Irish turned red. He HAD thought of a rig, and he had thought of driving them himself, but he could not imagine how Miss Allen could possibly; have known his thoughts. Then and there he knew who would occupy the other half of the front seat, in case he did really drive the team he had in mind.
“I told you she’s a hustler,” laughed Miss Hallman. “She’ll be raising bigger crops than you men—give her a year to get started. Well, girls, come on, then.”
They turned abruptly away, and Irish was left to his accounting with the Happy Family. He had not denied the thoughts and intentions imputed to him by the twinkling-eyed Miss Allen. They walked on toward the livery stable—where was manifested an unwonted activity—waiting for Irish to clear himself; which he did not do.
“You going to drive them women out there?” Pink demanded after an impatient silence.
“Why not? Somebody’ll have to.”
“What team are you going to use!” asked Jack Bates.
“Chip’s” Irish did not glance around, but kept striding down the middle of the road with his hands stuck deep in his pockets.
“Don’t you think you need help, amigo?” the Native Son insinuated craftily. “You can’t talk to three girls at once; I could be hired to go along and take one off your hands. That should help some.”
“Like hell you will!” Irish retorted with characteristic bluntness. Then he added cautiously, “Which one?”
“That old girl with the blue eyes should not be permitted to annoy the driver,” drawled the Native Son. “Also, Florence Grace might want some intelligent person to talk to.”
“Well, I got my opinion of any man that’ll throw in with that bunch,” Pink declared hotly. “Why don’t you fellows keep your own side the fence. What if they are women farmers? They can do just as much harm—and a darn sight more. You make me sick.”
“Let ‘em go,” Weary advised calmly. “They’ll be a lot sicker when the ladies discover what they’ve helped do to that bench-land. Come on, boys—let’s pull out, away from all these lunatics. I hate to see them get stung, but I don’t see what we can do about it—only, if they come around asking me what I think of that land, I’m going to tell ‘em.”
“And then they’ll ask you why you took claims up there, and you’ll tell ‘em that, too—will you?” The Native Son turned and smiled at him ironically.
That was it. They could not tell the truth without harming their own cause. They could not do anything except stand aside and see the thing through to whatever end fate might decree. They thought that Irish and the Native Son were foolish to take Chip’s team and drive those women fifteen miles or so that they might seize upon land much better left alone; but that was the business of Irish and the Native Son, who did not ask for the approval of the Happy Family before doing anything they wanted to do.
The Happy Family saddled and rode back to the claims, gravely discussing the potentialities of the future. Since they rode slowly while they talked, they were presently overtaken by a swirl of dust, behind which came the matched browns which were the Flying U’s crack driving team, bearing Irish and Miss Allen of the twinkling eyes upon the front seat of a two seated spring-wagon that had seen far better days than this. Native Son helped to crowd the back seat uncomfortably, and waved a hand with reprehensible cheerfulness as they went rattling past.
The Happy Family stared after them with frowning disapproval, and Weary turned in the saddle and looked ruefully at his fellows.
“Things won’t ever be the same around here,” he predicted soberly. “There goes the beginning of the end of the Flying U, boys—and we ain’t big enough to stop it.”
Chapter 8. Florence Grace Hallman Speaks Plainly
Andy Green rode thoughtfully up the trail from his cabin in One Man coulee, his hat tilted to the south to shield his face from the climbing sun, his eyes fixed absently upon the yellow soil of the hillside. Andy was facing a problem that concerned the whole Happy Family—and the Flying U as well. He wanted Weary’s opinion, and Miguel Rapponi’s, and Pink’s—when it came to that, he wanted the opinion of them all.
Thus far the boys had been wholly occupied with getting their shacks built and in rustling cooking outfits and getting themselves settled upon their claims with an air of convincing permanency. Also they had watched with keen interest—which was something more vital than mere curiosity—developments where the homeseekers were concerned, and had not given very much thought to their next step, except in a purely general way.
They all recognized the fact that, with all these new settlers buzzing around hunting claims where there was some promise of making things grow, they would have to sit very tight indeed upon their own land if they would avoid trouble with “jumpers.” Not all the homeseekers were women. There were men, plenty of them; a few of them were wholly lacking in experience it is true, but perhaps the more greedy for land because of their ignorance. The old farmers had looked askance at the high, dry prairie land, where even drinking water must be hauled in barrels from some deep-set creek whose shallow gurgling would probably cease altogether when the dry season came on the heels of June. The old farmers had asked questions that implied doubt. They had wanted to know about sub-soil, and average rainfall, and late frosts, and markets. The profusely illustrated folders that used blue print for emphasis here and there, seemed no longer to satisfy them.
The Happy Family did not worry much about the old farmers who knew the game, but there were town men who had come to see the fulfillment of their dreams; who had burned their bridges, some of them, and would suffer much before they would turn back to face the ridicule of their friends and the disheartening task of getting; a fresh foothold in the wage-market. These the Happy Family knew for incipient enemies once the struggle for existence was fairly begun. And there were the women—daring rivals of the men in their fight for independence—who had dreamed dreams and raised up ideals for which they would fight tenaciously. School-teachers who hated the routine of the schools, and who wanted freedom; who were willing to work and wait and forego the little, cheap luxuries which are so dear to women; who would cheerfully endure loneliness and spoiled complexions and roughened hands and broken nails, and see the prairie winds and sun wipe the sheen from their hair; who would wear coarse, heavy-soled shoes and keep all their pretty finery packed carefully away in their trunks with dainty sachet pads for month after month, and take all their pleasure in dreaming of the future; these would fight also to have and to hold—and they would fight harder than the men, more dangerously than the men, because they would fight differently.
The Happy Family, then, having recognized these things and having measured the fighting-element, knew that they were squarely up against a slow, grim, relentless war if they would save the Flying U. They knew that it was going to be a pretty stiff proposition, and that they would have to obey strictly the letter and the spirit of the land laws, or there would be contests and quarrels and trouble without end.
So they hammered and sawed and fitted boards and nailed on tar-paper and swore and jangled and joshed one another and counted nickels—where they used to disdain counting anything but results—and badgered the life out of Patsy because he kicked at being expected to cook for the bunch just the same as if he were in the Flying U mess-house. Py cosh, he wouldn’t cook for the whole country just because they were too lazy to cook for themselves, and py cosh if they wanted him to cook for them they could pay him sixty dollars a month, as the Old Man did.
The Happy Family were no millionaires, and they made the fact plain to Patsy to the full extent of their vocabularies. But still they begged bread from him, a loaf at a time, and couldn’t see why he objected to making pie, if they furnished the stuff. Why, for gosh sake, had they planted him in the very middle of their string of