The Flying U's Last Stand

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:

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.

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:

“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.