The Flying U's Last Stand Part 24

After that, Florence Grace was in a condition to stop at nothing--short of murder--that would defeat the Happy Family in their latest project.

While all the Bear Paw country was stirred up over the lost child, Florence Grace Hillman said it was too bad, and had they found him yet?

and went right along planting contestants upon the claims of the Happy Family. She encouraged the building of claim-shacks and urged firmness in holding possession of them. She visited the man whom Irish had knocked down with a bottle of whisky, and she had a long talk with him and with the doctor who attended him. She saw to it that the contest notices were served promptly upon the Happy Family, and she hurried in s.h.i.+pments of stock. Oh, she was very busy indeed, during the week that was spent in hunting the Kid. When he was found, and the rumor of an engagement between Rosemary Allen and that treacherous Andy Green reached her, she was busier still; but since she had changed her methods and was careful to mask her real purpose behind an air of pa.s.sive resentment, her industry became less apparent.

The Happy Family did not pay much attention to Florence Grace Hallman and her studied opposition. They were pretty busy attending to their own affairs; Andy Green was not only busy but very much in love, so that he almost forgot the existence of Florence Grace except on the rare occasions when he met her riding over the prairie trails.

First of all they rounded up the stock that had been scattered, and they did not stop when they crossed Antelope Coulee with the settlers'

cattle. They bedded them there until after dark. Then they drove them on to the valley of Dry Lake, crossed that valley on the train traveled road and pushed the herd up on Lonesome Prairie and out as far upon the benchland as they had time to drive them.

They did not make much effort toward keeping it a secret. Indeed Weary told three or four of the most indignant settlers, next day, where they would find their cattle. But he added that the feed was pretty good back there, and advised them to leave the stock out there for the present.

"It isn't going to do you fellows any good to rear up on your hind legs and make a holler," he said calmly. "We haven't hurt your cattle. We don't want to have trouble with anybody. But we're pretty sure to have a fine, large row with our neighbors if they don't keep on their own side the fence."

That fence was growing to be more than a mere figure of speech The Happy Family did not love the digging of post-holes and the stretching of barbed wire; on the contrary they hated it so deeply that you could not get a civil word out of one of them while the work went on; yet they put in long hours at the fence-building.

They had to take the work in s.h.i.+fts on account of having their own cattle to watch day and night. Sometimes it happened that a man tamped posts or helped stretch wire all day, and then stood guard two or three hours on the herd at night; which was wearing on the temper. Sometimes, because they were tired, they quarreled over small things.

New s.h.i.+pments of cattle, too, kept coming to Dry Lake. Invariably these would be driven out towards Antelope Coulee--farther if the drivers could manage it--and would have to be driven back again with what patience the Happy Family could muster. No one helped them among the settlers. There was every att.i.tude among the claim-dwellers, from open opposition to latent antagonism. None were quite neutral--and yet the Happy Family did not bother any save these who had filed contests to their claims, or who took active part in the cattle driving.

The Happy Family were not half as brutal as they might have been. In spite of their no-trespa.s.sing signs they permitted settlers to drive across their claims with wagons and water-barrels, to haul water from One Man Creek when the springs and the creek in Antelope Coulee went dry.

They did not attempt to move the shacks of the later contestants off their claims. Though they hated the sight of them and of the owners who bore themselves with such provocative a.s.surance, they grudged the time the moving would take. Besides that the Honorable Blake had told them that moving the shacks would accomplish no real, permanent good. Within thirty days they must appear before the register and receiver and file answer to the contest, and he a.s.sured them that forbearance upon their part would serve to strengthen their case with the Commissioner.

It goes to prove how deeply in earnest they were, that they immediately began to practice a.s.siduously the virtues of mildness and forbearance.

They could, he told them, postpone the filing of their answers until close to the end of the thirty days; which would serve also to delay the date of actual trial of the contests, and give the Happy Family more time for their work.

Their plans had enlarged somewhat. They talked now of fencing the whole tract on all four sides, and of building a dam across the mouth of a certain coulee in the foothills which drained several miles of rough country, thereby converting the coulee into a reservoir that would furnish water for their desert claims. It would take work, of course; but the Happy Family; were beginning to see prosperity on the trail ahead and nothing in the shape of hard work could stop them from coming to hang-grips with fortune.

Chip helped them all he could, but he had the Flying U to look after, and that without the good team-work of the Happy Family which had kept things moving along so smoothly. The team-work now was being used in a different game; a losing game, one would say at first glance.

So far the summer had been favorable to dry-farming. The more enterprising of the settlers had some grain and planted potatoes upon freshly broken soil, and these were growing apace. They did not know about these scorching August winds, that might shrivel crops in a day.

They did not realize that early frosts might kill what the hot winds spared. They became enthusiastic over dry-farming, and their resentment toward the Happy family increased as their enthusiasm waxed strong. The Happy Family complained to one another that you couldn't pry a nester loose from his claim with a crowbar.

In this manner did civilization march out and take possession of the high prairies that lay close to the Flying U. They had a Sunday School organized, with the meetings held in a double shack near the trail to Dry Lake. The Happy family, riding that way, sometimes heard voices mingled in the shrill singing of some hymn where, a year before, they had listened to the hunting song of the coyote.

Eighty acres to the man--with that climate and that soil they never could make it pay; with that soil especially since it was mostly barren.

The Happy Family knew it, and could find it in their hearts to pity the men who were putting in dollars and time and hard work there. But for obvious reasons they did not put their pity into speech.

They fenced their west line in record time. There was only one gate in the whole length of it, and that was on the trail to Dry Lake. Not content with trusting to the warning of four strands of barbed wire stretched so tight that they hummed to the touch, they took turns in watching it--"riding fence," in range parlance--and in watching the settlers' cattle.

To H. J. Owens and his fellow contestants they paid not the slightest attention, because the Honorable Blake had urged them personally to ignore any and all claimants. To Florence Grace Hallman they gave no heed, believing that she had done her worst, and that her worst was after all pretty weak, since the contests she had caused to be filed could not possibly be approved by the government so long as the Happy Family continued to abide by every law and by-law and condition and requirement in their present through-going and exemplary manner.

You should have seen how mild-mannered and how industrious the Happy Family were, during these three weeks which followed the excitement of the Kid's adventuring into the wild. You would have been astonished, and you would have made the mistake of thinking that they had changed permanently and might be expected now to settle down with wives and raise families and hay and cattle and potatoes, and grow beards, perhaps, and become well-to-do ranchers.

The Happy Family were almost convinced that they were actually leaving excitement behind them for good and all. They might hold back the encroaching tide of immigration from the rough land along the river--that sounded like something exciting, to be sure. But they must hold back the tide with legal proceedings and by pastoral pursuits, and that promised little in the way of brisk, decisive action and strong nerves and all these qualities which set the Happy Family somewhat apart from their fellows.

CHAPTER 23. THE WATER QUESTION AND SOME GOSSIP

Miss Rosemary Allen rode down into One Man Coulee and boldly up to the cabin of Andy Green, and shouted musically for him to come forth. Andy made a hasty pa.s.s at his hair with a brush, jerked his tie straight and came out eagerly. There was no hesitation in his manner. He went straight up to her and reached up to pull her from the saddle, that he might hold her in his arms and kiss her--after the manner of bold young men who are very much in love. But Miss Rosemary Allen stopped him with a push that was not altogether playful, and scowled at him viciously.

"I am in a most furious mood today," she said. "I want to scratch somebody's eyes out! I want to say WORDS. Don't come close, or I might pull your hair or something, James." She called him James because that was not his name, and because she had learned a good deal about his past misdeeds and liked to take a sly whack at his notorious tendency to forget the truth, by calling him Truthful James.

"All right; that suits me fine. It's worth a lot to have you close enough to pull hair. Where have you been all this long while?" Being a bold young man and very much in love, he kissed her in spite of her professed viciousness.

"Oh, I've been to town--it hasn't been more than three days since we met and had that terrible quarrel James. What was it about?" She frowned down at him thoughtfully. "I'm still furious about it--whatever it is.

Do you know, Mr. Man, that I am an outlaw amongst my neighbors, and that our happy little household, up there on the hill, is a house divided against itself? I've put up a green burlap curtain on my southwest corner, and bought me a smelly oil stove and I pos-i-tively refuse to look at my neighbors or speak to them. I'm going to get some lumber and board up that side of my house.

"Those three cats--they get together on the other side of my curtain and say the meanest things!"

Andy Green had the temerity to laugh. "That sounds good to me," he told her unsympathetically. "Now maybe you'll come down and keep house for me and let that pinnacle go to thunder. It's no good anyway, and I told you so long ago. That whole eighty acres of yours wouldn't support a family of jackrabbits month. What--"

"And let those old hens say they drove me off? That Kate Price is the limit. The things she said to me you wouldn't believe. And it all started over my going with little Buck a few times to ride along your fence when you boys were busy. I consider that I had a perfect right to ride where I pleased. Of course they're furious anyway, because I don't side against you boys and--and all that. When--when they found out about--you and me, James, they said some pretty sarcastic things, but I didn't pay any attention to that. Poor old freaks, I expected them to be jealous, because n.o.body ever pays any attention to THEM. Kate Price is the worst--she's an old maid. The others have had husbands and can act superior.

"Well, I didn't mind the things they said then; I took that for granted.

But a week or so ago Florence Hallman came, and she did stir things up in great style! Since then the girls have hardly spoken to me except to say something insulting. And Florence Grace came right out and called me a traitor; that was before little Buck and I took to 'riding fence' as you call it, for you boys. You imagine what they've been saying since then!"

"Well, what do you care? You don't have to stay with them, and you know it. I'm just waiting--"

"Well, but I'm no quitter, James. I'm going to hold down that claim now if I have to wear a sixshooter!" Her eyes twinkled at that idea.

"Besides, I can stir them up now and then and get them to say things that are useful. For instance, Florence Hallman told Kate Price about that last trainload of cattle coming, and that they were going to cut your fence and drive them through in the night--and I stirred dear little Katie up so she couldn't keep still about that. And therefore--"

She reached out and gave Andy Green's ear a small tweek--"somebody found out about it, and a lot of somebodys happened around that way and just quietly managed to give folks a hint that there was fine gra.s.s somewhere else. That saved a lot of horseflesh and words and work, didn't it?"

"It sure did." Andy smiled up at her wors.h.i.+pfully. "Just the same--"

"But listen here, nice, level-headed Katiegirl has lost her temper since then, and let out a little more that is useful knowledge to somebody.

There's one great weak point in the character of Florence Hallman; maybe you have noticed it. She's just simply GOT to have somebody to tell things to, and she doesn't always show the best judgment in her choice of a confessional--"

"I've noticed that before," Andy Green admitted, and smiled reminiscently. "She sure does talk too much--for a lady that has so much up her sleeve."

"Yes--and she's been making a chum of Katie Price since she discovered what an untrustworthy creature I am. I did a little favor for Irish Mallory, James. I overheard Florence Grace talking to Kate about that man who is supposed to be at death's door. So I made a trip to Great Falls, if you please, and I scouted around and located the gentleman--well, anyway, I gave that nice, sleek little lawyer of yours a few facts that will let Irish come back to his claim."

"Irish has been coming back to his claim pretty regular as it is," Andy informed her quietly. "Did you think he was hiding out, all this time?

Why"--he laughed at her--"you talked to him yourself, one day, and thought it was Weary. Remember when you came over with the mail? That was Irish helping me string wire. He's been wearing Weary's hat and clothes and cultivating a twinkle to his eyes--that's all."

"Why, I--well, anyway, that man they've been making a fuss over is just as well as you are, James. They only wanted to get Irish in jail and make a little trouble--pretty cheap warfare at that, if you want my opinion."

"Oh, well--what's the odds? While they're wasting time and energy that way, we're going right along doing what we've laid out to do. Say, do you know I'm kinda getting stuck on this ranch proposition. If I just had a housekeeper--"

Miss Rosemary Allen seldom let him get beyond that point, and she interrupted him now by wrinkling her nose at him in a manner that made Andy Green forget altogether that he had begun a sentence upon a subject forbidden. Later she went back to her worries; she was a very persistent young woman.

"I hope you boys are going to attend to that contest business right away," she said, with a pucker between her eyes and not much twinkle in them. "There's something about that which I don't quite understand.

I heard Florence Hallman and Kate talking yesterday about it going by default. Are you sure it's wise to put off filing your answers so long?

When are you supposed to appear, James?"

"Me? On or before the twenty-oneth day of July, my dear girl. They lumped us up and served us all on the same day--I reckon to save shoe-leather; therefore, inasmuch as said adverse parties have got over a week left--"

"You'd better not take a chance, waiting till the last day in the afternoon," she warned him vaguely. "Maybe they think you've forgotten the date or something--but whatever they think, I believe they're counting on your not answering in time. I think Florence Hallman knows they haven't any real proof against you. I know she knows it. She's perfectly wild over the way you boys have stuck here and worked. And from what I can gather, she hasn't been able to sc.r.a.pe up the weentiest bit of evidence that the Flying U is backing you--and of course that is the only ground they could contest your claims on. So if it comes to trial, you'll all win; you're bound to. I told Kate Price so--and those other old hens, yesterday, and that's what we had the row over."