Pink rashly impersonated a lady
broncho-fighter.
“Wher'e they going to live when they git here?” asked Happy Jack,
reverting to the subject of dry farmers.
“Close enough so you can holler from here to their back door, my boy--if
they have their say about it,” Andy assured him cheerfully. Andy felt
that he could afford to be facetious now that he had Chip and Weary on
his side.
“Aw, gwan! I betche there ain't a word of truth in all that scarey
talk,” Happy Jack fleered heavily.
“Name your bet. I'll take it.” Andy filled his mouth with hot biscuit
and stirred up the sugar in his coffee like a man who is occupied
chiefly with the joys of the table.
“Aw, you ain't going to git me that way agin,” Happy Jack declared.
“They's some ketch to it.”
“There sure is, Happy. The biggest ketch you ever seen in your life.
It's ketch the Flying U outfit and squeeze the life out of it;
that's the ketch.” Andy's tone had in it no banter, but considerable
earnestness. For, though Chip would no doubt convince the boys that the
danger was very real, there was a small matter of personal pride to urge
Andy into trying to convince, them himself, without aid from Chip or any
one else.
“Well, by golly, I'd like to see anybody try that there scheme,” blurted
Slim. “That's all--I'd just like to see 'em TRY it once!”
“Oh, you'll see it, all right--and you won't have to wait long, either.
Just set around on your haunches a couple of weeks or so. That's all
you'll have to do, Slim; you'll see it tried, fast enough.”
Pink eyed him with a wide, purple glance. “You'd like to make us fall
for that, wouldn't you?” he challenged warily.
Andy gave him a level look. “No, I wouldn't. I'd like to put one over
on you smart gazabos that think you know it all; but I don't want to
bad enough to see the Flying U go outa business just so I could holler
didn't-I-tell-you. There's a limit to what I'll pay for a josh.”
“Well,” put in the Native Son with his easy drawl, “I'm coming to the
centre with my ante, just for the sake of seeing the cards turned. Deal
'em out, amigo; state your case once more, so we can take a good, square
look at these dry-farmers.”
“Yeah--go ahead and tell us what's bustin' the buttons off your vest,”
Cal Emmett invited.
“What's the use?” Andy argued. “You'd all just raise up on your hind
legs and holler your heads off. You wouldn't DO anything about it--not
if you knew it was the truth!” This, of course, was pure guile upon his
part.
“Oh, wouldn't we? I guess, by golly, we'd do as much for the outfit as
what you would--and a hull lot more if it come to a show-down.” Slim
swallowed the bait.
“Maybe you would, if you could take it out in talking,” snorted Andy.
“My chips are in. I've got three-hundred-and-twenty acres picked out, up
here, and I'm going to file on 'em before these damned nesters get off
the train. Uh course, that won't be more'n a flea bite--but I can make
it interesting for my next door neighbors, anyway; and every flea bite
helps to keep a dog moving, yuh know.”
“I'll go along and use my rights,” Weary offered suddenly and seriously.
“That'll make one section they won't get, anyway.”
Pink gave him a startled look across the table. “You ain't going to grab
it, are yuh?” he demanded disappointedly.
“I sure am--if it's three-hundred-and-twenty acres of land you mean. If
I don't, somebody else will.” He sighed humorously. “Next summer you'll
see me hoeing spuds, most likely--if the law says I GOT to.”
“Haw-haw-haw-w!” laughed Big Medicine suddenly. “It'd sure be worth the
price, jest to ride up and watch you two marks down on all fours weedin'
onions.” He laughed again with his big, bull-like bellow.
“We don't have to do anything like that if we don't want to,” put in
Andy Green calmly. “I've been reading up on the law. There's one little
joker in it I've got by heart. It says that homestead land can be used
for grazing purposes if it's more valuable for pasture than for crops,
and that actual grazing will be accepted instead of cultivation--if it
is grazing land. So--”
“I betche you can't prove that,” Happy lack interrupted him. “I never
heard of that before--”
“The world's plumb full of things you never heard of, Happy,” Andy told
him witheringly. “I gave Chip my copy of the homestead laws, and a plat
of the land up here; soon as he hands 'em back I can show you in cold
print where it says that very identical thing.
“That's what makes it look good to me, just on general principles,” he
went on, his honest, gray eyes taking in the circle of attentive faces.
“If the bunch of us could pool our interests and use what rights we got,
we can corral about four thousand acres--and we can head off outsiders
from grazing in the Badlands, if we take our land right. We've been
overlooking a bet, and don't you forget it. We've been fooling around,
just putting in our time and drawing wages, when we could be owning our
own grazing land by now and shipping our own cattle, if we had enough
sense to last us overnight.
“A-course, I ain't crazy about turning nester, myself--but we've let
things slide till we've got to come through or get outa the game. It's
a fact, boys, about them dry-farmers coming in on us. That Minneapolis
bunch that the blonde lady works for is sending out a colony of farmers
to take up this land between here and the Bear Paws. The lady tipped her
hand, not knowing where I ranged and thinking I wouldn't be interested
in anything but her. She's a real nice lady, too, and goodlooking--but
a grafter to her last eye winker. And she hit too close home to suit me,
when she named the place where they're going to dump their colony.”
“Where does the graft come in?” inquired Pink cautiously. “The farmers
get the land, don't they?”
“Sure, they get the land. And they pungle up a good-sized fee to
Florence Grace Hallman and her outfit, for locating 'em. Also there's
side money in it, near as I can find out. They skin the farmers somehow
on the fare out here. That's their business, according to the lady. They
prowl around through the government plats till they spot a few thousand
acres of land in a chunk; they take a look at it, maybe, and then they
boom it like hell, and get them eastern marks hooked--them with money,
the lady said. Then they ship a bunch out here, locate 'em on the land
and leave it up to THEM, whether they scratch a living or not. She said
they urge the rubes to bring all the stock they can, because there's
plenty of range left. She says they play that up big. You can see for
yourself how that'll work out, around here!”
Pink eyed him attentively, and suddenly his dimples stood deep. “All
right, I'm It,” he surrendered.
“It'd be a sin not to fall for a yarn like that, Andy. I expect you made
it all up outa your own head, but that's all right. It's a pleasure to
be fooled by a genius like you. I'll go raising turnips and cabbages
myself.”
“By golly, you couldn't raise nothing but hell up on that dry bench,”
Slim observed ponderously. “There ain't any water. What's the use uh
talking foolish?”
“They're going to tackle it, just the same,” Andy pointed out patiently.
“Well, by golly, if you ain't just lyin' to hear yourself, that there
graftin' bunch had oughta be strung up!”
“Sure, they had. Nobody's going to argue about that. But seeing we can't
do that, the next best thing is to beat them to it. If they came out
here with their herd of pilgrims and found the land all took up--” Andy
smiled hypnotically upon the goggling group.
“Haw-haw-haw-w!” bawled Big Medicine. “It'd be wuth it, by cripes!”
“Yeah--it would, all right. If that talk Andy's been giving us is
straight, about grazing the land instead uh working it--”
“You can mighty quick find out,” Andy retorted. “Go up and ask Chip
for them land laws, and that plat. And ask him what he thinks about the
deal. You don't have to take my word for it.” Andy grinned virtuously
and pushed back his chair. From their faces, and the remarks they had
made, he felt very confident of the ultimate decision. “What about you,
Patsy?” he asked suddenly, turning to the bulky, bald German cook who
was thumping bread dough in a far corner. “You got any homestead or
desert rights you ain't used?”
“Py cosh, I got all der rights dere iss,” Patsy returned querulously.
“I got more rights as you shmartys. I got soldier's rights mit fightin'.
Und py cosh, I use him too if dem fellers coom by us mit der dry farms
alreatty!”
“Well, you son-of-a-gun!” Andy smote him elatedly upon a fat shoulder.
“What do you know about old Patsy for a dead game sport? By gracious,
that makes another three hundred and twenty to the good. Gee, it's lucky
this bunch has gone along turning up their noses at nesters and thinkin'
they couldn't be real punchers and hold down claims too. If any of us
had had sense enough to grab a piece of land and settle down to raise
families, we'd be right up against it now. We'd have to set back and
watch a bunch of down-east rubes light down on us like flies on spilt
molasses, and we couldn't do a thing.”
“As it is, we'll all turn nesters for the good of the cause!” finished
Pink somewhat cynically, getting up and following Cal and Slim to the
door.
“Aw, I betche they's some ketch to it!” gloomed Happy Jack. “I betche
Andy jest wants to see us takin' up claims on that dry bench, and then
set back and laugh at us fer bitin' on his josh.”
“Well, you'll have the claims, won't you. And if you hang onto them
there'll be money in the deal some day. Why, darn your bomb-proof skull,
can't you get it into your system that all this country's bound to
settle up?” Andy's eyes snapped angrily. “Can't you see the difference
between us owning the land between here and the mountains, and a bunch
of outsiders that'll cut it all up into little fields and try to farm
it. If you can't see that, you better go hack a hole in your head with
an axe, so an idea can squeeze in now and then when you ain't looking!”
“Well, I betche there ain't no colony comin' to settle that there
bench,” Happy Jack persisted stubbornly.
“Yes there is, by cripes!” trumpeted Big Medicine behind him. “Yes there
is! And that there colony is goin' to be us, and don't you forget it.
It's time I was doin' somethin' fer that there boy uh mine, by cripes!
And soon as we git that fence strung I'm goin' to hit the trail fer the
nearest land office. Honest to grandma, if Andy's lyin' it's goin' to be
the prof't'blest lie HE ever told, er anybody else. I don't care a cuss
about whether them dry-farmers is fixin' to light here or not. That
there land-pool looks good to ME, and I'm comin' in on it with all four
feet!”
Big Medicine was nothing less than a human land slide when once he threw
himself into anything, be it a fight or a frolic. Now he blocked the
way to the door with his broad shoulders and his big bellow and his
enthusiasm, and his pale, frog-like eyes fixed their protruding stare
accusingly upon the reluctant ones.
“Cal, you git up there and git that plat and bring it here,” he ordered.
“And fer criminy sakes git that table cleared off, Patsy, so's't we kin
have a place to lay it! What's eatin' on you fellers, standin' around
like girls to a party, waitin' fer somebody to come up and ast you to
dance! Ain't you got head enough to see what a cinch we got, if we only
got sense enough to play it! Honest to grandma you make me sick to look
at yuh! Down in Conconino County the boys wouldn't stand back and wait
to be purty-pleased into a thing like this. You're so scared Andy's got
a josh covered up somewheres, you wouldn't take a drink uh whisky if he
ast yuh up to the bar! You'd pass up a Chris'mas turkey, by cripes, if
yuh seen Andy washin' his face and lookin' hungry! You'd--”
What further reproach he would have heaped upon them was interrupted by
Chip, who opened the door just then and bumped Big Medicine in the back.
In his hand Chip carried the land plat and the pamphlets, and in his
keen, brown eyes he carried the light of battle for his outfit. The eyes
of Andy Green sent bright glances from him to Big Medicine, and on
to the others. He was too wise then to twit those others with their
unbelief. His wisdom went farther than that; for he remained very
much in the background of the conversation and contented himself with
answering, briefly and truthfully, the questions they put to him about
Florence Grace Hallman and the things she had so foolishly divulged
concerning her plans.
Chip spread the plat upon an end of the table hastily and effectually
cleared by a sweep of Big Medicine's arm, and the Happy Family crowded
close to stare down at the checker-board picture of their own familiar
bench land. They did not doubt, now--nor did they Hang back reluctantly.
Instead they followed eagerly the trail Chip's cigarette-yellowed finger
took across the map, and they listened intently to what he said about
that trail.
The clause about grazing the land, he said, simplified matters a whole
lot. It was a cinch you couldn't turn loose and dry-farm that land and
have even a fair chance of reaping a harvest. But as grazing land they
could hold all the land along One Man Creek--and that was a lot. And the
land lying back of that, and higher up toward the foothills, they
could take as desert. And he maintained that Andy had been right in
his judgment: If they all went into it and pulled together they
could stretch a line of claims that would protect the Badland grazing
effectually.
“I wouldn't ask you fellows to go into this,” said Chip, straightening
from his stooping over the map and looking from one sober face to
another, “just to help the outfit. But it'll be a good thing for you
boys. It'll give you a foothold--something better than wages, if you
stay with your claims and prove up. Of course, I can't say anything
about us buying out your claims--that's fraud, according to Hoyle;
but you ain't simple-minded--you know your land won't be begging for a
buyer, in case you should ever want to sell.
“There's another thing. This will not only head off the dry-farmers
from overstocking what little range is left--it'll make a dead-line for
sheep, too. We've been letting 'em graze back and forth on the bench
back here beyond our leased land, and not saying much, so long as they
didn't crowd up too close, and kept going. With all our claims under
fence, do you realize what that'll mean for the grass?”
“Josephine! There's feed for considerable stock, right over there on our
claims, to say nothing of what we'll cover,” exclaimed Pink.
“I'd tell a man! And if we get water on the desert claims--” Chip
grinned down at him. “See what we've been passing up, all this time.
We've had some of it leased, of course--but that can't be done again.
There's been some wire-pulling, and because we ain't politicians we got
turned down when the Old Man wanted to renew the lease. I can see now
why it was, maybe. This dry-farm business had something to do with it,
if you ask me.”
“Gee whiz! And here we've been calling Andy a liar,” sighed Cal Emmett.
“Aw, jest because he happened to tell the truth once, don't cut no ice,”
Happy Jack maintained with sufficient ambiguity to avert the natural
consequences.
“Of course, it won't be any gold-mine,” Chip added dispassionately.
“But it's worth picking up, all right; and if it'll keep out a bunch
of tight-fisted settlers that don't give a darn for anything but what's
inside their own fence, that's worth a lot, too.”
“Say, my dad's a farmer,” Pink declared defiantly in his soft treble.
“And while I think of it, them eastern farmers ain't so worse--not the
brand I've seen, anyway. They're narrow, maybe--but they're human.
Damn it, you fellows have got to quit talking about 'em as if they were
blackleg stock or grasshoppers or something.”
“We ain't saying nothing aginst farmers AS farmers, Little One” Big
Medicine explained forebearingly. “As men, and as women, and as kids,
they're mighty nice folks. My folks have got an eighty-acre farm in
Wisconsin,” he confessed unexpectedly, “and I think a pile of 'em. But
if they was to come out here, trying to horn in on our range, I'd lead
'em gently to the railroad, by cripes, and tell 'em goodbye so's't
they'd know I meant it! Can't yuh see the difference?” he bawled,
goggling at Pink with misleading savageness in his ugly face.
“Oh, I see,” Pink admitted mildly. “I only just wanted to remind you
fellows that I don't mean anything personal and I don't want you to.
Say, what about One Man Coulee?” he asked suddenly. “That's marked
vacant on the map. I always thought--”
“Sure, you did!” Chip grinned at him wisely, “because we used it for
a line camp, you thought we owned a deed to it. Well, we don't. We had
that land leased, is all.”
“Say, by golly, I'll file on that, then,” Slim declared selfishly. For
One Man coulee, although a place of gruesome history, was also desirable
for one or two reasons. There was wood, for instance, and water, and a
cabin that was habitable. There was also a fence on the place, a corral
and a small stable. “If Happy's ghost don't git to playin' music too
much,” he added with his heavy-handed wit.
“No, sir! You ain't going to have One Man coulee unless Andy, here, says
he don't want it!” shouted Big Medicine. “I leave it to Chip if Andy
hadn't oughta have first pick. He's the feller that's put us onto this,
by cripes, and he's the feller that's going to pick his claim first.”
Chip did not need to sanction that assertion. The whole Happy Family
agreed unanimously that it should be so, except Slim, who yielded a bit
unwillingly.
Till midnight and after, they bent heads over the plat and made plans
for the future and took no thought whatever of the difficulties that
might lie before them. For the coming colony they had no pity, and
for the balked schemes of the Homeseekers' Syndicate no compunctions
whatever.
So Andy Green, having seen his stratagem well on the way to success,
and feeling once more the well-earned confidence of his fellows, slept
soundly that night in his own bed, serenely sure of the future.
CHAPTER 6. THE FIRST BLOW IN THE FIGHT
Letters went speeding to Irish and Jack Bates, absent members of the
Happy Family of the Flying U; letters that explained the situation with
profane completeness, set forth briefly the plan of the proposed pool,
and which importuned them to come home or make haste to the nearest
land-office and file upon certain quarter-sections therein minutely
described. Those men who would be easiest believed wrote and signed
the letters, and certain others added characteristic postscripts best
calculated to bring results.
After that, the Happy Family debated upon the boldness of going in
a body to Great Falls to file upon their claims, or the caution of
proceeding instead to Glasgow where the next nearest land-office might
be found. Slim and Happy Jack favored caution and Glasgow. The others
sneered at their timidity, as they were wont to do.
“Yuh think Florence Grace Hallman is going to stand guard with a
six-gun?” Andy challenged at last. “She's tied up till her colony gets
there. She can't file on all that land herself, can she?” He smiled
reminiscently. “The lady asked me to come up to the Falls and see her,”
he said softly. “I'm going. The rest of you can take the same train, I
reckon--she won't stop you from it, and I won't. And who's to stop you
from filing? The land's there, open for settlement. At least it was
open, day before yesterday.”
“Well, by golly, the sooner we go the better,” Slim declared fussily.
“That fencin' kin wait. We gotta go and git back before Chip wants to
start out the wagons, too.”
“Listen here, hombres,” called the Native Son from the window, where
he had been studying the well-thumbed pamphlet containing the homestead
law. “If we want to play dead safe on this, we all better quit the
outfit before we go. Call for our time. I don't like the way some of
this stuff reads.”
“I don't like the way none of it reads,” grumbled Happy Jack. “I betche
we can't make it go; they's some ketch to it. We'll never git a patent.
I'll betche anything yuh like.”
“Well, pull out of the game, then!” snapped Andy Green, whose nerves
were beginning to feel the strain put upon them.
“I ain't in it yet,” said Happy Jack sourly, and banged the door shut
upon his departure.
Andy scowled and returned to studying the map. Finally he reached for
his hat and gloves in the manner of one who has definitely made up his
mind to some thing.
“Well, the rest of you can do as you darned please,” he delivered his
ultimatum from the doorway. “I'm going to catch up my horse, draw a
month's wages and hit the trail. I can catch the evening train to
the Falls, easy, and be ready to file on my chunk first thing in the
morning.”
“Ain't in any rush, are yuh?” Pink inquired facetiously. “If I had my
dinner settled and this cigarette smoked, I might go along--provided you
don't take the trail with yuh.”
“Hold on, boys, and listen to this,” the Native Son called out
imperatively. “I think we better get a move on, too; but we want to get
a fair running start, and not fall over this hump. Listen here! We've
got to swear that it is not for the benefit of any other person, persons
or corporation, and so on; and farther along it says we must not act
in collusion with any person, persons or corporation, to give them the
benefit of the land. There's more of the same kind, too, but you see--”
“Well, who's acting in collusion? What's collusion mean anyhow?” Slim
demanded aggressively.
“It means what we're aiming to do--if anybody could prove it on us,”
explained the Native Son. “My oldest brother's a lawyer, and I caught
some of it from him. And my expert, legal advice is this: to get into a
row with the Old Man, maybe--anyway, quit him cold, so we get our time.
We must let that fact percolate the alleged brains of Dry Lake and
vicinity--and if we give any reason for taking claims right under the
nose of the Flying U, why, we're doing it to spite the Old Man. Sabe?
Otherwise we're going to have trouble--unless that colony scheme is just
a pipe dream of Andy's.”
The Happy Family had learned to respect the opinions of the Native Son,
whose mixture of Irish blood with good Castilian may have had something
to do with his astuteness. Once, as you may have heard, the Native Son
even scored in a battle of wits with Andy Green, and scored heavily.
And he had helped Andy pull the Flying U out of an extremely ticklish
situation, by his keen wit saving the outfit much trouble and money.
Wherefore they heeded now his warning to the extent of unsmilingly
discussing the obstacle he had pointed out to them. One after another
they read the paragraph which they had before passed over too hastily,
and sensed the possibilities of its construction. Afterward they went
into serious consultation as to ways and means, calling Happy Jack back
so that he might understand thoroughly what must be done. For the Happy
Family was nothing if not thorough, and their partisanship that had been
growing insensibly stronger through the years was roused as it had not
been since Dunk Whittaker drove sheep in upon the Flying U.
The Old Man, having eaten a slice of roast pork the size of his two
hands, in defiance of his sister's professional prohibition of the
indulgence, was sitting on the sunny side of the porch trying to ignore
the first uneasy symptoms of indigestion. The Little Doctor had taken
his pipe away from him that morning, and had badgered him into taking
a certain decoction whose taste lingered bitterly. The paper he was
reading was four days old and he disagreed with its political policy,
and there was no telling when anyone would have time to go in after the
mail and his favorite paper. Ranch work was growing heavier each year in
proportion to the lightening of range work. He was going to sow another
twenty acres of alfalfa, and to do that he must cut down the size of his
pasture--something that always went against the grain. He had not been
able to renew his lease of government land,--which also went against the
grain. And the Kid, like the last affliction which the Lord sent unto
Job--I've forgotten whether that was boils or the butchery of his
offspring--came loping down the length of the porch and kicked the Old
Man's bunion with a stubby boot-toe.
Thus was born the psychological moment when the treachery of the Happy
Family would cut deepest.
They came, bunched and talking low-voiced together with hatbrims hiding
shamed eyes, a type-true group of workers bearing a grievance. Not a man
was absent--the Happy Family saw to that! Even Patsy, big and sloppy and
bearing with him stale kitchen odors, limped stolidly in the rear beside
Slim, who looked guilty as though he had been strangling somebody's
favorite cat.
The Old Man, bent head-foremost over his growing paunch that he might
caress his outraged bunion, glared at them with belligerent curiosity
from under his graying eyebrows. The group came on and stopped short
at the steps--and I don't suppose the Happy Family will ever look such
sneaks again whatever crime they may commit. The Old Man straightened
with a grunt of pain because of his lame back, and waited. Which made it
all the harder for the Happy Family, especially for Andy Green who had
been chosen spokesman--for his sins perhaps.
“We'd like our time,” blurted Andy after an unpleasant silence, and
fixed his eyes frigidly upon the lowest rung of the Old Man's chair.
“Oh, you would, hunh? The whole bunch of yuh?” The Old Man eyed them
incredulously.
“Yes, the whole bunch of us. We're going to quit.”
The Old Man's jaw dropped a little, but his eyes didn't waver from
their Hangdog faces. “Well, I never coaxed a man to stay yet,” he stated
grimly, “and I'm gittin' too old in the business to start coaxin' now.
Dell!” He turned stiffly in his chair so that he faced the open door.
“Bring me my time and check books outa the desk!”
A gray hardness came slowly to the Old Man's face while he waited, his
seamed hands gripping the padded arms of his chair. A tightness pulled
at his lips behind the grizzled whiskers. It never occurred to him now
that the Happy Family might be perpetrating one of their jokes. He had
looked at their faces, you see. They meant to quit him--quit him cold
just as spring work was beginning. They were ashamed of themselves,
of course; they had a right to be ashamed, he thought bitterly. It
hurt--hurt so that he would have died before he would ask for excuse,
reason, grievance, explanation--for whatever motive impelled them. So he
waited, and he gripped the arms of his chair, and he clamped his mouth
shut and did not speak a word.
The Happy Family had expected him to swear at them stormily; to accuse
them of vile things; to call them such names as his memory could seize
upon or his ingenuity invent. They had been careful to prepare a list of
plausible reasons for leaving then. They had first invented a gold
rumor that they hoped would sound convincing, but Andy had insisted upon
telling him straightforwardly that they did not favor fence-building and
ditch-digging and such back-breaking toil; that they were range men
and they demanded range work or none; that if they must dig ditches and
build fences and perform like menial tasks, they preferred doing it
for themselves. “That,” said Andy, “makes us out such dirty, low-down
sons-of-guns we'd have to climb a tree to look a snake in the eye, but
it's got the grain of truth that'll make it go down. We DON'T love this
farming graft, and the Old Man knows it. He's heard us kicking often
enough. That's where it'll git him. He'll believe this last stretch of
fence is what made us throw him down, and he'll be so mad he'll cuss us
out till the neighbors'll think the smoke's a prairie fire. We'll get
our time, all right' and the things he'll say will likely make us so
hot we can all talk convincing when we hit town. Keep a stiff upper lip,
boys. We got to do it, and he'll make us mad, so it won't be as hard as
you imagine.”
The theory was good, and revealed a knowledge of human nature that
made one cease to wonder why Andy was a prince of convincing liars. The
theory was good--nothing in the world was the matter with it, except
that in this particular instance it did not work. The Old Man did not
ask for their reasons, excuses or explanations. Neither did he say
anything or do anything to make them mad. He just sat there, with his
face gray and hard, and said nothing at all.
The Little Doctor appeared with the required books and a fountain pen;
saw the Happy Family standing there like condemned men at the steps;
saw the Old Man's face, and trembled wide-eyed upon the verge of speech.
Then she decided that this was no time for questioning and hurried,
still wide of eye, away from sight of them. The Happy Family did not
look at one another--they looked chiefly at the wall of the house.
The Old Man reckoned the wages due each one, and wrote a check for the
exact amount. And he spoke no word that did not intimately concern the
matter in hand. He still had that gray, hard look in his face that froze
whatever explanation they would otherwise have volunteered. And when
he handed the last man--who was Patsy--his check, he got up stiffly and
turned his back on them, and went inside and closed the door while yet
they lingered, waiting to explain.
At the bunk-house, whence they walked silently, Slim turned suddenly
upon their leader. His red face had gone a sallow white, and the whites
of his eyes were veined with red.
“If that there land business falls down anywhere because you lied to us,
Andy Green' I'll kill you fer this” he stated flatly.
“If it Does, Slim, I'll stand and let yuh shoot me as full of lead as
you like,” Andy promised, in much the same tone. Then he strove to shake
off the spell of the Old Man's stricken silence. “Buck up, boys. He'll
thank us for what we aim to do--when he knows all about it.”
“Well, it seems to me,” sighed Weary lugubriously, “we mighta managed it
without hitting the Old Man a wallop in the back, like that.”
“How'n hell did I know he'd take it the way he did?” Andy questioned
sharply, and began throwing his personal belongings into his “war-bag”
as if he had a grudge against his own clothes.
“Aw, looks to me like he was glad to git shet of us!” grumbled Happy
Jack. “I betche he's more tickled than sorry, right now.”
It was an exceedingly unhappy Family that rode up the Hog's Back upon
their private mounts, and away from the Flying U; in spite of Chip's
assurance that he would tell the Old Man all about it as soon as he
could, it was an ill-humored Family that rode into Dry Lake and cashed
their several checks at the desk of the General store which also did
an informal banking business, and afterwards took the train for Great
Falls.
The news spread through the town that old J. G. Whitmore had fired the
Happy Family in a bunch for some unforgivable crime against the peace
and dignity of the outfit, and that the boys were hatching up some
scheme to get even. From the gossip that was rolled relishfully upon the
tongues of the Dry Lake scandal lovers, the Happy Family must have been
more than sufficiently convincing.
CHAPTER 7. THE COMING OF THE COLONY
If you would see northern Montana at its most beautiful best, you should
see it in mid-May when the ground-swallows are nesting and the meadow
larks are puffing their throats and singing of their sweet ecstasy
with life; when curlews go sailing low over the green, grassy billows,
peering and perking with long bills thrust rapier-wise through the sunny
stillness, and calling shrilly, “Cor-r-ECK, cor-r-eck!”--which, I take
it, is simply their opinion of world and weather given tersely in plain
English. You should see the high prairies then, when all the world
is a-shimmer with green velvet brocaded brightly in blue and pink and
yellow flower-patterns; when the heat waves go quivering up to meet the
sun, so that the far horizons wave like painted drop-scenes stirred by a
breeze; when a hypnotic spell of peace and bright promises is woven over
the rangeland--you should see it then, if you would love it with a sweet
unreason that will last you through all the years to come.
The homeseekers' Syndicate, as represented by Florence Grace
Hallman--she of the wheat-yellow hair and the tempting red lips and the
narrow, calculating eyes and stubborn chin--did well to wait for the
spell of the prairies when the wind flowers and the lupines blue the
hillsides and the new grass paints green the hollows.
There is in us all a deep-rooted instinct to create, and never is that
instinct so nearly dominant as in the spring when the grass and the
flowers and the little, new leaves and the birds all sing the song of
Creation together. Then is when case-hardened city dwellers study the
bright array of seed-packets in the stores, and meditate rashly upon
the possibilities of back-yard gardening. Then is when the seasoned
country-dwellers walk over their farms in the sunset and plan largely
for harvest time. Then is when the salaried-folk read avidly the
real-estate advertisements, and pore optimistically over folders and
dream of chicken ranches and fruit ranches and the like. Surely, then,
the homeseekers' Syndicate planned well the date of their excursion into
the land of large promise (and problematical fulfillment) which lay east
of Dry Lake.
Rumors of the excursion seeped through the channels of gossip and set
the town talking and chuckling and speculating--after the manner of very
small towns.
Rumors grew to definite though erroneous statements of what was to take
place. Definite statements became certified facts that bore fruit in
detailed arrangements.
Came Florence Grace Hallman smilingly from Great Falls, to canvass the
town for “accommodations.” Florence Grace Hallman was a capable woman
and a persuasive one, though perhaps a shade too much inclined to take
certain things for granted--such as Andy's anchored interest in her and
her project, and the probability of the tract remaining just as it had
been when last she went carefully over the plat in the land office.
Florence Grace Hallman had been busy arranging the details of the coming
of the colony, and she had neglected to visit the land office
lately. Since she cannily represented the excursion as being merely a
sight-seeing trip--or some such innocuous project--she failed also to
receive any inkling of recent settlements.
On a certain sunny morning in mid-May, the Happy Family stood upon the
depot platform and waited for the westbound passenger, that had attached
to it the special car of the homeseekers' Syndicate. The Happy Family
had been very busy during the past three weeks. They had taken all the
land they could, and had sighed because they could still look from their
claims upon pinnacles as yet unclaimed save by the government. They had
done well. From the south line of Meeker's land in the very foothills
of the Bear Paws, to the north line of the Flying U, the chain of
newly-filed claims remained unbroken. It had taken some careful work
upon the part of the Happy Family to do this and still choose land
not absolutely worthless except from a scenic viewpoint. But they had
managed it, with some bickering and a good deal of maneuvering. Also
they had hauled loads of lumber from Dry Lake, wherewith to build their
monotonously modest ten-by-twelve shacks with one door and one
window apiece and a round hole in the roof big enough for a length of
stove-pipe to thrust itself aggressively into the open and say by its
smoke signal whether the owner was at home. And now, having heard of the
mysterious excursion due that day, they had come to see just what would
take place.
“She's fifteen minutes late,” the agent volunteered, thrusting his head
through the open window. “Looking for friends, boys?”
“Andy is,” Pink informed him cheerfully. “The rest of us are just
hanging around through sympathy. It's his girl coming.”
“Well, I guess he thinks he needs a housekeeper now,” the agent grinned.
“Why don't you fellows get busy now and rustle some cooks?”
“Girls don't like to cook over a camp-fire,” Cal Emmett told him
soberly. “We kinda thought we ought to build our shacks first.”
“You can pick you out some when the train gets in,” said the agent,
accepting a match from Weary. “There's a carload of--” He pulled in his
head hurriedly and laid supple fingers on the telegraph key to answer a
call, and the Happy Family moved down to the other end of the platform
where there was more shade.
The agent presently appeared pushing the truck of outgoing express,
a cheap trunk and a basket “telescope” belonging to one of the hotel
girls--who had quit her job and was sitting now inside waiting for
the train and seeing what she could of the Flying U boys through the
window--and the mail sack. He placed the truck where the baggage car
would come to a halt, stood for a minute looking down the track where a
smudge of smoke might at any moment be expected to show itself over the
low ridge of a hill, glanced at the lazy group in the patch of shade and
went back into the office.
“There's her smoke,” Cal Emmett announced in the midst of an apathetic
silence.
Weary looked up from whittling a notch in the end of a platform plank
and closed his jack-knife languidly.
Andy pushed his hat backward and then tilted it forward over one eyebrow
and threw away his cigarette.
“Wonder if Florence Grace will be riding point on the bunch?” he
speculated aloud. “If she is, I'm liable to have my hands full. Florence
Grace will sure be sore when she finds out how I got into the game.”
“Aw, I betche there ain't no such a person,” said Happy Jack, doubter to
the last.
“I wish there wasn't,” sighed Andy. “Florence Grace is kinda getting
on my nerves. If I done what I feel like doing, I'd crawl under the
platform and size up the layout through a crack. Honest to gracious,
Boys, I hate to meet that lady.”
They grinned at him heartlessly and stared at the black smudge that was
rolling toward them. “She's sure hittin' her up,” Pink vouchsafed with a
certain tenseness of tone. That train was not as ordinary trains; dimly
they felt that it was relentlessly bringing them trouble, perhaps;
certainly a problem--unless the homeseekers hovered only so long as
it took them to see that wisdom lay in looking elsewhere for a home.
Still--
“If this was August instead of May, I wouldn't worry none about them
pilgrims staying long,” Jack Bates voiced the thought that was uppermost
in their minds.
“There comes two livery rigs to haul 'em to the hotel,” Pink pointed out
as he glanced toward town. “And there's another one. Johnny told me every
room they've got is spoke for, and two in every bed.”
“That wouldn't take no crowd,” Happy Jack grumbled, remembering the
limitations of Dry Lake's hotel. “Here come Chip and the missus. Wonder
what they want?”
The Little Doctor left Chip to get their tickets and walked quickly
toward them.
“Hello, boys! Waiting for someone, or just going somewhere?”
“Waiting. Same to you, Mrs. Chip,” Weary replied.
“To me? Well, we're going up to make our filings. Claude won't take a
homestead, because we'll have to stay on at the Flying U, of course, and
we couldn't hold one. But we'll both file desert claims. J. G. hasn't
been a bit well, and I didn't dare leave him before--and of course
Claude wouldn't go till I did. That the passenger coming, or a freight?”
“It's the train--with the dry-farmers,” Andy informed her with a glance
at the nearing smoke-smudge.
“Is it? We aren't any too soon then, are we? I left Son at home--and he
threatened to run away and live with you boys. I almost wish I'd brought
him along. He's been perfectly awful. So have the men Claude hired to
take your places, if you want to know, boys. I believe that is what
made J. G. sick--having those strange men on the place. He's been like a
bear.”
“Didn't Chip tell him--”
“He did, yes. He told him right away, that evening. But--J. G. has such
stubborn ideas. We couldn't make him believe that anyone would be crazy
enough to take up that land and try to make a living farming it. He--”
She looked sidewise at Andy and pursed her lips to Keep from smiling.
“He thinks I lied about it, I suppose,” said that young man shrewdly.
“That's what he says. He pretends that you boys meant to quit, and just
thought that up for an excuse. He'll be all right--you mustn't pay any
attention--”
“Here she comes!”
A black nose thrust through a Deep cut that had a curve to it. At their
feet the rails began to hum. The Little Doctor turned hastily to see if
Chip were coming. The agent came out with a handful of papers and stood
waiting with the rest. Stragglers moved quickly, and the discharged
waitress appeared and made eyes covertly at Pink, whom she considered
the handsomest one of the lot.
The train slid up, slowed and stopped. Two coaches beyond the platform a
worried porter descended and placed the box-step for landing passengers,
and waited. From that particular coach began presently to emerge a
fluttering, exclaiming stream of humanity--at first mostly feminine.
They hovered there upon the cindery path and lifted their faces to watch
for others yet to come, and the babble of their voices could be, heard
above the engine sounds.
The Happy Family looked dumbly at one another and drew back closer to
the depot wall.
“Aw, I knowed there was some ketch to it!” blurted Happy Jack with
dismal satisfaction. “That there ain't no colony--It's nothin' but a
bunch of schoolma'ams!”
“That lady ridin' point is the lady herself,” Andy murmured, edging
behind Weary and Pink as the flutter came closer. “That's Florence Grace
Hallman, boys.”
“Well, by golly, git out and speak your little piece, then!” muttered
Slim, and gave Andy an unexpected push that sent him staggering out into
the open just as the leaders were coming up.
“Why, how de do, Mr. Green!” cried the blonde leader of the flock. “This
is an unexpected pleasure, I'm sure.”
“Yes ma'am, it is,” Andy assented mildly, with an eye cocked sidewise in
search of the guilty man.
The blonde leader paused, her flock coming to a fluttering, staring
stand behind her. The nostrils of the astonished Happy Family caught a
mingled odor of travel luncheons and perfume.
“Well, where have you been, Mr. Green? Why didn't you come and see me?”
demanded Florence, Grace Hallman in the tone of one who has a right
to ask leading questions. Her cool, brown, calculating eyes went
appraisingly over the Happy Family while she spoke.
“I've been right around here, all the time,” Andy gave meek account of
himself. “I've been busy.”
“Oh. Did you go over the tract, Mr. Green?” she lowered her voice.
“Yes-s--I went over it.”
“And what do you think of it--privately?”
“Privately--it's pretty big.” Andy sighed. The bigness of that tract had
worried the Happy Family a good deal.
“Well, the bigger the better. You see I've got 'em started.” She
flicked a glance backward at her waiting colony. “You men are perfectly
exasperating! Why didn't you tell me where you were and what you were
doing?” She looked up at him with charming disapproval. “I feel like
shaking you! I could have made good use of you, Mr. Green.”
“I was making pretty good use of myself,” Andy explained, and wished he
knew who gave him that surreptitious kick on the ankle. Did the chump
want an introduction? Well! In that case--
“Miss Hallman, if you don't mind I'd like to introduce some men I
rounded up and brought here,” he began before the Happy Family could
move out of the danger zone of his imagination. “Representative
citizens, you see. You can sic your bunch onto 'em and get a lot of
information. This is Mr. Weary Davidson, Miss Hallman: He's a hayseed
that lives out that way and he talks spuds better than anything else.
And here's Slim--I don't know his right name--he raises hogs to a
fare-you-well. And this is Percy Perkins”--meaning Pink--“and he's
another successful dryfarmer. Goats is his trade. He's got a lot of 'em.
And Mr. Jack Bates, he raises peanuts--or he's trying 'em this year--and
has contracts to supply the local market. Mr. Happy Jack is our local
undertaker. He wants to sell out if he can, because nobody ever dies
in this country and that makes business slow. He's thinking some of
starting a duck-ranch. This man”--indicating Big Medicine--“has got
the finest looking crop of volunteer wild oats in the country. He knows
all about 'em. Mr. Emmett, here, can put you wise to cabbage-heads;
that's his specialty. And Mr. Miguel Rapponi is up here from Old Mexico
looking for a favorable location for an extensive rubber plantation. The
natural advantages here are simply great for rubber.
“I've gone to some trouble gathering this bunch together for you, Miss
Hallman. I don't reckon you knew there was that many dry-farmers in the
country. They've all got ranches of their own, and the prettiest folders
you ever sent under a four-cent stamp can't come up to what these men
can tell you. Your bunch won't have to listen to one man, only--here's
half a dozen ready and waiting to talk.”
Miss Hallman was impressed. A few of the closest homeseekers she
beckoned and introduced to the perspiring Happy Family--mostly feminine
homeseekers, of whom there were a dozen or so. The men whom the hotel
had sent down with rigs waited impatiently, and the unintroduced male
colonists stared at the low rim of Lonesome Prairie and wondered if over
there lay their future prosperity.
When the Happy Family finally made their escape, red-faced and muttering
threats, Andy Green had disappeared, and no one knew when he went or
where. He was not in Rusty Brown's place when the Happy Family went to
that haven and washed down their wrongs in beer. Pink made a hurried
trip to the livery stable and reported that Andy's horse was gone.
They were wondering among themselves whether he would have the nerve to
go home and await their coming--home at this stage of the game meaning
One Man coulee, which Andy had taken as a homestead and desert claim and
where the Happy Family camped together until such time as their claim
shacks were habitable. Some thought that he was hiding in town, and
advised a thorough search before they took to their horses. The Native
Son--he of mixed Irish and Spanish blood--told them with languid
certainty that Andy was headed straight for the camp because he would
figure that in camp was where they would least expect to find him.
The opinions of the Native Son were usually worth adopting. In this
case, however, it brought them into the street at the very moment when
Florence Grace Hallman and two homeseekers had ventured from the hotel
in search of them. Slim and Jack Bates and Cal Emmett saw them in time
and shied across the street and into the new barber shop where they sat
themselves down and demanded unnecessary hair-cuts and a shampoo apiece,
and spied upon their unfortunate fellows through the window while they
waited; but the others met the women fairly since it was too late to
turn back without making themselves ridiculous.
“I was wondering,” began Miss Hallman in her brisk, business tone,
“if some of you gentlemen could not help us out in the matter of
conveyances. I have made arrangements for most of my guests, but we
simply can't squeeze another one into the rigs I have engaged--and I've
engaged every vehicle in town except a wheelbarrow I saw in the back
yard of the hotel.”
“How many are left out?” asked Weary, since no one else showed any
symptoms of speech.
“Oh, not many, thank goodness. Just us three here. You've met Miss
Allen, Mr. Davidson--and Miss Price. And so have you other gentlemen,
because I introduced you at the depot. I went blandly ahead and told
everybody just which rig they were to ride in, and put three in a seat,
at that, and in counting noses I forgot to count our own--”
“I really don't see how she managed to overlook mine,” sighed Miss
Allen, laying a dainty, gloved finger upon a nose that had the tiniest
possible tilt to it. “Nobody ever overlooked my nose before; it's almost
worth walking to the tract.”
Irish, standing close beside Weary and looking enough like him to be
a twin instead of a mere cousin, smiled down at her with traitorous
admiration. Miss Allen's nose was a nice nose, and above it twinkled a
pair of warm brown eyes with humorous little wrinkles, around them; and
still above them fluffed a kinky-curly mass of brown hair. Weary looked
at her also, but he did not smile, because she looked a little like his
own schoolma'am, Miss Ruty Satterly--and the resemblance hurt a sore
place in his heart.
“--So if any of you gentlemen could possibly take us out to the tract,
we'd be eternally grateful, besides keeping our independence intact with
the usual payment. Could you help us out?”
“We all came in on horseback,” Weary stated with a gentle firmness that
was intended to kill their hopes as painlessly as possible.
“Wouldn't there be room on behind?” asked Miss Allen with hope still
alive and flourishing.
“Lots of room,” Weary assured her. “More room than you could possibly
use.”
“But isn't there any kind of a rig that you could buy, beg, borrow or
steal?” Miss Hallman insisted. “These girls came from Wisconsin to take
up claims, and I've promised to see that they get the best there is
to be had. They are hustlers, if I know what the word means. I have a
couple of claims in mind, that I want them to see--and that's why
we three hung back till the rest were all arranged for. I had a rig
promised that I was depending on, and at the last minute discovered it
was not to be had. Some doctor from Havre came and got it for a trip
into the hills. There's no use talking; we just must get out to the
tract as soon as the others do--a little sooner wouldn't hurt. Couldn't
you think of some way?”
“We'll try,” Irish promised rashly, his eyes tying to meet Miss Allen's
and succeeding admirably.
“What has become of Mr. Green?” Miss Hallman demanded after she had
thanked Irish with a smile for the qualified encouragement.
“We don't know,” Weary answered mildly. “We were trying to locate him
ourselves.”
“Oh, were you? He seems a rather uncertain young man. I rather counted
on his assistance; he promised--”
“Mr. Irish has thought of a rig he can use, Miss Hallman,” said the
Allen girl suddenly. “He's going to drive us out himself. Let's hurry
and get ready, so we can start ahead of the others. How many minutes
will it take you, Mr. Irish, to have that team here, for us?”
Irish turned red. He HAD thought of a rig, and he had thought of driving
them himself, but he could not imagine how Miss Allen could possibly;
have known his thoughts. Then and there he knew who would occupy the
other half of the front seat, in case he did really drive the team he
had in mind.
“I told you she's a hustler,” laughed Miss Hallman. “She'll be raising
bigger crops than you men--give her a year to get started. Well, girls,
come on, then.”
They turned abruptly away, and Irish was left to his accounting with the
Happy Family. He had not denied the thoughts and intentions imputed to
him by the twinkling-eyed Miss Allen. They walked on toward the livery
stable--where was manifested an unwonted activity--waiting for Irish to
clear himself; which he did not do.
“You going to drive them women out there?” Pink demanded after an
impatient silence.
“Why not? Somebody'll have to.”
“What team are you going to use!” asked Jack Bates.
“Chip's” Irish did not glance around, but kept striding down the middle
of the road with his hands stuck deep in his pockets.
“Don't you think you need help, amigo?” the Native Son insinuated
craftily. “You can't talk to three girls at once; I could be hired to go
along and take one off your hands. That should help some.”
“Like hell you will!” Irish retorted with characteristic bluntness. Then
he added cautiously, “Which one?”
“That old girl with the blue eyes should not be permitted to annoy the
driver,” drawled the Native Son. “Also, Florence Grace might want some
intelligent person to talk to.”
“Well, I got my opinion of any man that'll throw in with that bunch,”
Pink declared hotly. “Why don't you fellows keep your own side the
fence. What if they are women farmers? They can do just as much
harm--and a darn sight more. You make me sick.”
“Let 'em go,” Weary advised calmly. “They'll be a lot sicker when the
ladies discover what they've helped do to that bench-land. Come on,
boys--let's pull out, away from all these lunatics. I hate to see them
get stung, but I don't see what we can do about it--only, if they come
around asking me what I think of that land, I'm going to tell 'em.”
“And then they'll ask you why you took claims up there, and you'll
tell 'em that, too--will you?” The Native Son turned and smiled at him
ironically.
That was it. They could not tell the truth without harming their own
cause. They could not do anything except stand aside and see the thing
through to whatever end fate might decree. They thought that Irish and
the Native Son were foolish to take Chip's team and drive those women
fifteen miles or so that they might seize upon land much better left
alone; but that was the business of Irish and the Native Son, who did
not ask for the approval of the Happy Family before doing anything they
wanted to do.
The Happy Family saddled and rode back to the claims, gravely discussing
the potentialities of the future. Since they rode slowly while they
talked, they were presently overtaken by a swirl of dust, behind which
came the matched browns which were the Flying U's crack driving team,
bearing Irish and Miss Allen of the twinkling eyes upon the front seat
of a two seated spring-wagon that had seen far better days than this.
Native Son helped to crowd the back seat uncomfortably, and waved a hand
with reprehensible cheerfulness as they went rattling past.
The Happy Family stared after them with frowning disapproval, and Weary
turned in the saddle and looked ruefully at his fellows.
“Things won't ever be the same around here,” he predicted soberly.
“There goes the beginning of the end of the Flying U, boys--and we ain't
big enough to stop it.”
CHAPTER 8. FLORENCE GRACE HALLMAN SPEAKS PLAINLY
Andy Green rode thoughtfully up the trail from his cabin in One Man
coulee, his hat tilted to the south to shield his face from the climbing
sun, his eyes fixed absently upon the yellow soil of the hillside. Andy
was facing a problem that concerned the whole Happy Family--and the
Flying U as well. He wanted Weary's opinion, and Miguel Rapponi's, and
Pink's--when it came to that, he wanted the opinion of them all.
Thus far the boys had been wholly occupied with getting their shacks
built and in rustling cooking outfits and getting themselves settled
upon their claims with an air of convincing permanency. Also they had
watched with keen interest--which was something more vital than mere
curiosity--developments where the homeseekers were concerned, and had
not given very much thought to their next step, except in a purely
general way.
They all recognized the fact that, with all these new settlers buzzing
around hunting claims where there was some promise of making things
grow, they would have to sit very tight indeed upon their own land if
they would avoid trouble with “jumpers.” Not all the homeseekers were
women. There were men, plenty of them; a few of them were wholly lacking
in experience it is true, but perhaps the more greedy for land because
of their ignorance. The old farmers had looked askance at the high, dry
prairie land, where even drinking water must be hauled in barrels
from some deep-set creek whose shallow gurgling would probably cease
altogether when the dry season came on the heels of June. The old
farmers had asked questions that implied doubt. They had wanted to know
about sub-soil, and average rainfall, and late frosts, and markets. The
profusely illustrated folders that used blue print for emphasis here and
there, seemed no longer to satisfy them.
The Happy Family did not worry much about the old farmers who knew the
game, but there were town men who had come to see the fulfillment of
their dreams; who had burned their bridges, some of them, and would
suffer much before they would turn back to face the ridicule of their
friends and the disheartening task of getting; a fresh foothold in the
wage-market. These the Happy Family knew for incipient enemies once
the struggle for existence was fairly begun. And there were the
women--daring rivals of the men in their fight for independence--who
had dreamed dreams and raised up ideals for which they would fight
tenaciously. School-teachers who hated the routine of the schools, and
who wanted freedom; who were willing to work and wait and forego the
little, cheap luxuries which are so dear to women; who would cheerfully
endure loneliness and spoiled complexions and roughened hands and broken
nails, and see the prairie winds and sun wipe the sheen from their
hair; who would wear coarse, heavy-soled shoes and keep all their pretty
finery packed carefully away in their trunks with dainty sachet pads
for month after month, and take all their pleasure in dreaming of the
future; these would fight also to have and to hold--and they would fight
harder than the men, more dangerously than the men, because they would
fight differently.
The Happy Family, then, having recognized these things and having
measured the fighting-element, knew that they were squarely up against
a slow, grim, relentless war if they would save the Flying U. They knew
that it was going to be a pretty stiff proposition, and that they would
have to obey strictly the letter and the spirit of the land laws, or
there would be contests and quarrels and trouble without end.
So they hammered and sawed and fitted boards and nailed on tar-paper and
swore and jangled and joshed one another and counted nickels--where they
used to disdain counting anything but results--and badgered the life out
of Patsy because he kicked at being expected to cook for the bunch just
the same as if he were in the Flying U mess-house. Py cosh, he wouldn't
cook for the whole country just because they were too lazy to cook for
themselves, and py cosh if they wanted him to cook for them they could
pay him sixty dollars a month, as the Old Man did.
The Happy Family were no millionaires, and they made the fact plain to
Patsy to the full extent of their vocabularies. But still they begged
bread from him, a loaf at a time, and couldn't see why he objected to
making pie, if they furnished the stuff. Why, for gosh sake, had they
planted him in the very middle of their string of claims, then? With a
dandy spring too, that never went dry except in the driest years, and
not more than seventy-five yards, at the outside, to carry water. Up
hill? Well, what of that? Look at Pink--had to haul water half a mile
from One Man Creek, and no trail. Look at Weary--had to pack water twice
as far as Patsy. And hadn't they clubbed together and put up his darned
shack first thing, just so he COULD get busy and cook? What did the old
devil expect, anyway?
Well--you see that the Happy Family had been fully occupied in the
week since the arrival of the homeseekers' excursion. They could not be
expected to give very much thought to their next steps. But there was
Andy, who had only to move into the cabin in One Man coulee, with a
spring handy, and a stable for his horse, and a corral and everything.
Andy had not been harassed with the house-building and settling, except
as he assisted the others. As fast as the shacks were up, the Happy
Family had taken possession, so that now Andy was alone, stuck down
there in the coulee out of sight of everybody. Pink had once named One
Man coulee as the lonesomest hole in all that country, and he had not
been far wrong. But at any rate the lonesomeness had served one good
purpose, for it had started Andy to thinking out the details of their so
called land-pool. Now the thinking had borne fruit to the extent that he
felt an urgent need of the Happy Family in council upon the subject.
As he topped at last the final rise which put him on a level with the
great undulating bench-land gashed here and there with coulees and
narrow gulches that gave no evidence of their existence until one rode
quite close, he lifted his head and gazed about him half regretfully,
half proudly. He hated to see that wide upland dotted here and there
with new, raw buildings, which proclaimed themselves claim-shacks as far
a one could see them. Andy hated the sight of claim-shacks with a hatred
born of long range experience and the vital interests of the cattleman.
A claim-shack stuck out on the prairie meant a barbed wire fence
somewhere in the immediate vicinity; and that meant a hindrance to the
easy handling of herds. A claim-shack meant a nester, and a nester was a
nuisance, with his plowed fields and his few head of cattle that must
be painstakingly weeded out of a herd to prevent a howl going up to high
heaven. Therefore, Andy Green instinctively hated the sight of a shack
on the prairie. On the other hand, those shacks belonged to the Happy
Family--and that pleased him. From where he sat on his horse he could
count five in sight, and there were more hidden by ridges and tucked
away in hollows.
But there were others going up--shacks whose owners he did not know.
He scowled when he saw, on distant hilltops, the yellow skeletons
that would presently be fattened with boards and paper and made the
dwelling-place of interlopers. To be sure, they had as much right to
take government land as had he or any of his friends--but Andy, being a
normally selfish person, did not think so.
From one partially built shack three quarters of a mile away on a bald
ridge which the Happy Family had passed up because of its barrenness and
the barrenness of the coulee on the other side, and because no one was
willing to waste even a desert right on that particular eighty-acres,
a team and light buggy came swiftly toward him. Andy, trained to quick
thinking, was puzzled at the direction the driver was taking. That
eighty acres joined his own west line, and unless the driver was lost
or on the way to One Man coulee, there was no reason whatever for coming
this way.
He watched and saw that the team was comin' straight toward him over
the uneven prairie sod, and at a pace that threatened damage to the
buggy-springs. Instinctively Andy braced himself in the saddle. At a
half mile he knew the team, and it did not require much shrewdness to
guess at the errand. He twitched the reins, turned his spurred heels
against his horse and went loping over the grassland to meet the person
who drove in such haste; and the probability that he was meeting trouble
halfway only sent him the more eagerly forward.
Trouble met him with hard, brown eyes and corn yellow hair blown in
loose strands across cheeks roughened by the spring winds and sun-glare
of Montana. Trouble pulled up and twisted sidewise in the seat and
kicked the heads off some wild larkspurs with her whip while her tongue
flayed the soul of Andy Green with sarcasm.
“Well, I have found out just how you helped me colonize this tract, Mr.
Green,” she began with a hard inflection under the smoothness of her
voice. “I must compliment you upon your promptness and thoroughness in
the matter; for an amateur you have made a remarkable showing--in--in
treachery and deceit. I really did not suppose you had it in you.”
“Remember, I told you I might buy in if it looked good to me,” Andy
reminded her in the mildest tone of which he was capable--and he could
be as mild as new milk when he chose.
Florence Grace Hallman looked at him with a lift of her full upper lip
at the left side. “It does look good, then? You told Mr. Graham and that
Mr. Wirt a different story, Mr. Green. You told them this land won't
raise white beans, and you were at some pains, I believe, to explain why
it would not. You convinced them, by some means or other, that the whole
tract is practically worthless for agricultural purposes. Both Mr.
Wirt and Mr. Graham had some capital to invest here, and now they are
leaving, and they have persuaded several others to leave with them. Does
it really look good to you--this land proposition?”
“Not your proposition--no, it don't.” Andy faced her with a Keen level
glance as hard as her own. One could get the truth straight from the
shoulder if one pushed Andy Green into a corner. “You know and I know
that you're trying to cold-deck this bunch. The land won't raise white
beans or anything else without water, and you know it. You can plant
folks on the land and collect your money and tell 'em goodbye and go to
it--and that settles your part of it. But how about the poor devils that
put in their time and money?”
Florence Grace Hallman spread her hands in a limited gesture because of
the reins, and smiled unpleasantly. “And yet, you nearly broke your neck
filing on the land yourself and getting a lot of your friends to file,”
she retorted. “What was your object, Mr. Green--since the land is
worthless?”
“My object don't matter to anyone but myself.” Andy busied himself with
his smoking material and did not look at her.
“Oh, but it Does! It matters to me, Mr. Green, and to my company, and to
our clients.”
“I'll have to buy me a new dictionary,” Andy observed casually, reaching
behind him to scratch a match on the skirt of his saddle. “The one I've
got don't say anything about 'client' and 'victim' meaning the same
thing. It's getting all outa date.”
“I brought enough clients”--she emphasized the word--“to settle every
eighty acres of land in that whole tract. The policy of the company was
eminently fair. We guaranteed to furnish a claim of eighty, acres to
every person who joined our homeseekers' Club, and free pasturage to all
the stock they wanted to bring. Failing to do that, we pledged ourselves
to refund the fee and pay all return expenses. We could have located
every member of this lot, and more--only for YOU.”
“Say, it'd be just as easy to swear as to say 'you' in that tone uh
voice,” Andy pointed out placidly.
“You managed to gobble up just exactly four thousand acres of this
tract--and you were careful to get all the water and all the best land.
That means you have knocked us out of fifty settlements--”
“Fifty wads of coin to hand back to fifty come-ons, and fifty return
tickets for fifty fellows glad to get back--tough luck, ain't it?” Andy
smiled sympathetically. “You oughta be glad I saved your conscience that
much of a load, anyway.”
Florence Grace Hallman bit her lip to control her rage. “Smart talk
isn't going to help you, Mr. Green. You've simply placed yourself in
a position you can't' hold. You've put it up to us to fight--and we're
going to do it. I'm playing fair with you. I'll tell you this much: I've
investigated you and your friends pretty thoroughly, and it's easy to
guess what your object is. We rather expected the Flying U to fight this
colonization scheme, so we are neither surprised nor unprepared. Mr.
Green, for your own interest and that of your employer, let me advise
you to abandon your claims now, before we begin action in the matter.
It will be simpler, and far, far cheaper. We have our clients to look
after, and we have the law all on our side. These are bona fide settlers
we are bringing in; men and women whose sole object is to make homes for
themselves. The land laws are pretty strict, Mr. Green. If we set the
wheels in motion they will break the Flying U.”
Andy grinned while he inspected his cigarette. “Funny--I heard a man
brag once about how he'd break the Flying U, with sheep,” he drawled.
“He didn't connect, though; the Flying U broke him.” He smoked until he
saw an angry retort parting the red lips of the lady, and then continued
calmly:
“The Flying U has got nothing to do with this case. As a matter of fact,
old man Whitmore is pretty sore at us fellows right now, because we quit
him and turned nesters right under his nose. Miss Hallman, you'll have
one sweet time proving that we ain't bona fide settlers. We're just
crazy to make homes for ourselves. We think it's time we settled
down--and we're settling here because we're used to this country. We're
real sorry you didn't find it necessary to pay your folks for the fun of
pointing out the land to us and steering us to the land office--but we
can't help that. We needed the money to buy plows.” He looked at her
full with his honest, gray eyes that could so deceive his fellow men--to
say nothing of women. “And that reminds me, I've got to go and borrow a
garden rake. I'm planting a patch of onions,” he explained engagingly.
“Say, this farming is a great game, isn't it? Well, good day, Miss
Hallman. Glad I happened to meet you.”
“You won't be when I get through with you!” predicted the lady with her
firm chin thrust a little forward. “You think you've got everything your
own way, don't you? Well, you've just simply put yourself in a position
where we can get at you. You deceived me from the very start--and now
you shall pay the penalty. I've got our clients to protect--and besides
that I shall dearly love to get even. Oh, you'll squeal for mercy,
believe me!” She touched up the horses with her whip and went bumping
away over the tough sod.
“Wow!” ejaculated Andy, looking after her with laughter in his eyes.
“She's sure one mad lady, all right. But shucks!” He turned and galloped
off toward the farthest claim, which was Happy Jack's and the last one
to be furnished with a lawful habitation.
He was lucky. The Happy Family were foregathered there, wrangling with
Happy Jack over some trifling thing. He joined zealously in the argument
and helped them thrash Happy Jack in the word-war, before he came at his
errand.
“Say, boys, we'll have to get busy now,” he told them seriously at last.
“Florence Grace is onto us bigger'n a wolf--and if I'm any judge, that
lady's going to be some fighter. We've either got to plow up a bunch of
ground and plant some darn thing, or else get stock on and pasture it.
They ain't going to over look any bets from now on. I met her back here
on the bench. She was so mad she talked too much and I got next to their
scheme--seems like we've knocked the Syndicate outa quite a bunch of
money, all right. They want this land, and they think they're going to
get it.
“Now my idea is this: We've got to have stock, or we can't graze the
land. And if we take Flying U cattle and throw 'em on here, they'll
contest us for taking fake claims, for the outfit. So what's the matter
with us buying a bunch from the Old Man?”
“I'm broke,” began Pink promptly, but Andy stopped him.
“Listen here. We buy a bunch of stock and give him mortgages for the
money, with the cattle for security. We graze 'em till the mortgage runs
out--till we prove up, that means--and then we don't spot up, and
the Old Man takes the stock back, see? We're grazing our own stock,
according to law--but the outfit--”
“Where do we git off at?” demanded Happy Jack suspiciously. “We got to
live--and it takes money to buy grub, these days.”
“Well, we'll make out all right. We can have so many head of cattle
named for the mortgage; there'll be increase, and we should get that. By
the time we all prove up we'll have a little bunch of stock of our own'
d' uh see? And we'll have the range--what there is left. These squatters
ain't going to last over winter, if you ask me. And it'll be a long,
cold day when another bunch of greenhorns bites on any colony scheme.”
“How do you know the Old Man'll do that, though?” Weary wanted to know.
“He's pretty mad. I rode over to the ranch last week to see Chip, and
the Old Man wouldn't have anything to say to me.”
“Well, what's the matter with all of us going? He can't pass up the
whole bunch. We can put it up to him just the way it is, and he'll see
where it's going to be to his interest to let us have the cattle. Why,
darn it, he can't help seeing now why we quit!” Pink looked ready to
start then, while his enthusiasm was fresh.
“Neither can Florence Grace help seeing why we did it,” Andy
supplemented dryly. “She can think what she darn pleases--all we got to
do is deliver the goods right up to the handle, on these claims and not
let her prove anything on us.”
“It'll take a lot uh fencing,” Happy Jack croaked pessimistically. “We
ain't got the money to buy wire and posts, ner the time to build the
fence.”
“What's the matter with rang-herding 'em?” Andy seemed to have thought
it all out, and to have an answer for every objection. “We can take
turns at that--and we must all be careful and don't let 'em graze on our
neighbors!”
Whereat the Happy Family grinned understandingly.
“Maybe the Old Man'll let us have three or four hundred head uh cows on
shares,” Cal hazarded optimistically.
“Can't take 'em that way,” said the Native Son languidly. “It wouldn't
be safe. Andy's right; the way to do is buy the cattle outright, and
give a mortgage on the bunch. And I think we better split the bunch,
and let every fellow buy a few head. We can graze 'em together--the law
can't stop us from doing that.”
“Sounds good--if the Old Man will come to the centre,” said Weary
dubiously. The chill atmosphere of Flying U coulee, with strangers in
the bunk-house and with the Old Man scowling at his paper on the porch,
had left its effect upon Weary, sunny-souled as he was.
“Oh, he'll come through,” cried Cal, moving toward his horse, “gee whiz,
he's got to! Come on--let's go and get it done with. As it stands now,
we ain't got a thing to do but set around and look wise--unless we go
spoiling good grass with plows. First thing we know our neighbors will
be saying we ain't improving our claims!”
“You improve yours every time you git off it!” stated Happy Jack
spitefully because of past wrongs. “You could improve mine a whole lot
that way, too,” he added when he heard the laugh of approval from the
others.
They rung all the changes possible upon that witticism while they
mounted and rode away, every man of them secretly glad of some excuse
for making overtures to the Old Man. Spite of the excitement of getting
on to their claims, and of watching strangers driving here and there in
haste, and hauling loads of lumber toilfully over the untracked grass
and building chickencoop dwellings as nearly alike as the buttons on
a new shirt--spite of all that they had felt keenly their exile from
Flying U ranch. They had stayed away, for two reasons: one was a latent
stubbornness which made them resent the Old Man's resentment; the other
was a matter of policy, as preached by Andy Green and the Native Son. It
would not do, said these two cautious ones, to be running to the Flying
U outfit all the time.
So the Happy Family had steered clear since that afternoon when they had
simulated treachery to the outfit. And fate played them a scurvy trick
in spite of their caution, for just as they rode down the Hog's Back and
across the ford, Florence Grace Hallman rode away from the White House
and met them fairly at the stable.
Florence Grace smiled a peculiar smile as she went past them. A smile
that promised she would not forget; a smile that told them how sure
she felt of having caught them fairly. With the smile went a chilly,
supercilious bow that was worse than a direct cut, and which the Happy
Family returned doubtfully, not at all sure of the rules governing
warfare with a woman.
CHAPTER 9. THE HAPPY FAMILY BUYS A BUNCH OF CATTLE
With the Kid riding gleefully upon Weary's shoulder they trooped up the
path their own feet had helped wear deep to the bunk-house. They looked
in at the open door and snorted at the cheerlessness of the place.
“Why don't you come back here and stay?” the Kid demanded. “I was going
to sleep down here with you--and now Doctor Dell won't let me. These
hobees are no good. They're damn' bone-head. Daddy Chip says so. I wish
you'd come back, so I can sleep with you. One man's named Ole and he's
got a funny eye that looks at the other one all the time. I wish you'd
come back.”
The Happy Family wished the same thing, but they did not say so. Instead
they told the Kid to ask his mother if he couldn't come and visit them
in their new shacks, and promised indulgences that would have shocked
the Little Doctor had she heard them. So they went on to the house,
where the Old Man sat on the porch looking madder than when they had
left him three weeks before.
“Why don't yuh run them nesters outa the country?” he demanded peevishly
when they were close enough for speech. “Here they come and accuse me
to my face of trying to defraud the gov'ment. Doggone you boys, what
you think you're up to, anyway? What's three or four thousand acres when
they're swarming in here like flies to a butcherin'? They can't make a
living--serve 'em right. What you doggone rowdies want now?”
Not a cordial welcome, that--if they went no deeper than his words. But
there was the old twinkle back of the querulousness in the Old Man's
eyes, and the old pucker of the lips behind his grizzled whiskers.
“You've got that doggone Kid broke to foller yuh so we can't keep him
on the ranch no more,” he added fretfully. “Tried to run away twice,
on Silver. Chip had to go round him up. Found him last time pretty near
over to Antelope coulee, hittin' the high places for town. Might as well
take yuh back, I guess, and save time running after the Kid.”
“We've got to hold down our claims,” Weary minded him regretfully. In
three weeks, he could see a difference the Old Man, and the change hurt
him.
Lines were deeper drawn, and the kind old eyes were a shade more sunken.
“What's that amount to?” grumbled the Old Man, looking from one to the
other under his graying eye brows. “You can't stop them dry-farmers from
taking the country. Yuh might as well try to dip the Missouri dry with a
bucket. They'll flood the country with stock--”
“No, they won't,” put in Big Medicine, impatient for the real meat of
their errand. “By cripes, we got a scheme to beat that--you tell 'im,
Weary.”
“We want to buy a bunch of cattle from you,” Weary said obediently. “We
want to graze our claims, instead of trying to crop the land. We haven't
any fence up, so we'll have to range-herd our stock, of course. I--don't
hardly think any nester stock will get by us, J. G. And seeing our land
runs straight through from Meeker's line fence to yours, we kinda think
we've got the nesters pretty well corralled. They're welcome to the
range between Antelope coulee and Dry Lake, far as we're concerned. Soon
as we can afford it,” he added tranquilly, “we'll stretch a fence along
our west line that'll hold all the darn milkcows they've a mind to ship
out here.”
“Huh!” The Old Man studied them quizzically, his chin on his chest.
“How many yuh want?” he asked abruptly.
“All you'll sell us. We want to give mortgages, with the stock for
security.”
“Oh, yuh do, ay? What if I have to foreclose on yuh?” The pucker of his
lips grew more pronounced. “Where do you git off at, then?”
“Well, we kinda thought we could fix it up to save part of the increase
outa the wreck, anyway.”
“Oh. That's it ay?” He studied them another minute. “You'll want all my
best cows, too, I reckon--all that grade stock I shipped in last spring.
Ay?”
“We wouldn't mind,” grinned Weary, glancing at the others roosting at
ease along the edge of the porch.
“Think you could handle five-hundred head--the pick uh the bunch?”
“Sure, we could! We'd rather split 'em up amongst us, though--let every
fellow buy so many. We can throw in together on the herding.”
“Think you can keep the milk-cows between you and Dry Lake, ay?” The Old
Man chuckled--the first little chuckle since the Happy Family left him
so unceremoniously three weeks before. “How about that, Pink?”
“Why, I think we can,” chirped Pink cheerfully.
“Huh! Well, you're the toughest bunch, take yuh up one side and down
the other, I ever seen keep onta jail--I guess maybe you can do it. But
lemme tell you boys something--and I want you to remember it: You don't
want to git the idea in your heads you're going to have any snap; you
ain't. If I know B from a bull's foot, you've got your work cut out for
yuh. I've been keeping cases pretty close on this dry-farm craze, and
this stampede for claims. Folks are land crazy. They've got the idea
that a few acres of land is going to make 'em free and independent--and
it don't matter much what the land is, or where it is. So long as it's
land, and they can git it from the government for next to nothing,
they're satisfied. And yuh want to remember that. Yuh don't want to take
it for granted they're going to take a look at your deadline and back
up. If they ship in stock, they're going to see to it that stock don't
starve. You'll have to hold off men and women that's making their last
stand, some of 'em, for a home of their own. They ain't going to give
up if they can help it. You get a man with his back agin the wall, and
he'll fight till he drops. I don't need to tell yuh that.”
The Happy Family listened to him soberly, their eyes staring broodily at
the picture he conjured.
“Well, by golly, we're makin' our last stand, too,” Slim blurted with
his customary unexpectedness. “Our back's agin the wall right now. If we
can't hold 'em back from takin' what little range is left, this outfit's
going under. We got to hold 'em, by golly, er there won't be no more
Flying U.”
“Well,” said Andy Green quietly, “that's all right. We're going to hold
'em.”
The Old Man lifted his bent head and looked from one to another. Pride
shone in his eyes, that had lately stared resentment. “Yuh know, don't
yuh, the biggest club they can use?” He leaned forward a little, his
lips working under his beard.
“Sure, we know. We'll look out for that.” Weary smiled hearteningly.
“We want a good lawyer to draw up those mortgages,” put in the Native
Son lazily. “And we'll pay eight per cent. interest.”
“Doggonedest crazy bunch ever I struck,” grumbled the Old Man with
grateful insincerity. “What you fellers don't think of, there ain't any
use in mentioning. Oh, Dell! Bring out that jug Blake sent me! Doggoned
thirsty bunch out here--won't stir a foot till they sample that wine!
Got to get rid of 'em somehow--they claim to be full uh business as
a jack rabbit is of fleas! When yuh want to git out and round up them
cows? Wagon's over on Dry creek som'ers--or ought to be. Yuh might take
your soogans and ride ove' there tomorrow or next day and ketch 'em.
I'll write a note to Chip and tell 'im what's to be done. And while
you're pickin' your bunch you can draw wages just the same as ever, and
help them double-dutch blisterin' milk-fed pilgrims with the calf crop.”
“We'll sure do that,” promised Weary for the bunch. “We can start in the
morning, all right.”
“Take a taste uh this wine. None of your tobacco-juice stuff; this comes
straight from Fresno. Senator Blake sent it the other day. Fill up that
glass, Dell! What yuh want to be so doggone stingy fer? Think this bunch
uh freaks are going to stand for that? They can't git the taste outa
less'n a pint. This ain't any doggone liver-tonic like you dope out.”
The Little Doctor smiled understandingly and filled their glasses with
the precious wine from sunland. She did not know what had happened, but
she did know that the Old Man had seized another hand-hold on life in
the last hour, and she was grateful. She even permitted the Kid to
take a tiny sip, just because the Happy Family hated to see him refused
anything he wanted.
So Flying U coulee was for the time being filled with the same old
laughter and the same atmosphere of care-free contentment with life. The
Countess stewed uncomplainingly in the kitchen, cooking dinner for the
boys. The Old Man grumbled hypocritically at them from his big chair,
and named their faults in the tone that transmuted them into virtues.
The Little Doctor heard about Miss Allen and her three partners, who
were building a four-room shack on the four corners of four claims, and
how Irish had been caught more than once in the act of staring fixedly
in the direction of that shack. She heard a good many things, and she
guessed a good many more.
By mid afternoon the Old Man was fifty per cent brighter and better than
he had been in the morning, and he laughed and bullied them as of old.
When they left he told them to clear out and stay out, and that if he
caught them hanging around his ranch, and making it look as if he were
backing them and trying to defraud the government, he'd sic the dog onto
them. Which tickled the Kid immensely, because there wasn't any dog to
sic.
CHAPTER 10. WHEREIN ANDY GREEN LIES TO A LADY
In the soft-creeping dusk came Andy Green, slouched in the saddle with
the weariness of riding since dawn; slouched to one side and singing,
with his hat far back on his head and the last of a red sunset tinting
darkly the hills above him. Tip-toe on a pinnacle a great, yellow star
poised and winked at him knowingly. Andy's eyes twinkled answer as he
glanced up that way. “We've got her going, old-timer,” he announced
lazily to the star.
Six miles back toward the edge of the “breaks” which are really the
beginning of the Badlands that border the Missouri River all through
that part of Montana, an even five hundred head of the Flying U's best
grade cows and their calves were settling down for the night upon a
knoll that had been the bed-ground of many a herd. At the Flying U
ranch, in the care of the Old Man, were the mortgages that would make
the Happy Family nominal owners of those five hundred cows and their
calves. In the morning Andy would ride back and help bring the herd upon
its spring grazing ground, which was the claims; in the meantime he was
leisurely obeying an impulse to ride into One Man coulee and spend
the night under his own roof. And, say what you will, there is a
satisfaction not to be denied in sleeping sometimes under one's own
roof; and it doesn't matter in the least that the roof is made of
prairie dirt thrown upon cottonwood poles. So he sang while he rode, and
his voice boomed loud in the coulee and scared long stilled echoes into
repeating the song:
“We're here because we're here, because we're here,
because we're here,
“We're here because we're here, because we're here,
because we're here--”
That, if you please, is a song; there are a lot more verses exactly
like this one, which may be sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne with much
effectiveness when one is in a certain mood. So Andy sang, while his
tired horse picked its way circumspectly among the scattered rocks of
the trail up the coulee.
“It's time you're here, it's time you're here,
It's time that you were here--”
mocked an echo not of the hills.
Andy swore in his astonishment and gave his horse a kick as a mild hint
for haste. He thought he knew every woman-voice in the neighborhood--or
had until the colony came--but this voice, high and sweet and with a
compelling note that stirred him vaguely, was absolutely strange. While
he loped forward, silenced for the moment, he was conscious of a swift,
keen thankfulness that Pink had at the last minute decided to stay in
camp that night instead of accompanying Andy to One Man. He was in
that mood when a sentimental encounter appealed to him strongly; and a
woman's voice, singing to him from One Man cabin, promised undetermined
adventure.
He did not sing again. There had been something in the voice that held
him quiet, listening, expectant. But she also was silent after that
last, high note--like a meadow lark startled in the middle of his song,
thought Andy whimsically.
He came within sight of the cabin, squatting in the shadow of the grove
at its back. He half expected to see a light, but the window was
dark, the door closed as he had left it. He felt a faint, unreasoning
disappointment that it was so. But he had heard her. That high note that
lingered upon the word “here” still tingled his senses. His eyes sent
seeking glances here and there as he rode up.
Then a horse nickered welcomingly, and someone rode out from the deeper
shadow at the corner of the cabin, hesitated as though tempted to
flight, and came on uncertainly. They met full before the cabin, and the
woman leaned and peered through the dusk at Andy.
“Is this--Mr. Mallory--Irish?” she asked nervously. “Oh dear! Have I
gone and made a fool of myself again?”
“Not at all! Good evening, Miss Allen.” Andy folded his hands upon the
saddle horn and regarded her with a little smile, Keen for what might
come next.
“But you're not Irish Mallory. I thought I recognized the voice, or I
wouldn't have--” She urged her horse a step closer, and Andy observed
from her manner that she was not accustomed to horses. She reined as if
she were driving, so that the horse, bewildered, came sidling up to him.
“Who are you?” she asked him sharply.
“Me? Why, I'm a nice young man--a lot better singer than Irish. I guess
you never heard him, did you?” He kept his hands folded on the horn, his
whole attitude passive--a restful, reassuring passivity that lulled her
uneasiness more than words could have done.
“Oh, are you Andy Green? I seem to connect that name with your
voice--and what little I can see of you.”
“That's something, anyway.” Andy's tone was one of gratitude. “It's two
per cent. better than having to tell you right out who I am. I met you
three different times, Miss Allen,” he reproached.
“But always in a crowd,” she defended, “and I never talked with you,
particularly.”
“Oh, well, that's easily fixed,” he said. “It's a nice night,” he added,
looking up appreciatively at the brightening star-sprinkle. “Are you
living on your claim now? We can talk particularly on the way over.”
Miss Allen laughed and groped for a few loose hairs, found them and
tucked them carefully under her hatcrown. Andy remembered that gesture;
it helped him to visualize her clearly in spite of the deepening night.
“How far have you ridden today, Mr. Green?” she asked irrelevantly.
“Since daylight, you mean? Not so very far counting miles--We were
trailing a herd, you see. But I've been in the saddle since sunrise,
except when I was eating.”
“Then you want a cup of coffee, before you ride any farther. If I get
down, will you let me make it or you? I'd love to. I'm crazy to see
inside your cabin, but I only rode up and tried to peek in the window
before you came. I have two brothers and a cousin, so I understand men
pretty well and I know you can talk better when you aren't hungry.”
“Are you living on your claim?” he asked again, without moving.
“Why, yes. We moved in last week.”
“Well, we'll ride over, then, and you can make coffee there. I'm not
hungry right now.”
“Oh.” She leaned again and peered at him, trying to read his face. “You
don't WANT me to go in!”
“Yes, I do--but I don't. If you stayed and made coffee, tomorrow you'd
be kicking yourself for it, and you'd be blaming me.” Which, considering
the life he had lived, almost wholly among men, was rather astute of
Andy Green.
“Oh.” Then she laughed. “You must have some sisters, Mr. Green.” She was
silent for a minute, looking at him. “You're right,” she said quietly
then. “I'm always making a fool of myself, just on the impulse of the
moment. The girls will be worried about me, as it is. But I don't want
you to ride any farther, Mr. Green. What I came to say need not take
very long, and I think I can find my way home alone, all right.”
“I'll take you home when you're ready to go,” said Andy quietly. All at
once he had wanted to shield her, to protect her from even so slight an
unconventionality as making his coffee for him. He had felt averse to
putting her at odds with her conventional self, of inviting unfavorable
criticism of himself; dimly, because instinct rather than cold analysis
impelled him. What he had told her was the sum total of his formulated
ideas.
“Well, I'm ready to go now, since you insist on my being conventional.
I did not come West with the expectation of being tied to a book of
etiquette, Mr. Green. But I find one can't get away from it after all.
Still, living on one's own claim twelve miles from a town is something!”
“That's a whole lot, I should say,” Andy assured her politely, and
refrained from asking her what she expected to do with that eighty
acres of arid land. He turned his tired horse and rode alongside her,
prudently waiting for her to give the key.
“I'm not supposed to be away over here, you know,” she began when they
were near the foot of the bluff up which the trail wound seeking the
easiest slopes and avoiding boulders and deep cuts. “I'm supposed to
be just out riding, and the girls expected me back by sundown. But I've
been trying and trying to find some of you Flying U boys--as they call
you men who have taken so much land--on your claims. I don't know that
what I could tell you would do you a particle of good--or anyone else.
But I wanted to tell you, anyway, just to clear my own mind.”
“It does lots of good just to meet you,” said Andy with straightforward
gallantry. “Pleasures are few and far between, out here.”
“You said that very nicely, I'm sure,” she snubbed. “Well, I'm going
to tell you, anyway--just on the chance of doing some good.” Then she
stopped.
Andy rode a rod or two, glancing at her inquiringly, waiting for her to
go on. She was guiding her horse awkwardly where it needed only to be
let alone, and he wanted to give her a lesson in riding. But it seemed
too early in their acquaintance for that, so he waited another minute.
“Miss Hallman is going to make you a lot of trouble,” she began
abruptly. “I thought perhaps it might be better for you--all of
you--if you knew it in advance, so there would be no sudden anger and
excitement. All the settlers are antagonistic, Mr. Green--all but me,
and one or two of the girls. They are going to do everything they can to
prevent your land-scheme from going through. You are going to be watched
and--and your land contested--”
“Well, we'll be right there, I guess, when the dust settles,” he filled
in her thought unmoved.
“I--almost hope so,” she ventured. “For my part, I can see the
side--your side. I can see where it is very hard for the cattle men to
give up their range. It is like the big plantations down south, when
the slaves were freed. It had to be done, and yet it was hard upon those
planters who depended on free labor. They resented it deeply; deeply
enough to shed blood--and that is one thing I dread here. I hope, Mr.
Green, that you will not resort to violence. I want to urge you all
to--to--”
“I understand,” said Andy softly. “A-course, we're pretty bad when we
get started, all right. We're liable to ride up on dark nights and shoot
our enemies through the window--I can't deny it, Miss Allen. And if it
comes right to a show-down, I may as well admit that some of us would
think nothing at all of taking a man out and hanging him to the first
three we come to, that was big enough to hold him. But now that ladies
have come into the country, a-course we'll try and hold our tempers
down all we can. Miss Hallman, now--I don't suppose there's a man in the
bunch that would shoot her, no matter what she done to us. We take pride
in being polite to women. You've read that about us, haven't you, Miss
Allen? And you've seen us on the stage--well, it's a fact, all right.
Bad as we are, and wild and tough, and savage when we're crossed, a lady
can just do anything with us, if she goes at it the right way.”
“Thank you. I felt sure that you would not harm any of us. Will you
promise not to be violent--not to--to--”
Andy sat sidewise in the saddle, so that he faced her. Miss Allen could
just make out his form distinctly; his face was quite hidden, except
that she could see the shine of his eyes.
“Now, Miss Allen,” he protested with soft apology “You musta known what
to expect when you moved out amongst us rough characters. You know I can
make any promises about being mild with the men that try to get the best
of us. If you've got friends--brothers--anybody here that you think a
lot of Miss Allen, I advise you to send 'em outa the country, before
trouble breaks loose; because when she starts she'll start a-popping.
I know I can't answer for my self, what I'm liable to do if they bother
me; and I'm about the mildest one in the bunch. What the rest of the
boys would do--Irish Mallory for instance--I hate to think, Miss Allen.
I--hate--to--think!”
Afterwards, when he thought it all over dispassionately, Andy
wondered why he had talked to Miss Allen like that. He had not done
it deliberately, just to frighten her--yet he had frightened her to a
certain extent. He had roused her apprehension for the safety of her
neighbors and the ultimate well-being of himself and his fellows. She
had been so anxious over winning him to more peaceful ways that she had
forgotten to give him any details of the coming struggle. Andy was sorry
for that. He wished, on the way home, that he knew just what Florence
Grace Hallman intended to do.
Not that it mattered greatly. Whatever she did, Andy felt that it would
be futile. The Happy Family were obeying the land laws implicitly,
except as their real incentive had been an unselfish one. He could not
feel that it was wrong to try and save the Flying U; was not loyalty a
virtue? And was not the taking of land for the preservation of a fine,
fair dealing outfit that had made itself a power for prosperity and
happiness in that country, a perfectly laudable enterprise? Andy
believed so.
Even though they did, down in their deepest thoughts, think of the
Flying U's interest, Andy did not believe that Florence Grace Hallman or
anyone else could produce any evidence that would justify a contest for
their land. Though they planned among themselves for the good of
the Flying U, they were obeying the law and the dictates of their
range-conscience and their personal ideas of right and justice and
loyalty to their friends and to themselves. They were not conspiring
against the general prosperity of the country in the hope of great
personal gain. When you came to that, they were saving fifty men from
bitter disappointment--counting one settler to every eighty acres, as
the Syndicate apparently did.
Still, Andy wondered why he had represented himself and his friends to
be such bloodthirsty devils. He grinned wickedly over some of the things
he had said, and over her womanly perturbation and pleading that they
would spare the lives of their enemies. Oh, well--if she repeated half
to Florence Grace Hallman, that lady would maybe think twice before she
tackled the contract of boosting the Happy Family off their claims. So
at the last he managed to justify his lying to her. He liked Miss Allen.
He was pleased to think that at least she would not forget him the
minute he was out of her sight.
He went to sleep worrying, not over the trouble which Florence Grace
Hallman might be plotting to bring upon him, but about Miss Allen's
given name and her previous condition of servitude. He hoped that she
was not a stenographer, and he hoped her first name was not Mary; and
if you know the history of Andy Green you will remember that he had a
reason for disliking both the name and the vocation.
CHAPTER 11. A MOVING CHAPTER IN EVENTS
Having nothing more than a general warning of trouble ahead to disturb
him, Andy rode blithely back down the coulee and met the herd just after
sunrise. Dreams of Miss Allen had left a pleasant mood behind them,
though the dreams themselves withdrew behind the veil of forgetfulness
when he awoke. He wondered what her first name was. He wondered how far
Irish's acquaintance with her had progressed, but he did not worry much
about Irish. Having represented himself to be an exceedingly dangerous
man, and having permitted himself to be persuaded into promising
reform and a calm demeanor--for her sake--he felt tolerably sure of her
interest in him. He had heard that a woman loves best the taming of a
dangerous man, and he whistled and sang and smiled until the dust of the
coming herd met him full. Since he felt perfectly sure of the result, he
hoped that Florence Grace Hallman would start something, just so that he
might show Miss Allen how potent was her influence over a bad, bad man
who still has virtues worth nurturing carefully.
Weary, riding point on the loitering herd, grinned a wordless greeting.
Andy passed with a casual wave of his hand and took his place on the
left flank. From his face Weary guessed that all was well with the
claims, and the assurance served to lighten his spirits. Soon he heard
Andy singing at the top of his voice, and his own thoughts fell into
accord with the words of the ditty. He began to sing also, whenever
he knew the words. Farther back, Pink took it up, and then the others
joined in, until all unconsciously they had turned the monotonous drive
into a triumphal march.
“They're a little bit rough I must confess, the most of them at least,”
prompted Andy, starting on the second verse alone because the others
didn't know the song as well as he. He waited a second for them to join
him, and went on extolling the valor of all true cowboys:
“But long's you do not cross their trail you can live with
them at peace.
“But if you do they're sure to rule, the day you come to
their land,
“For they'll follow you up and shoot it out, and do it man to
man.”
“Say, Weary! They tell me Florence Grace is sure hittin' the warpost!
Ain't yuh scared?”
Weary shook his head and rode forward to ease the leaders into a narrow
gulch that would cut off a mile or so of the journey.
“Taking 'em up One Man?” called Pink, and got a nod for answer. There
was a lull in the singing while they shouted and swore at these stubborn
cows who would have tried to break back on the way to a clover patch,
until the gulch broadened into an arm of One Man Coulee itself. It was
all peaceful and easy and just as they had planned. The morning was cool
and the cattle contented. They were nearing their claims, and all that
would remain for them to do was the holding of their herd upon the
appointed grazing ground. So would the requirements of the law be
fulfilled and the machinations of the Syndicate be thwarted and the land
saved to the Flying U, all in one.
And then the leaders, climbing the hill at a point half a mile below
Andy's cabin, balked, snorted and swung back. Weary spurred up to push
them forward, and so did Andy and Pink. They rode up over the ridge
shouting and urging the reluctant cattle ahead, and came plump into the
very dooryard of a brand new shack. A man was standing in the doorway
watching the disturbance his presence had created; when he saw the three
riders come bulging up over the crest of the bluff, his eyes widened.
The three came to a stop before him, too astonished to do more than
stare. Once past the fancied menace of the new building and the man, the
cattle went trotting awkwardly across the level, their calves galloping
alongside.
“Hello,” said Weary at last, “what do you think you're doing here?”
“Me? I'm holding down a claim. What are you doing?” The man did not seem
antagonistic or friendly or even neutral toward them. He seemed to be
waiting. He eyed the cattle that kept coming, urged on by those who
shouted at them in the coulee below. He watched them spread out and go
trotting away after the leaders.
“Say, when did yuh take this claim?” Andy leaned negligently forward and
looked at him curiously.
“Oh, a week or so ago. Why?”
“I just wondered. I took it up myself, four weeks ago. Four forties I've
got, strung out in a line that runs from here to yonder. You've got over
on my land--by mistake, of course. I just thought I'd tell yuh,” he added
casually, straightening up, “because I didn't think you knew it before.”
“Thanks.” The man smiled one-sidedly and began filling a pipe while he
watched them.
“A-course it won't be much trouble to move your shack,” Andy continued
with neighborly interest. “A wheelbarrow will take it, easy. Back here
on the bench a mile or so, yuh may find a patch of ground that nobody
claims.”
“Thanks.” The man picked a match from his pocket and striking it on the
new yellow door-casing lighted his pipe.
Andy moved uneasily. He did not like that man, for all he appeared so
thankful for information. The fellow had a narrow forehead and broad,
high cheek bones and a predatory nose. His eyes were the wrong shade of
blue and the lids drooped too much at the outer corners. Andy studied
him curiously. Did the man know what he was up against, or did he not?
Was he sincere in his ready thanks, or was he sarcastic? The man looked
up at him then. His eyes were clean of any hidden meaning, but they
were the wrong shade of blue--the shade that is opaque and that you feel
hides much that should be revealed to you.
“Seems like there's been quite a crop of shacks grown up since I rode
over this way,” Weary announced suddenly, returning from a brief scurry
after the leaders, that inclined too much toward the south in their
travel.
“Yes, the country's settling up pretty fast,” conceded the man in the
doorway.
“Well, by golly!” bellowed Slim, popping up from below on a heaving
horse. Slim was getting fatter every year, and his horses always
puffed when they climbed a hill under his weight. His round eyes glared
resentfully at the man and the shack and at the three who were sitting
there so quietly on their horses--just as if they had ridden up for a
friendly call. “Ain't this shack on your land?” he spluttered to Andy.
“Why, yes. It is, just right at present.” Andy admitted, following the
man's example in the matter of a smoke, except that Andy rolled and
lighted a cigarette. “He's going to move it, though.”
“Oh. Thanks.” With the one-sided smile.
“Say, you needn't thank ME,” Andy protested in his polite tone. “YOU'RE
going to move it, you know.”
“You may know, but I don't,” corrected the other.
“Oh, that's all right. You may not know right now, but don't let that
worry yuh. This is sure a great country for pilgrims to wise up in.”
Big Medicine came up over the hill a hundred feet or so from them;
goggled a minute at the bold trespass and came loping across the
intervening space. “Say, by cripes, what's this mean?” he bawled.
“Claim-jumper, hey? Say, young feller, do you realize what you're
doing--squattin' down on another man's land. Don't yuh know
claim-jumpers git shot, out here? Or lynched?”
“Oh, cut out all that rough stuff!” advised the man wearily. “I know who
you are, and what your bluff is worth. I know you can't held a foot of
land if anybody is a mind to contest your claims. I've filed a contest
on this eighty, here, and I'm going to hold it. Let that soak into your
minds. I don't want any trouble--I'm even willing to take a good deal
in the way of bluster, rather than have trouble. But I'm going to stay.
See?” He waved his pipe in a gesture of finality and continued to
smoke and to watch them impersonally, leaning against the door in that
lounging negligence which is so irritating to a disputant.
“Oh, all right--if that's the way you feel about it,” Andy replied
indifferently, and turned away. “Come on, boys--no use trying to bluff
that gazabo. He's wise.”
He rode away with his face turned over his shoulder to see if the others
were going to follow. When he was past the corner and therefore out of
the man's sight, he raised his arm and beckoned to them imperatively,
with a jerk of his head to add insistence. The four of them looked after
him uncertainly. Weary kicked his horse and started, then Pink did
the same. Andy beckoned again, more emphatically than before, and Big
Medicine, who loved a fight as he loved to win a jackpot, turned
and glared at the man in the doorway as he passed. Slim was rumbling
by-golly ultimatums in his fat chest when he came up.
“Pink, you go on back and put the boys next, when they come up with the
drag they won't do anything much but hand out a few remarks and ride
on.” Andy said, in the tone of one who knows exactly what he means
to do. “This is my claim-jumper. Chances are I've got three more to
handle--or will have. Nothing like starting off right. Tell the boys
just rag the fellow a little and ride on, like we did. Get the cattle up
here and set Happy and Slim day-herding and the rest of us'll get busy.”
“You wouldn't tell for a dollar, would yuh?” Pi asked him with his
dimples showing.
“I've got to think it out first,” Andy evaded, “feel all the symptoms of
an idea. You let me alone a while.”
“Say, yuh going to tell him he's been found out and yuh know his past,”
began Slim, “like yuh done Dunk? I'll bet, by golly--”
“Go on off and lay down!” Andy retorted pettishly. “I never worked the
same one off on you twice, did I? Think I'm getting feeble-minded? It
ain't hard to put his nibs on the run--that's dead easy. Trouble is I
went and hobbled myself. I promised a lady I'd be mild.”
“Mamma!” muttered Weary, his sunny eyes taking in the shack-dotted
horizon. “Mild!--and all these jumpers on our hands!”
“Oh, well--there's more'n one way to kill a cat,” Andy reminded them
cheerfully. “You go on back and post the boys, Pink, not to get too
riled.”
He galloped off and left them to say and think what they pleased. He was
not uneasy over their following his advice or waiting for his plan. For
Andy Green had risen rapidly to a tacit leadership, since first he
told them of the coming colony. From being the official Ananias of the
outfit, king of all joke-makers, chief irritator of the bunch, whose
lightest word was suspected of hiding some deep meaning and whose
most innocent action was analysed, he had come to the point where
they listened to him and depended upon him to see a way out of
every difficulty. They would depend upon him now; of that he was
sure--therefore they would wait for his plan.
Strange as it may seem, the Happy Family had not seriously considered
the possibility of having their claims “jumped” so long as they kept
valid their legal residence. They had thought that they would be watched
and accused of collusion with the Flying U, and they intended to be
extremely careful. They meant to stay upon their claims at least seven
months in the year, which the law required. They meant to have every
blade of grass eaten by their own cattle, which would be counted as
improving their claims. They meant to give a homelike air of permanency
to their dwellings. They had already talked over a tentative plan
of bringing water to their desert claims, and had ridden over the
bench-land for two days, with the plat at hand for reference, that they
might be sure of choosing their claims wisely. They had prepared for
every contingency save the one that had arisen--which is a common
experience with us all. They had not expected that their claims would
be jumped and contests filed so early in the game, as long as they
maintained their residence.
However, Andy was not dismayed at the turn of events. It was stimulating
to the imagination to be brought face to face with an emergency such as
this, and to feel that one must handle it with strength and diplomacy
and a mildness of procedure that would find favor in the eyes of a girl.
He looked across the waving grass to where the four roomed shack was
built upon the four corners of four “eighties” so that four women might
live together and yet be said to live upon their own claims. That was
drawing the line pretty fine, of course; finer than the Happy Family
would have dared to draw it. But no one would raise any objection, on
account of their being women and timid about living alone. Andy smiled
sympathetically because the four conjunctive corners of the four claims
happened to lie upon a bald pinnacle bare of grass or shelter or water,
even. The shack stood bleakly revealed to the four winds--but also it
over looked the benchland and the rolling, half-barren land to the
west, which comprised Antelope Coulee and Dry Coulee and several other
good-for-nothing coulees capable of supporting nothing but coyotes and
prairie dogs and gophers.
A mile that way Andy rode, and stopped upon the steep side of a gulch
which was an arm of Antelope Coulee. He looked down into the gulch,
searched with his eyes for the stake that marked the southeast corner of
the eighty lying off in this direction from the shack, and finally saw
it fifty yards away on a bald patch of adobe.
He resisted the temptation to ride over and call upon Miss Allen--the
resistance made easier by the hour, which was eight o'clock or
thereabouts--and rode back to the others very well satisfied with
himself and his plan.
He found the whole Happy Family gathered upon the level land just
over his west line, extolling resentment while they waited his coming.
Grinning, he told them his plan, and set them grinning also. He gave
them certain work to be done, and watched them scatter to do his
bidding. Then he turned and rode away upon business of his own.
The claim-jumper, watching the bench land through a pair of field
glasses, saw a herd of cows and calves scattered and feeding contentedly
upon the young grass a mile or so away. Two men on horseback loitered
upon the outer fringe of the herd. From a distance hilltop came the
staccato sound of hammers where an other shack was going up. Cloud
shadows slid silently over the land, with bright sunlight chasing after.
Of the other horsemen who had come up the bluff with the cattle, he saw
not a sign. So the man yawned and went in to his breakfast.
Many times that day he stood at the corner of his shack with the glasses
sweeping the bench-land. Toward noon the cattle drifted into a coulee
where there was water. In a couple of hours they drifted leisurely
back upon high ground and scattered to their feeding, still watched and
tended by the two horsemen who looked the most harmless of individuals.
One was fat and red-faced and spent at least half of his time lying
prone upon some slope in the shade of his horse. The other was thin
and awkward, and slouched in the saddle or sat upon the ground with his
knees drawn up and his arms clasped loosely around them, a cigarette
dangling upon his lower lip, himself the picture of boredom.
There was nothing whatever to indicate that events were breeding in that
peaceful scene, and that adventure was creeping close upon the watcher.
He went in from his fourth or fifth inspection, and took a nap.
That night he was awakened by a pounding on the side of the shack where
was his window. By the time he had reached the middle of the floor--and
you could count the time in seconds--a similar pounding was at the door.
He tried to open the door and couldn't. He went to the window and could
see nothing, although the night had not been dark when he went to
bed. He shouted, and there was no reply; nor could he hear any talking
without. His name, by the way, was H. J. Owens, though his name does not
matter except for convenience in mentioning him. Owens, then, lighted a
lamp, and almost instantly was forced to reach out quickly and save it
from toppling, because one corner of the shack was lifting, lifting...
Outside, the Happy Family worked in silence. Before they had left One
Man Coulee they had known exactly what they were to do, and how to do
it. They knew who was to nail the hastily constructed shutter over the
window. They knew who was to fasten the door so that it could not be
opened from within. They knew also who were to use the crow-bars, who
were to roll the skids under the shack.
There were twelve of them--because Bert Rogers had insisted upon
helping. In not many more minutes than there were men, they were in
their saddles, ready to start. The shack lurched forward after the
straining horses. Once it was fairly started it moved more easily than
you might think it could do, upon crude runners made of cottonwood logs
eight inches or so in diameter and long enough for cross pieces bolted
in front and rear. The horses pulled it easily with the ropes tied to
the saddle-horns, just as they had many times pulled the roundup wagons
across mirey creeks or up steep slopes; just as they had many times
pulled stubborn cattle or dead cattle--just as they had been trained
to pull anything and everything their masters chose to attach to their
ropes.
Within, Owens called to them and cursed them. When they had just gained
an even pace, he emptied his revolver through the four sides of the
shack. But he did not know where they were, exactly, so that he was
compelled to shoot at random. And since the five shots seemed to have
no effect whatever upon the steady progress of the shack, he decided to
wait until he could see where to aim. There was no use, he reflected,
in wasting good ammunition when there was a strong probability that he
would need it later.
After a half hour or more of continuous travel, the shack tilted on a
steep descent. H. J. Owens blew out his lamp and swore when a box came
sliding against his shins in the dark. The descent continued until it
was stopped with a jolt that made him bite his tongue painfully, so that
tears came into the eyes that were the wrong shade of blue to please
Andy Green. He heard a laugh cut short and a muttered command, and that
was all. The shack heaved, toppled, righted itself and went on down, and
down, and down; jerked sidewise to the left, went forward and then swung
joltingly the other way. When finally it came to a permanent stand it
was sitting with an almost level floor.
Then the four corners heaved upward, two at a time, and settled with a
final squeal of twisted boards and nails. There was a sound of confused
trampling, and after that the lessening sounds of departure. Mr. Owens
tried the door again, and found it still fast. He relighted the lamp,
carried it to the window and looked upon rough boards outside the glass.
He meditated anxiously and decided to remain quiet until daylight.
The Happy Family worked hard, that night. Before daylight they were in
their beds and snoring except the two who guarded the cattle. Each was
in his own cabin. His horse was in his corral, smooth-coated and dry.
There was nothing to tell of the night's happenings,--nothing except the
satisfied grins on their faces when they woke and remembered.
CHAPTER 12. SHACKS, LIVE STOCK AND PILGRIMS PROMPTLY AND PAINFULLY REMOVED
“I'm looking rather seedy now, while holding down my
claim,
And my grub it isn't always served the best,
And the mice play shyly round me as I lay me down to rest In
my little old sod shanty on my claim.
Oh, the hinges are of leather and the windows have no glass,
And the roof it lets the howling blizzards in,
And I hear the hungry kiote as he sneaks up through
grass--
“Say! have they got down the hill yet, Pink;” Pink took his cigarette
from his fingers, leaned and peered cautiously through the grimy window.
“Unh-huh. They're coming up the flat.”
Whereupon Andy Green, ostentatiously washing his breakfast dishes,
skipped two or three verses and lifted his voice in song to fit the
occasion.
“How I wish that some kind-hearted girl would pity on me
take,
And relieve me of the mess that I am in!
Oh, the angel, how I'd bless her if her home with me she'd
make,
In my little old sod shanty--
“Got her yet?” And he craned his neck to look. “Aw, they've pulled up,
out there, listening!”
“My clothes are plastered o'er with dough, I'm looking like a
fright,
And everything is scattered round the room--”
“Why don't yuh stop that caterwauling?” Pink demanded fretfully. “You'll
queer the whole play if you keep it up. They'll swear you're drunk!”
There was sense in that. Andy finished the line about remaining two
happy lovers in his little old sod shanty, and went to the door with the
dishpan. He threw out the water, squeezed the dishrag in one hand and
gave the inside of the pan a swipe before he appeared to discover that
Miss Allen and Florence Grace Hallman were riding up to his door. As a
matter of fact, he had seen them come over the top of the bluff and had
long ago guessed who they were.
He met them with a smile of surprised innocence, and invited them
inside. They refused to come, and even Miss Allen showed a certain
reproachful coolness toward him. Andy felt hurt at that, but he did not
manifest the fact. Instead he informed them that it was a fine morning.
And were they out taking a look around?
They were. They were looking up the men who had perpetrated the outrage
last night upon four settlers.
“Outrage?” Andy tilted the dishpan against the cabin wall, draped the
dishrag over the handle and went forward, pulling down his sleeves.
“What outrage is that, Miss Hallman? Anybody killed?”
Miss Hallman watched him with her narrowed glance. She saw the quick
glance he gave Miss Allen, and her lids narrowed still more. So that
was it! But she did not swerve from her purpose, for all this unexpected
thrust straight to the heart of her self-love.
“You know that no one was killed. But you damaged enough property to
place you on the wrong side of the law, Mr. Green. Not one of those
shacks can be gotten out of the gulch except in pieces!”
Andy smiled inside his soul, but his face was bewildered; his eyes fixed
themselves blankly upon her face. “Me? Damaging property? Miss Hallman,
you don't know me yet!” Which was perfectly true. “What shacks are you
talking about? In what gulch? All the shacks I've seen so far have been
stuck up on bald pinnacles where the blizzards will hit 'em coming
and going next winter.” He glanced again at Miss Allen with a certain
sympathetic foretaste of what she would suffer next winter if she stayed
in her shack.
“Don't try to play innocent, Mr. Green.” Florence Grace Hallman drew her
brows together. “We all know perfectly well who dragged those shacks off
the claims last night.”
“Don't you mean that you think you know? I'm afraid you've kinda taken
it for granted I'd be mixed up in any deviltry you happened to hear
about. I've got in bad with you--I know that--but just the same, I hate
to be accused of everything that takes place in the country. All this is
sure interesting news to me. Whereabouts was they taken from? And when,
and where to? Miss Allen, you'll tell me the straight of this, won't
you? And I'll get my hoss and you'll show me what gulch she's talking
about, won't you?”
Miss Allen puckered her lips into a pout which meant indecision, and
glanced at Florence Grace Hallman. And Miss Hallman frowned at being
shunted into the background and referred to as she, and set her teeth
into her lower lip.
“Miss Allen prefers to choose her own company,” she said with distinct
rudeness. “Don't try to wheedle her--you can't do it. And you needn't
get your horse to ride anywhere with us, Mr. Green. It's useless. I just
wanted to warn you that nothing like what happened last night will be
tolerated. We know all about you Flying U men--you Happy Family.” She
said it as if she were calling them something perfectly disgraceful.
“You may be just as tough and bad a you please--you can't frighten
anyone into leaving the country or into giving up one iota of their
rights. I came to you because you are undoubtedly the ring-leader of the
gang.” She accented gang. “You ought to be shot for what you did
last night. And if you keep on--” She left the contingency to his
imagination.
“Well, if settling up the country means that men are going to be shot
for going to bed at dark and asleeping till sun-up, all I've got to say
is that things ain't like they used to be. We were all plumb peaceful
here till your colony came, Miss Hallman. Why, the sheriff never got out
this way often enough to know the trails! He always had to ask his way
around. If your bunch of town mutts can't behave themselves and leave
each other alone, I don't know what's to be done about it. We ain't
hired to keep the peace.”
“No, you've been hired to steal all the land you can and make all the
trouble you can. We understand that perfectly.”
Andy shook his head in meek denial, and with a sudden impulse turned
toward the cabin. “Oh, Pink!” he called, and brought that boyish-faced
young man to the door, his eyes as wide and as pure as the eyes of a
child.
Pink lifted his hat with just the proper degree of confusion to impress
the girls with his bashfulness and his awe of their presence. His eyes
were the same pansy-purple as when the Flying U first made tumultuous
acquaintance with him. His apparent innocence had completely fooled the
Happy Family, you will remember. They had called him Mamma's Little Lamb
and had composed poetry and horrific personal history for his benefit.
The few years had not changed him. His hair was still yellow and curly.
The dimples still dodged into his cheeks unexpectedly; he was still much
like a stick of dynamite wrapped in white tissue and tied with a ribbon.
He looked an angel of innocence, and in reality he was a little devil.
Andy introduced him, and Pink bowed and had all the appearance of
blushing--though you will have to ask Pink how he managed to create that
optical illusion. “What did you want?” he asked in his soft, girlish
voice, turning to Andy bashfully. But from the corner of his eye Pink
saw that a little smile of remembrance had come to soften Miss Hallman's
angry features, and that the other girl was smiling also. Pink hated
that attitude of pleasant patronage which women were so apt to take
toward him, but for the present it suited his purpose to encourage it.
“Pink, what time was it when we went to bed last night?” Andy asked him
in the tone of one who wished to eliminate all doubt of his virtue.
“Why--it was pretty early. We didn't light the lamp at all, you
remember. You went to bed before I did--we couldn't see the cards--” He
stopped confusedly, and again he gave the two women the impression that
he blushed. “We weren't playing for money,” he hurriedly explained.
“Just for pastime. It's--pretty lonesome--sometimes.”
“Somebody did something to somebody last night,” Andy informed Pink
with a resentful impatience. “Miss Hallman thinks we're the guilty
parties--me in particular, because she don't like me. It's something
about some shacks--damaging property, she called it. Just what was it
you said was done, Miss Hallman?” He turned his honest, gray eyes toward
her and met her suspicious look steadily.
Miss Hallman bit her lip. She had been perfectly sure of the guilt of
Andy Green, and of the others who were his friends. Now, in spite of
all reason she was not so sure. And there had been nothing more tangible
than two pairs of innocent-looking eyes and the irreproachable manners
of two men to change her conviction.
“Well, I naturally took it for granted that you did it,” she weakened.
“The shacks were moved off eighties that you have filed upon, Mr.
Green. Mr. Owens told me this morning that you men came by his place
and threatened him yesterday, and ordered him to move. No one else would
have any object in molesting him or the others.” Her voice hardened
again as her mind dwelt upon the circumstances. “It must have been you!”
she finished sharply.
Whereupon Pink gave her a di
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