The Flying U's Last Stand Part 4

"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 un.o.btrusively 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, pus.h.i.+ng 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 jos.h.!.+ 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, h.e.l.l!" He dropped the finished cinch and walked moodily to the door. "Weary, if them dry-farmers come flockin' in on us while this bunch stands around callin' me a liar, I--"

He did not attempt to finish the sentence; but Weary, staring curiously at Andy's profile, saw a quivering of the muscles around his lips and felt a responsive thrill of sympathy and belief that rose above his long training in caution.

Spite of past experience he believed, at that moment, every word which Andy Green had uttered upon the subject of the proposed immigration. He was about to tell Andy so, when Chip walked unexpectedly out of Silver's stall and glanced from Weary to Andy standing still in the doorway.

Weary looked at him enquiringly; for Chip must have heard every word they said, and if Chip believed it--

"Have you got that plat with you, Andy?" Chip asked tersely and with never a doubt in his tone.

Andy swung toward him like a prisoner who has just heard a jury return a verdict of not guilty to the judge. "I've got it, yes," he answered simply, with only his voice betraying the emotions he felt--and his eye?

"Want it?"

"I'll take a look at it, if it's handy," said Chip.

Andy felt in his inside coat pocket, drew out a thin, folded map of that particular part of the county with all the government land marked upon it, and handed it to Chip without a word. He singled out a couple of pamphlets from a bunch of old letters such as men are in the habit of carrying upon their persons, and gave them to Chip also.

"That's a copy of the homestead and desert laws," he said. "I guess you heard me telling Weary what kinda deal we're up against, here. Better not say anything to the Old Man till you have to; no use worrying him--he can't do nothing." It was amazing, the change that had come over Andy's face and manner since Chip first spoke. Now he grinned a little.

"If you want to go in on this deal," he said quizzically, "maybe it'll be just as well if you talk to the bunch yourself about it, Chip. You ain't any tin, angel, but I'm willing to admit the boys'll believe you; a whole lot quicker than they would me."

"Yes--and they'll probably hand me a bunch of pity for getting stung by you," Chip retorted. "I'll take a chance, anyway--but the Lord help you, Andy if you can't produce proof when the time comes."

CHAPTER 5. THE HAPPY FAMILY TURN NESTERS

"Say, Andy, where's them dry-farmers?" Big Medicine inquired at the top of his voice when the Happy Family had reached the biscuit-and-syrup stage of supper that evening.

"Oh, they're trying to make up their minds whether to bring the old fannin'-mill along or sell it and buy new when they get here," Andy informed him imperturbably. "The women-folks are busy going through their rag bags, cutting the b.u.t.tons 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. Pa.s.s 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 a.s.sured 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.