“They’re a little bit rough I must confess, the most of them at least,” prompted Andy, starting on the second verse alone because the others didn’t know the song as well as he. He waited a second for them to join him, and went on extolling the valor of all true cowboys:
“But long’s you do not cross their trail you can live with
them at peace.
“But if you do they’re sure to rule, the day you come to
their land,
“For they’ll follow you up and shoot it out, and do it man to
man.”
“Say, Weary! They tell me Florence Grace is sure hittin’ the warpost! Ain’t yuh scared?”
Weary shook his head and rode forward to ease the leaders into a narrow gulch that would cut off a mile or so of the journey.
“Taking ‘em up One Man?” called Pink, and got a nod for answer. There was a lull in the singing while they shouted and swore at these stubborn cows who would have tried to break back on the way to a clover patch, until the gulch broadened into an arm of One Man Coulee itself. It was all peaceful and easy and just as they had planned. The morning was cool and the cattle contented. They were nearing their claims, and all that would remain for them to do was the holding of their herd upon the appointed grazing ground. So would the requirements of the law be fulfilled and the machinations of the Syndicate be thwarted and the land saved to the Flying U, all in one.
And then the leaders, climbing the hill at a point half a mile below Andy’s cabin, balked, snorted and swung back. Weary spurred up to push them forward, and so did Andy and Pink. They rode up over the ridge shouting and urging the reluctant cattle ahead, and came plump into the very dooryard of a brand new shack. A man was standing in the doorway watching the disturbance his presence had created; when he saw the three riders come bulging up over the crest of the bluff, his eyes widened.
The three came to a stop before him, too astonished to do more than stare. Once past the fancied menace of the new building and the man, the cattle went trotting awkwardly across the level, their calves galloping alongside.
“Hello,” said Weary at last, “what do you think you’re doing here?”
“Me? I’m holding down a claim. What are you doing?” The man did not seem antagonistic or friendly or even neutral toward them. He seemed to be waiting. He eyed the cattle that kept coming, urged on by those who shouted at them in the coulee below. He watched them spread out and go trotting away after the leaders.
“Say, when did yuh take this claim?” Andy leaned negligently forward and looked at him curiously.
“Oh, a week or so ago. Why?”
“I just wondered. I took it up myself, four weeks ago. Four forties I’ve got, strung out in a line that runs from here to yonder. You’ve got over on my land—by mistake, of course. I just thought I’d tell yuh,” he added casually, straightening up, “because I didn’t think you knew it before.”
“Thanks.” The man smiled one-sidedly and began filling a pipe while he watched them.
“A-course it won’t be much trouble to move your shack,” Andy continued with neighborly interest. “A wheelbarrow will take it, easy. Back here on the bench a mile or so, yuh may find a patch of ground that nobody claims.”
“Thanks.” The man picked a match from his pocket and striking it on the new yellow door-casing lighted his pipe.
Andy moved uneasily. He did not like that man, for all he appeared so thankful for information. The fellow had a narrow forehead and broad, high cheek bones and a predatory nose. His eyes were the wrong shade of blue and the lids drooped too much at the outer corners. Andy studied him curiously. Did the man know what he was up against, or did he not? Was he sincere in his ready thanks, or was he sarcastic? The man looked up at him then. His eyes were clean of any hidden meaning, but they were the wrong shade of blue—the shade that is opaque and that you feel hides much that should be revealed to you.
“Seems like there’s been quite a crop of shacks grown up since I rode over this way,” Weary announced suddenly, returning from a brief scurry after the leaders, that inclined too much toward the south in their travel.
“Yes, the country’s settling up pretty fast,” conceded the man in the doorway.
“Well, by golly!” bellowed Slim, popping up from below on a heaving horse. Slim was getting fatter every year, and his horses always puffed when they climbed a hill under his weight. His round eyes glared resentfully at the man and the shack and at the three who were sitting there so quietly on their horses—just as if they had ridden up for a friendly call. “Ain’t this shack on your land?” he spluttered to Andy.
“Why, yes. It is, just right at present.” Andy admitted, following the man’s example in the matter of a smoke, except that Andy rolled and lighted a cigarette. “He’s going to move it, though.”
“Oh. Thanks.” With the one-sided smile.
“Say, you needn’t thank ME,” Andy protested in his polite tone. “YOU’RE going to move it, you know.”
“You may know, but I don’t,” corrected the other.
“Oh, that’s all right. You may not know right now, but don’t let that worry yuh. This is sure a great country for pilgrims to wise up in.”
Big Medicine came up over the hill a hundred feet or so from them; goggled a minute at the bold trespass and came loping across the intervening space. “Say, by cripes, what’s this mean?” he bawled. “Claim-jumper, hey? Say, young feller, do you realize what you’re doing—squattin’ down on another man’s land. Don’t yuh know claim-jumpers git shot, out here? Or lynched?”
“Oh, cut out all that rough stuff!” advised the man wearily. “I know who you are, and what your bluff is worth. I know you can’t held a foot of land if anybody is a mind to contest your claims. I’ve filed a contest on this eighty, here, and I’m going to hold it. Let that soak into your minds. I don’t want any trouble—I’m even willing to take a good deal in the way of bluster, rather than have trouble. But I’m going to stay. See?” He waved his pipe in a gesture of finality and continued to smoke and to watch them impersonally, leaning against the door in that lounging negligence which is so irritating to a disputant.
“Oh, all right—if that’s the way you feel about it,” Andy replied indifferently, and turned away. “Come on, boys—no use trying to bluff that gazabo. He’s wise.”
He rode away with his face turned over his shoulder to see if the others were going to follow. When he was past the corner and therefore out of the man’s sight, he raised his arm and beckoned to them imperatively, with a jerk of his head to add insistence. The four of them looked after him uncertainly. Weary kicked his horse and started, then Pink did the same. Andy beckoned again, more emphatically than before, and Big Medicine, who loved a fight as he loved to win a jackpot, turned and glared at the man in the doorway as he passed. Slim was rumbling by-golly ultimatums in his fat chest when he came up.
“Pink, you go on back and put the boys next, when they come up with the drag they won’t do anything much but hand out a few remarks and ride on.” Andy said, in the tone of one who knows exactly what he means to do. “This is my claim-jumper. Chances are I’ve got three more to handle—or will have. Nothing like starting off right. Tell the boys just rag the fellow a little and ride on, like we did. Get the cattle up here and set Happy and Slim day-herding and the rest of us’ll get busy.”
“You wouldn’t tell for a dollar, would yuh?” Pi asked him with his dimples showing.
“I’ve got to think it out first,” Andy evaded, “feel all the symptoms of an idea. You let me alone a while.”
“Say, yuh going to tell him he’s