“You won’t be when I get through with you!” predicted the lady with her firm chin thrust a little forward. “You think you’ve got everything your own way, don’t you? Well, you’ve just simply put yourself in a position where we can get at you. You deceived me from the very start—and now you shall pay the penalty. I’ve got our clients to protect—and besides that I shall dearly love to get even. Oh, you’ll squeal for mercy, believe me!” She touched up the horses with her whip and went bumping away over the tough sod.
“Wow!” ejaculated Andy, looking after her with laughter in his eyes. “She’s sure one mad lady, all right. But shucks!” He turned and galloped off toward the farthest claim, which was Happy Jack’s and the last one to be furnished with a lawful habitation.
He was lucky. The Happy Family were foregathered there, wrangling with Happy Jack over some trifling thing. He joined zealously in the argument and helped them thrash Happy Jack in the word-war, before he came at his errand.
“Say, boys, we’ll have to get busy now,” he told them seriously at last. “Florence Grace is onto us bigger’n a wolf—and if I’m any judge, that lady’s going to be some fighter. We’ve either got to plow up a bunch of ground and plant some darn thing, or else get stock on and pasture it. They ain’t going to over look any bets from now on. I met her back here on the bench. She was so mad she talked too much and I got next to their scheme—seems like we’ve knocked the Syndicate outa quite a bunch of money, all right. They want this land, and they think they’re going to get it.
“Now my idea is this: We’ve got to have stock, or we can’t graze the land. And if we take Flying U cattle and throw ‘em on here, they’ll contest us for taking fake claims, for the outfit. So what’s the matter with us buying a bunch from the Old Man?”
“I’m broke,” began Pink promptly, but Andy stopped him.
“Listen here. We buy a bunch of stock and give him mortgages for the money, with the cattle for security. We graze ‘em till the mortgage runs out—till we prove up, that means—and then we don’t spot up, and the Old Man takes the stock back, see? We’re grazing our own stock, according to law—but the outfit—”
“Where do we git off at?” demanded Happy Jack suspiciously. “We got to live—and it takes money to buy grub, these days.”
“Well, we’ll make out all right. We can have so many head of cattle named for the mortgage; there’ll be increase, and we should get that. By the time we all prove up we’ll have a little bunch of stock of our own’ d’ uh see? And we’ll have the range—what there is left. These squatters ain’t going to last over winter, if you ask me. And it’ll be a long, cold day when another bunch of greenhorns bites on any colony scheme.”
“How do you know the Old Man’ll do that, though?” Weary wanted to know. “He’s pretty mad. I rode over to the ranch last week to see Chip, and the Old Man wouldn’t have anything to say to me.”
“Well, what’s the matter with all of us going? He can’t pass up the whole bunch. We can put it up to him just the way it is, and he’ll see where it’s going to be to his interest to let us have the cattle. Why, darn it, he can’t help seeing now why we quit!” Pink looked ready to start then, while his enthusiasm was fresh.
“Neither can Florence Grace help seeing why we did it,” Andy supplemented dryly. “She can think what she darn pleases—all we got to do is deliver the goods right up to the handle, on these claims and not let her prove anything on us.”
“It’ll take a lot uh fencing,” Happy Jack croaked pessimistically. “We ain’t got the money to buy wire and posts, ner the time to build the fence.”
“What’s the matter with rang-herding ‘em?” Andy seemed to have thought it all out, and to have an answer for every objection. “We can take turns at that—and we must all be careful and don’t let ‘em graze on our neighbors!”
Whereat the Happy Family grinned understandingly.
“Maybe the Old Man’ll let us have three or four hundred head uh cows on shares,” Cal hazarded optimistically.
“Can’t take ‘em that way,” said the Native Son languidly. “It wouldn’t be safe. Andy’s right; the way to do is buy the cattle outright, and give a mortgage on the bunch. And I think we better split the bunch, and let every fellow buy a few head. We can graze ‘em together—the law can’t stop us from doing that.”
“Sounds good—if the Old Man will come to the centre,” said Weary dubiously. The chill atmosphere of Flying U coulee, with strangers in the bunk-house and with the Old Man scowling at his paper on the porch, had left its effect upon Weary, sunny-souled as he was.
“Oh, he’ll come through,” cried Cal, moving toward his horse, “gee whiz, he’s got to! Come on—let’s go and get it done with. As it stands now, we ain’t got a thing to do but set around and look wise—unless we go spoiling good grass with plows. First thing we know our neighbors will be saying we ain’t improving our claims!”
“You improve yours every time you git off it!” stated Happy Jack spitefully because of past wrongs. “You could improve mine a whole lot that way, too,” he added when he heard the laugh of approval from the others.
They rung all the changes possible upon that witticism while they mounted and rode away, every man of them secretly glad of some excuse for making overtures to the Old Man. Spite of the excitement of getting on to their claims, and of watching strangers driving here and there in haste, and hauling loads of lumber toilfully over the untracked grass and building chickencoop dwellings as nearly alike as the buttons on a new shirt—spite of all that they had felt keenly their exile from Flying U ranch. They had stayed away, for two reasons: one was a latent stubbornness which made them resent the Old Man’s resentment; the other was a matter of policy, as preached by Andy Green and the Native Son. It would not do, said these two cautious ones, to be running to the Flying U outfit all the time.
So the Happy Family had steered clear since that afternoon when they had simulated treachery to the outfit. And fate played them a scurvy trick in spite of their caution, for just as they rode down the Hog’s Back and across the ford, Florence Grace Hallman rode away from the White House and met them fairly at the stable.
Florence Grace smiled a peculiar smile as she went past them. A smile that promised she would not forget; a smile that told them how sure she felt of having caught them fairly. With the smile went a chilly, supercilious bow that was worse than a direct cut, and which the Happy Family returned doubtfully, not at all sure of the rules governing warfare with a woman.
Chapter 9. The Happy Family Buys a Bunch of Cattle
With the Kid riding gleefully upon Weary’s shoulder they trooped up the path their own feet had helped wear deep to the bunk-house. They looked in at the open door and snorted at the cheerlessness of the place.
“Why don’t you come back here and stay?” the Kid demanded. “I