On a certain sunny morning in mid-May, the Happy Family stood upon the depot platform and waited for the westbound passenger, that had attached to it the special car of the homeseekers’ Syndicate. The Happy Family had been very busy during the past three weeks. They had taken all the land they could, and had sighed because they could still look from their claims upon pinnacles as yet unclaimed save by the government. They had done well. From the south line of Meeker’s land in the very foothills of the Bear Paws, to the north line of the Flying U, the chain of newly-filed claims remained unbroken. It had taken some careful work upon the part of the Happy Family to do this and still choose land not absolutely worthless except from a scenic viewpoint. But they had managed it, with some bickering and a good deal of maneuvering. Also they had hauled loads of lumber from Dry Lake, wherewith to build their monotonously modest ten-by-twelve shacks with one door and one window apiece and a round hole in the roof big enough for a length of stove-pipe to thrust itself aggressively into the open and say by its smoke signal whether the owner was at home. And now, having heard of the mysterious excursion due that day, they had come to see just what would take place.
“She’s fifteen minutes late,” the agent volunteered, thrusting his head through the open window. “Looking for friends, boys?”
“Andy is,” Pink informed him cheerfully. “The rest of us are just hanging around through sympathy. It’s his girl coming.”
“Well, I guess he thinks he needs a housekeeper now,” the agent grinned. “Why don’t you fellows get busy now and rustle some cooks?”
“Girls don’t like to cook over a camp-fire,” Cal Emmett told him soberly. “We kinda thought we ought to build our shacks first.”
“You can pick you out some when the train gets in,” said the agent, accepting a match from Weary. “There’s a carload of—” He pulled in his head hurriedly and laid supple fingers on the telegraph key to answer a call, and the Happy Family moved down to the other end of the platform where there was more shade.
The agent presently appeared pushing the truck of outgoing express, a cheap trunk and a basket “telescope” belonging to one of the hotel girls—who had quit her job and was sitting now inside waiting for the train and seeing what she could of the Flying U boys through the window—and the mail sack. He placed the truck where the baggage car would come to a halt, stood for a minute looking down the track where a smudge of smoke might at any moment be expected to show itself over the low ridge of a hill, glanced at the lazy group in the patch of shade and went back into the office.
“There’s her smoke,” Cal Emmett announced in the midst of an apathetic silence.
Weary looked up from whittling a notch in the end of a platform plank and closed his jack-knife languidly.
Andy pushed his hat backward and then tilted it forward over one eyebrow and threw away his cigarette.
“Wonder if Florence Grace will be riding point on the bunch?” he speculated aloud. “If she is, I’m liable to have my hands full. Florence Grace will sure be sore when she finds out how I got into the game.”
“Aw, I betche there ain’t no such a person,” said Happy Jack, doubter to the last.
“I wish there wasn’t,” sighed Andy. “Florence Grace is kinda getting on my nerves. If I done what I feel like doing, I’d crawl under the platform and size up the layout through a crack. Honest to gracious, Boys, I hate to meet that lady.”
They grinned at him heartlessly and stared at the black smudge that was rolling toward them. “She’s sure hittin’ her up,” Pink vouchsafed with a certain tenseness of tone. That train was not as ordinary trains; dimly they felt that it was relentlessly bringing them trouble, perhaps; certainly a problem—unless the homeseekers hovered only so long as it took them to see that wisdom lay in looking elsewhere for a home. Still—
“If this was August instead of May, I wouldn’t worry none about them pilgrims staying long,” Jack Bates voiced the thought that was uppermost in their minds.
“There comes two livery rigs to haul ‘em to the hotel,” Pink pointed out as he glanced toward town. “And there’s another one. Johnny told me every room they’ve got is spoke for, and two in every bed.”
“That wouldn’t take no crowd,” Happy Jack grumbled, remembering the limitations of Dry Lake’s hotel. “Here come Chip and the missus. Wonder what they want?”
The Little Doctor left Chip to get their tickets and walked quickly toward them.
“Hello, boys! Waiting for someone, or just going somewhere?”
“Waiting. Same to you, Mrs. Chip,” Weary replied.
“To me? Well, we’re going up to make our filings. Claude won’t take a homestead, because we’ll have to stay on at the Flying U, of course, and we couldn’t hold one. But we’ll both file desert claims. J. G. hasn’t been a bit well, and I didn’t dare leave him before—and of course Claude wouldn’t go till I did. That the passenger coming, or a freight?”
“It’s the train—with the dry-farmers,” Andy informed her with a glance at the nearing smoke-smudge.
“Is it? We aren’t any too soon then, are we? I left Son at home—and he threatened to run away and live with you boys. I almost wish I’d brought him along. He’s been perfectly awful. So have the men Claude hired to take your places, if you want to know, boys. I believe that is what made J. G. sick—having those strange men on the place. He’s been like a bear.”
“Didn’t Chip tell him—”
“He did, yes. He told him right away, that evening. But—J. G. has such stubborn ideas. We couldn’t make him believe that anyone would be crazy enough to take up that land and try to make a living farming it. He—” She looked sidewise at Andy and pursed her lips to Keep from smiling.
“He thinks I lied about it, I suppose,” said that young man shrewdly.
“That’s what he says. He pretends that you boys meant to quit, and just thought that up for an excuse. He’ll be all right—you mustn’t pay any attention—”
“Here she comes!”
A black nose thrust through a Deep cut that had a curve to it. At their feet the rails began to hum. The Little Doctor turned hastily to see if Chip were coming. The agent came out with a handful of papers and stood waiting with the rest. Stragglers moved quickly, and the discharged waitress appeared and made eyes covertly at Pink, whom she considered the handsomest one of the lot.
The train slid up, slowed and stopped. Two coaches beyond the platform a worried porter descended and placed the box-step for landing passengers, and waited. From that particular coach began presently to emerge a fluttering, exclaiming stream of humanity—at first mostly feminine. They hovered there upon the cindery path and lifted their faces to watch for others yet to come, and the babble of their voices could be, heard above the engine sounds.
The Happy Family looked dumbly at one another and drew back closer to the depot wall.
“Aw, I knowed there was some ketch to it!” blurted Happy Jack with dismal satisfaction. “That there ain’t no colony—It’s nothin’ but a bunch of schoolma’ams!”
“That lady ridin’ point is the lady herself,” Andy murmured, edging behind Weary and Pink as the flutter came closer. “That’s Florence Grace Hallman, boys.”
“Well, by golly, git out and speak your little piece, then!” muttered Slim, and gave Andy an unexpected push that sent him staggering out into the open just as the leaders were coming up.
“Why, how de do, Mr. Green!”