“Well, where have you been, Mr. Green? Why didn’t you come and see me?” demanded Florence, Grace Hallman in the tone of one who has a right to ask leading questions. Her cool, brown, calculating eyes went appraisingly over the Happy Family while she spoke.
“I’ve been right around here, all the time,” Andy gave meek account of himself. “I’ve been busy.”
“Oh. Did you go over the tract, Mr. Green?” she lowered her voice.
“Yes-s—I went over it.”
“And what do you think of it—privately?”
“Privately—it’s pretty big.” Andy sighed. The bigness of that tract had worried the Happy Family a good deal.
“Well, the bigger the better. You see I’ve got ‘em started.” She flicked a glance backward at her waiting colony. “You men are perfectly exasperating! Why didn’t you tell me where you were and what you were doing?” She looked up at him with charming disapproval. “I feel like shaking you! I could have made good use of you, Mr. Green.”
“I was making pretty good use of myself,” Andy explained, and wished he knew who gave him that surreptitious kick on the ankle. Did the chump want an introduction? Well! In that case—
“Miss Hallman, if you don’t mind I’d like to introduce some men I rounded up and brought here,” he began before the Happy Family could move out of the danger zone of his imagination. “Representative citizens, you see. You can sic your bunch onto ‘em and get a lot of information. This is Mr. Weary Davidson, Miss Hallman: He’s a hayseed that lives out that way and he talks spuds better than anything else. And here’s Slim—I don’t know his right name—he raises hogs to a fare-you-well. And this is Percy Perkins”—meaning Pink—“and he’s another successful dryfarmer. Goats is his trade. He’s got a lot of ‘em. And Mr. Jack Bates, he raises peanuts—or he’s trying ‘em this year—and has contracts to supply the local market. Mr. Happy Jack is our local undertaker. He wants to sell out if he can, because nobody ever dies in this country and that makes business slow. He’s thinking some of starting a duck-ranch. This man”—indicating Big Medicine—“has got the finest looking crop of volunteer wild oats in the country. He knows all about ‘em. Mr. Emmett, here, can put you wise to cabbage-heads; that’s his specialty. And Mr. Miguel Rapponi is up here from Old Mexico looking for a favorable location for an extensive rubber plantation. The natural advantages here are simply great for rubber.
“I’ve gone to some trouble gathering this bunch together for you, Miss Hallman. I don’t reckon you knew there was that many dry-farmers in the country. They’ve all got ranches of their own, and the prettiest folders you ever sent under a four-cent stamp can’t come up to what these men can tell you. Your bunch won’t have to listen to one man, only—here’s half a dozen ready and waiting to talk.”
Miss Hallman was impressed. A few of the closest homeseekers she beckoned and introduced to the perspiring Happy Family—mostly feminine homeseekers, of whom there were a dozen or so. The men whom the hotel had sent down with rigs waited impatiently, and the unintroduced male colonists stared at the low rim of Lonesome Prairie and wondered if over there lay their future prosperity.
When the Happy Family finally made their escape, red-faced and muttering threats, Andy Green had disappeared, and no one knew when he went or where. He was not in Rusty Brown’s place when the Happy Family went to that haven and washed down their wrongs in beer. Pink made a hurried trip to the livery stable and reported that Andy’s horse was gone.
They were wondering among themselves whether he would have the nerve to go home and await their coming—home at this stage of the game meaning One Man coulee, which Andy had taken as a homestead and desert claim and where the Happy Family camped together until such time as their claim shacks were habitable. Some thought that he was hiding in town, and advised a thorough search before they took to their horses. The Native Son—he of mixed Irish and Spanish blood—told them with languid certainty that Andy was headed straight for the camp because he would figure that in camp was where they would least expect to find him.
The opinions of the Native Son were usually worth adopting. In this case, however, it brought them into the street at the very moment when Florence Grace Hallman and two homeseekers had ventured from the hotel in search of them. Slim and Jack Bates and Cal Emmett saw them in time and shied across the street and into the new barber shop where they sat themselves down and demanded unnecessary hair-cuts and a shampoo apiece, and spied upon their unfortunate fellows through the window while they waited; but the others met the women fairly since it was too late to turn back without making themselves ridiculous.
“I was wondering,” began Miss Hallman in her brisk, business tone, “if some of you gentlemen could not help us out in the matter of conveyances. I have made arrangements for most of my guests, but we simply can’t squeeze another one into the rigs I have engaged—and I’ve engaged every vehicle in town except a wheelbarrow I saw in the back yard of the hotel.”
“How many are left out?” asked Weary, since no one else showed any symptoms of speech.
“Oh, not many, thank goodness. Just us three here. You’ve met Miss Allen, Mr. Davidson—and Miss Price. And so have you other gentlemen, because I introduced you at the depot. I went blandly ahead and told everybody just which rig they were to ride in, and put three in a seat, at that, and in counting noses I forgot to count our own—”
“I really don’t see how she managed to overlook mine,” sighed Miss Allen, laying a dainty, gloved finger upon a nose that had the tiniest possible tilt to it. “Nobody ever overlooked my nose before; it’s almost worth walking to the tract.”
Irish, standing close beside Weary and looking enough like him to be a twin instead of a mere cousin, smiled down at her with traitorous admiration. Miss Allen’s nose was a nice nose, and above it twinkled a pair of warm brown eyes with humorous little wrinkles, around them; and still above them fluffed a kinky-curly mass of brown hair. Weary looked at her also, but he did not smile, because she looked a little like his own schoolma’am, Miss Ruty Satterly—and the resemblance hurt a sore place in his heart.
“—So if any of you gentlemen could possibly take us out to the tract, we’d be eternally grateful, besides keeping our independence intact with the usual payment. Could you help us out?”
“We all came in on horseback,” Weary stated with a gentle firmness that was intended to kill their hopes as painlessly as possible.
“Wouldn’t there be room on behind?” asked Miss Allen with hope still alive and flourishing.
“Lots of room,” Weary assured her. “More room than you could possibly use.”
“But isn’t there any kind of a rig that you could buy, beg, borrow or steal?” Miss Hallman insisted. “These girls came from Wisconsin to take up claims, and I’ve promised to see that they get the best there is to be had. They are hustlers, if I know what the word means. I have a couple of claims in mind, that I want them to see—and that’s why we three hung back till the rest were all arranged for. I had a rig promised that I was depending on, and at the last minute discovered it was not to be had. Some doctor from Havre came and got it for a trip into the hills. There’s no use talking; we just must get out to the tract as soon as the others do—a little sooner wouldn’t hurt. Couldn’t you think of some way?”
“We’ll try,” Irish promised rashly, his eyes tying to meet Miss Allen’s and succeeding admirably.
“What has become of Mr. Green?” Miss Hallman demanded after she had thanked Irish with a smile for the qualified encouragement.
“We don’t know,” Weary answered mildly. “We were trying to locate him ourselves.”
“Oh, were you? He seems a rather uncertain young man. I rather counted on his assistance; he promised—”