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.”
“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.
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.