The Flying U's Last Stand Page 2

  CHAPTER 2. ANDY GREEN'S NEW ACQUAINTANCE

  Andy Green, chief prevaricator of the Happy Family of the Flying U--andnot ashamed of either title or connection--pushed his new Stetson backoff his untanned forehead, attempted to negotiate the narrow passageinto a Pullman sleeper with his suitcase swinging from his right hand,and butted into a woman who was just emerging from the dressing-room. Hebutted into her so emphatically that he was compelled to swing his leftarm out very quickly, or see her go headlong into the window opposite;for a fullsized suitcase propelled forward by a muscular young man mayprove a very efficient instrument of disaster, especially if it catchesone just in the hollow back of the knee. The woman tottered and graspedAndy convulsively to save herself a fall, and so they stood blocking thepassage until the porter arrived and took the suitcase from Andy with atip-inviting deference.

  Andy apologized profusely, with a quaint, cowpunchery phrasing thatcaused the woman to take a second look at him. And, since Andy Greenwould look good to any woman capable of recognizing--and appreciating--areal man when she saw him, she smiled and said it didn't matter in theleast.

  That was the beginning of the acquaintance. Andy took her by her plump,chiffon-veiled arm and piloted her to her seat, and he afterward tippedthe porter generously and had his own belongings deposited in thesection across the aisle. Then, with the guile of a foreign diplomat, hebetook himself to the smoking-room and stayed there for three quartersof an hour. He was not taking any particular risk of losing theopportunity of an unusually pleasant journey, for the dollar he hadinvested in the goodwill of the porter had yielded the information thatthe lady was going through to Great Falls. Since Andy had boarded thetrain at Harlem there was plenty of time to kill between there and DryLake, which was his destination.

  The lady smiled at him rememberingly when finally he seated himselfacross the aisle from her, and without any serious motive Andy smiledback. So presently they were exchanging remarks about the journey. Lateron, Andy went over and sat beside her and conversation began in earnest.Her name, it transpired, was Florence Grace Hallman. Andy read itengraved upon a card which added the information that she was engagedin the real estate business--or so the three or four words implied."Homemakers' Syndicate, Minneapolis and St. Paul," said the card. Andywas visibly impressed thereby. He looked at her with swift appraisementand decided that she was "all to the good."

  Florence Grace Hallman was tall and daintily muscular as to figure. Herhair was a light yellow--not quite the shade which peroxide gives,and therefore probably natural. Her eyes were brown, a shade too closetogether but cool and calm and calculating in their gaze, and hereyebrows slanted upward a bit at the outer ends and were as heavy asbeauty permitted. Her lips were very red, and her chin was very firm.She looked the successful business woman to her fingertips, and she waseminently attractive for a woman of that self-assured type.

  Andy was attractive also, in a purely Western way. His gray eyes weredeceivingly candid and his voice was pleasant with a little, humorousdrawl that matched well the quirk of his lips when he talked. He washeaded for home--which was the Flying U--sober and sunny and with enoughmoney to see him through. He told Florence Hallman his name, and saidthat he lived "up the road a ways" without being too definite. FlorenceHallman lived in Minneapolis, she said; though she traveled most of thetime, in the interests of her firm.

  Yes, she liked the real estate business. One had a chance to see theworld, and keep in touch with people and things. She liked the Westespecially well. Since her firm had taken up the homeseekers' line shespent most of her time in the West.

  They had supper--she called it dinner, Andy observed--together, and AndyGreen paid the check, which was not so small. It was after that, whenthey became more confidential, that Florence Hallman, with the egotismof the successful person who believes herself or himself to be of keeninterest to the listener spoke in greater detail of her present mission.

  Her firm's policy was, she said, to locate a large tract of governmentland somewhere, and then organize a homeseekers' colony, and settlethe land-hungry upon the tract--at so much per hunger. She thought ita great scheme for both sides of the transaction. The men who wantedclaims got them. The firm got the fee for showing them the land--andcertain other perquisites at which she merely hinted.

  She thought that Andy himself would be a success at the business. Shewas quick to form her opinions of people whom she met, and she knew thatAndy was just the man for such work. Andy, listening with his candid,gray eyes straying often to her face and dwelling there, modestly failedto agree with her. He did not know the first thing about the real estatebusiness, he confessed, nor very much about ranching. Oh, yes--he livedin this country, and he knew THAT pretty well, but--

  "The point is right here," said Florence Grace Hallman, laying her pinkfingertips upon his arm and glancing behind her to make sure that theywere practically alone--their immediate neighbors being still in thediner. "I'm speaking merely upon impulse--which isn't a wise thing todo, ordinarily. But--well, your eyes vouch for you, Mr. Green, and wewomen are bound to act impulsively sometimes--or we wouldn't be women,would we?" She laughed--rather, she gave a little, infectious giggle,and took away her fingers, to the regret of Andy who liked the feel ofthem on his forearm.

  "The point is here. I've recognized the fact, all along, that we needa man stationed right here, living in the country, who will meetprospective homesteaders and talk farming; keep up their enthusiasm;whip the doubters into line; talk climate and soil and the future of thecountry; look the part, you understand."

  "So I look like a rube, do I?" Andy's lips quirked a half smile at her.

  "No, of course you don't!" She laid her fingers on his sleeve again,which was what Andy wanted--what he had intended to bait her into doing;thereby proving that, in some respects at least, he amply justified HissHallman in her snap judgment of him.

  "Of course you don't look like a rube! I don't want you to. But youdo look Western--because you are Western to the bone Besides, you lookperfectly dependable. Nobody could look into your eyes and even thinkof doubting the truth of any statement you made to them." Andy snickeredmentally at that though his eyes never lost their clear candor. "And,"she concluded, "being a bona fide resident of the country, your wordwould carry more weight than mine if I were to talk myself black in theface!"

  "That's where you're dead wrong," Andy hastened to correct her.

  "Well, you must let me have my own opinion, Mr. Green. You would beconvincing enough, at any rate. You see, there is a certain per centof--let us call it waste effort--in this colonization business. Wehave to reckon on a certain number of nibblers who won't bite"--Andy'shonest, gray eyes widened a hair's breadth at the frankness of herlanguage--"when they get out here. They swallow the folders we sendout, but when they get out here and see the country, they can't see itas a rich farming district, and they won't invest. They go back home andknock, if they do anything.

  "My idea is to stop that waste; to land every homeseeker that boards ourexcursion trains. And I believe the way to do that is to have the rightkind of a man out here, steer the doubtfuls against him--and let hispersonality and his experience do the rest. They're hungry enough tocome, you see; the thing is to keep them here. A man that lives righthere, that has all the earmarks of the West, and is not known to beaffiliated with our Syndicate (you could have rigs to hire, and drivethe doubtfuls to the tract)--don't you see what an enormous advantagehe'd have? The class I speak of are the suspicious ones--those who arefrom Missouri. They're inclined to want salt with what we say about theresources of the country. Even our chemical analysis of the soil, andweather bureau dope, don't go very far with those hicks. They want totalk with someone who has tried it, you see."

  "I--see," said Andy thoughtfully, and his eyes narrowed a trifle. "Onthe square, Miss Hallman, what are the natural advantages out here--forfarming? What line of talk do you give those come-ons?"

  Miss Hallman laughed and made a very pretty gesture with her two
ringedhands. "Whatever sounds the best to them," she said. "If they write andask about spuds we come back with illustrated folders of potato cropsand statistics of average yields and prices and all that. If it's dairy,we have dairy folders. And so on. It isn't any fraud--there AREsections of the country that produce almost anything, from alfalfa tostrawberries. You know that," she challenged.

  "Sure. But I didn't know there was much tillable land left lying aroundloose," he ventured to say.

  Again Miss Hallman made the pretty gesture, which might mean much ornothing. "There's plenty of land 'lying around loose,' as you call it.How do you know it won't produce, till it has been tried?"

  "That's right," Andy assented uneasily. "If there's water to put onit--"

  "And since there is the land, our business lies in getting peoplelocated on it. The towns and the railroads are back of us. That is, theylook with favor upon bringing settlers into the country. It increasesthe business of the country--the traffic, the freights, the merchants'business, everything."

  Andy puckered his eyebrows and looked out of the window upon a greatstretch of open, rolling prairie, clothed sparely in grass that wasshowing faint green in the hollows, and with no water for miles--ashe knew well--except for the rivers that hurried through narrow bottomlands guarded by high bluffs that were for the most part barren. Theland was there, all right. But--

  "What I can't see," he observed after a minute during which MissFlorence Hallman studied his averted face, "what I can't see is, wheredo the settlers get off at?"

  "At Easy street, if they're lucky enough," she told him lightly. "Mybusiness is to locate them on the land. Getting a living off it isTHEIR business. And," she added defensively, "people do make a living onranches out here."

  "That's right," he agreed again--he was finding it very pleasant toagree with Florence Grace Hallman. "Mostly off stock, though."

  "Yes, and we encourage our clients to bring out all the young stock theypossibly can; young cows and horses and--all that sort of thing. There'squantities of open country around here, that even the most optimisticof homeseekers would never think of filing on. They can make out, allright, I guess. We certainly urge them strongly to bring stock withthem. It's always been famous as a cattle country--that's one of ourhighest cards. We tell them--"

  "How do you do that? Do you go right to them and TALK to them?"

  "Yes, if they show a strong enough interest--and bank account. I followup the best prospects and visit them in person. I've talked to fiftyhorny-handed he-men in the past month."

  "Then I don't see what you need of anyone to bring up the drag," Andytold her admiringly. "If you talk to 'em, there oughtn't be any drag!"

  "Thank you for the implied compliment. But there IS a 'drag,' as youcall it. There's going to be a big one, too, I'm afraid--when they getout and see this tract we're going to work off this spring." She stoppedand studied him as a chess player studies the board.

  "I'm very much tempted to tell you something I shouldn't tell," she saidat length, lowering her voice a little. "Remember, Andy Green was a verygood looking man, and his eyes were remarkable for their clear, candidgaze straight into your own eyes. Even as keen a business woman asFlorence Grace Hallman must be forgiven for being deceived by them. I'mtempted to tell you where this tract is. You may know it."

  "You better not, unless you're willing to take a chance," he told hersoberly. "If it looks too good, I'm liable to jump it myself."

  Miss Hallman laughed and twisted her red lips at him in what might beconstrued as a flirtatious manner. She was really quite taken with AndyGreen. "I'll take a chance. I don't think you'll jump it. Do you knowanything about Dry Lake, up above Havre, toward Great Falls--and thecountry out east of there, towards the mountains?"

  The fingers of Andy Green closed into his palms. His eyes, however,continued to look into hers with his most guileless expression.

  "Y-es--that is, I've ridden over it," he acknowledged simply.

  "Well--now this is a secret; at least we don't want those mossbackranchers in there to get hold of it too soon, though they couldn'treally do anything, since it's all government land and the lease hasonly just run out. There's a high tract lying between the Bear Pawsand--do you know where the Flying U ranch is?"

  "About where it is--yes."

  "Well, it's right up there on that plateau--bench, you call it out here.There are several thousand acres along in there that we're locatingsettlers on this spring. We're just waiting for the grass to get niceand green, and the prairie to get all covered with those blue, blue windflowers, and the meadow larks to get busy with their nests, and thenwe're going to bring them out and--" She spread her hands again. Itseemed a favorite gesture grown into a habit, and it surely was moreeloquent than words. "These prairies will be a dream of beauty, in alittle while," she said. "I'm to watch for the psychological time tobring out the seekers. And if I could just interest you, Mr. Green, tothe extent of being somewhere around Dry Lake, with a good team thatyou will drive for hire and some samples of oats and dry-land spuds andstuff that you raised on your claim--" She eyed him sharply for one soendearingly feminine. "Would you do it? There'd be a salary, and besidesthat a commission on each doubter you landed. And I'd just love to haveyou for one of my assistants."

  "It sure sounds good," Andy flirted with the proposition, and let hiseyes soften appreciably to meet her last sentence and the tone in whichshe spoke it. "Do you think I could get by with the right line of talkwith the doubters?"

  "I think you could," she said, and in her voice there was a cooingnote. "Study up a little on the right dope, and I think you couldconvince--even me."

  "Could I?" Andy Green knew that cooing note, himself, and one a shademore provocative. "I wonder!"

  A man came down the aisle at that moment, gave Andy a keen glance andwent on with a cigar between his fingers. Andy scowled frankly, sighedand straightened his shoulders.

  "That's what I call hard luck," he grumbled, "got to see that man beforehe gets off the train--and the h--worst of it is, I don't know just whatstation he'll get off at." He sighed again. "I've got a deal on," hetold her confidentially, "that's sure going to keep me humping if I pullloose so as to go in with you. How long did you say?"

  "Probably two weeks, the way spring is opening out here. I'd want youto get perfectly familiar with our policy and the details of our schemebefore they land. I'd want you to be familiar with that tract and beable to show up its best points when you take seekers out there. You'dbe so much better than one of our own men, who have the word 'agent'written all over them. You'll come back and--talk it over won't you?"For Andy was showing unmistakable symptoms of leaving her to follow theman.

  "You KNOW it," he declared in a tone of "I won't sleep nights till thisthing is settled--and settled right." He gave her a smile that ratherdazzled the lady, got up with much reluctance and with a glance that hadin it a certain element of longing went swaying down the aisle after theman who had preceded him.

  Andy's business with the man consisted solely in mixing cigarette smokewith cigar smoke and of helping to stare moodily out of the window.Words there were none, save when Andy was proffered a match and mutteredhis thanks. The silent session lasted for half an hour. Then the man gotup and went out, and the breath of Andy Green paused behind his nostrilsuntil he saw that the man went only to the first section in the car andsettled there behind a spread newspaper, invisible to Florence GraceHallman unless she searched the car and peered over the top of the paperto see who was behind.

  After that Andy Green continued to stare out of the window, seeingnothing of the scenery but the flicker of telegraph posts before hiseyes that were visioning the future.

  The Flying U ranch hemmed in by homesteaders from the East, he saw;homesteaders who were being urged to bring all the stock they could, andturn it loose upon the shrinking range. Homesteaders who would fencethe country into squares, and tear up the grass and sow grain that mightnever bear a harvest. Homesteaders who would inevitably gr
ow poorer uponthe land that would suck their strength and all their little savingsand turn them loose finally to forage a living where they might.Homesteaders who would ruin the land that ruined them.... It was not apleasing picture, but it was more pleasing than the picture he saw ofthe Flying U after these human grass hoppers had settled there.

  The range that fed the Flying U stock would feed no more and hide theirribs at shipping time. That he knew too well. Old J. G. Whitmore andChip would have to sell out. And that was like death; indeed, it ISdeath of a sort, when one of the old outfits is wiped out of existence.It had happened before--happened too often to make pleasant memories forAndy Green, who could name outfit after outfit that had been forced outof business by the settling of the range land; who could name dozensof cattle brands once seen upon the range, and never glimpsed now fromspring roundup until fall.

  Must the Flying U brand disappear also? The good old Flying U, for whoseexistence the Old Man had fought and schemed since first was raised thecry that the old range was passing? The Flying U that had become a partof his life? Andy let his cigarette grow cold; he roused only to swearat the porter who entered with dust cloth and a deprecating grin.

  After that, Andy thought of Florence Grace Hallman--and his eyes werenot particularly sentimental. There was a hard line about his mouthalso; though Florence Grace Hallman was but a pawn in the game, afterall, and not personally guilty of half the deliberate crimes Andy laidupon her dimpled shoulders. With her it was pure, cold-blooded business,this luring of the land-hungry to a land whose fertility was at bestproblematical; who would, for a price, turn loose the victims of hergreed to devastate what little grazing ground was left.

  The train neared Havre. Andy roused himself, rang for the porter andsent him after his suitcase and coat. Then he sauntered down the aisle,stopped beside Florence Grace Hallman and smiled down at her with agleam behind the clear candor of his eyes.

  "Hard luck, lady," he murmured, leaning toward her. "I'm just simplyloaded to the guards with responsibilities, and here's where I get off.But I'm sure glad I met yuh, and I'll certainly think day and nightabout you and--all you told me about. I'd like to get in on this landdeal. Fact is, I'm going to make it my business to get in on it. Maybemy way of working won't suit you--but I'll sure work hard for any bossand do the best I know how."

  "I think that will suit me," Miss Hallman assured him, and smiledunsuspectingly up into his eyes, which she thought she could read soeasily. "When shall I see you again? Could you come to Great Falls inthe next ten days? I shall be stopping at the Park. Or if you will leaveme your address--"

  "No use. I'll be on the move and a letter wouldn't get me. I'll see yuhlater, anyway. I'm bound to. And when I do, we'll get down to cases.Good bye."

  He was turning away when Miss Hallman put out a soft, jewelled hand.She thought it was diffidence that made Andy Green hesitate perceptiblybefore he took it. She thought it was simply a masculine shyness andconfusion that made him clasp her fingers loosely and let them go on theinstant. She did not see him rub his palm down the leg of his dark graytrousers as he walked down the aisle, and if she had she would not haveseen any significance in the movement.

  Andy Green did that again before he stepped off the train. For he feltthat he had shaken hands with a traitor to himself and his outfit, andit went against the grain. That the traitor was a woman, and a charmingwoman at that, only intensified his resentment against her. A man canfight a man and keep his self respect; but a man does mortally dreadbeing forced into a position where he must fight a woman.