“Well, I betche there ain’t no colony comin’ to settle that there bench,” Happy Jack persisted stubbornly.
“Yes there is, by cripes!” trumpeted Big Medicine behind him. “Yes there is! And that there colony is goin’ to be us, and don’t you forget it. It’s time I was doin’ somethin’ fer that there boy uh mine, by cripes! And soon as we git that fence strung I’m goin’ to hit the trail fer the nearest land office. Honest to grandma, if Andy’s lyin’ it’s goin’ to be the prof’t’blest lie HE ever told, er anybody else. I don’t care a cuss about whether them dry-farmers is fixin’ to light here or not. That there land-pool looks good to ME, and I’m comin’ in on it with all four feet!”
Big Medicine was nothing less than a human land slide when once he threw himself into anything, be it a fight or a frolic. Now he blocked the way to the door with his broad shoulders and his big bellow and his enthusiasm, and his pale, frog-like eyes fixed their protruding stare accusingly upon the reluctant ones.
“Cal, you git up there and git that plat and bring it here,” he ordered. “And fer criminy sakes git that table cleared off, Patsy, so’s’t we kin have a place to lay it! What’s eatin’ on you fellers, standin’ around like girls to a party, waitin’ fer somebody to come up and ast you to dance! Ain’t you got head enough to see what a cinch we got, if we only got sense enough to play it! Honest to grandma you make me sick to look at yuh! Down in Conconino County the boys wouldn’t stand back and wait to be purty-pleased into a thing like this. You’re so scared Andy’s got a josh covered up somewheres, you wouldn’t take a drink uh whisky if he ast yuh up to the bar! You’d pass up a Chris’mas turkey, by cripes, if yuh seen Andy washin’ his face and lookin’ hungry! You’d—”
What further reproach he would have heaped upon them was interrupted by Chip, who opened the door just then and bumped Big Medicine in the back. In his hand Chip carried the land plat and the pamphlets, and in his keen, brown eyes he carried the light of battle for his outfit. The eyes of Andy Green sent bright glances from him to Big Medicine, and on to the others. He was too wise then to twit those others with their unbelief. His wisdom went farther than that; for he remained very much in the background of the conversation and contented himself with answering, briefly and truthfully, the questions they put to him about Florence Grace Hallman and the things she had so foolishly divulged concerning her plans.
Chip spread the plat upon an end of the table hastily and effectually cleared by a sweep of Big Medicine’s arm, and the Happy Family crowded close to stare down at the checker-board picture of their own familiar bench land. They did not doubt, now—nor did they Hang back reluctantly. Instead they followed eagerly the trail Chip’s cigarette-yellowed finger took across the map, and they listened intently to what he said about that trail.
The clause about grazing the land, he said, simplified matters a whole lot. It was a cinch you couldn’t turn loose and dry-farm that land and have even a fair chance of reaping a harvest. But as grazing land they could hold all the land along One Man Creek—and that was a lot. And the land lying back of that, and higher up toward the foothills, they could take as desert. And he maintained that Andy had been right in his judgment: If they all went into it and pulled together they could stretch a line of claims that would protect the Badland grazing effectually.
“I wouldn’t ask you fellows to go into this,” said Chip, straightening from his stooping over the map and looking from one sober face to another, “just to help the outfit. But it’ll be a good thing for you boys. It’ll give you a foothold—something better than wages, if you stay with your claims and prove up. Of course, I can’t say anything about us buying out your claims—that’s fraud, according to Hoyle; but you ain’t simple-minded—you know your land won’t be begging for a buyer, in case you should ever want to sell.
“There’s another thing. This will not only head off the dry-farmers from overstocking what little range is left—it’ll make a dead-line for sheep, too. We’ve been letting ‘em graze back and forth on the bench back here beyond our leased land, and not saying much, so long as they didn’t crowd up too close, and kept going. With all our claims under fence, do you realize what that’ll mean for the grass?”
“Josephine! There’s feed for considerable stock, right over there on our claims, to say nothing of what we’ll cover,” exclaimed Pink.
“I’d tell a man! And if we get water on the desert claims—” Chip grinned down at him. “See what we’ve been passing up, all this time. We’ve had some of it leased, of course—but that can’t be done again. There’s been some wire-pulling, and because we ain’t politicians we got turned down when the Old Man wanted to renew the lease. I can see now why it was, maybe. This dry-farm business had something to do with it, if you ask me.”
“Gee whiz! And here we’ve been calling Andy a liar,” sighed Cal Emmett.
“Aw, jest because he happened to tell the truth once, don’t cut no ice,” Happy Jack maintained with sufficient ambiguity to avert the natural consequences.
“Of course, it won’t be any gold-mine,” Chip added dispassionately. “But it’s worth picking up, all right; and if it’ll keep out a bunch of tight-fisted settlers that don’t give a darn for anything but what’s inside their own fence, that’s worth a lot, too.”
“Say, my dad’s a farmer,” Pink declared defiantly in his soft treble. “And while I think of it, them eastern farmers ain’t so worse—not the brand I’ve seen, anyway. They’re narrow, maybe—but they’re human. Damn it, you fellows have got to quit talking about ‘em as if they were blackleg stock or grasshoppers or something.”
“We ain’t saying nothing aginst farmers AS farmers, Little One” Big Medicine explained forebearingly. “As men, and as women, and as kids, they’re mighty nice folks. My folks have got an eighty-acre farm in Wisconsin,” he confessed unexpectedly, “and I think a pile of ‘em. But if they was to come out here, trying to horn in on our range, I’d lead ‘em gently to the railroad, by cripes, and tell ‘em goodbye so’s’t they’d know I meant it! Can’t yuh see the difference?” he bawled, goggling at Pink with misleading savageness in his ugly face.
“Oh, I see,” Pink admitted mildly. “I only just wanted to remind you fellows that I don’t mean anything personal and I don’t want you to. Say, what about One Man Coulee?” he asked suddenly. “That’s marked vacant on the map. I always thought—”
“Sure, you did!” Chip grinned at him wisely, “because we used it for a line camp, you thought we owned a deed to it. Well, we don’t. We had that land leased, is all.”
“Say, by golly, I’ll file on that, then,” Slim declared selfishly. For One Man coulee, although a place of gruesome history, was also desirable for one or two reasons. There was wood, for instance, and water, and a cabin that was habitable. There was also a fence on the place, a corral and a small stable. “If Happy’s ghost don’t git to playin’ music too much,” he added with his heavy-handed wit.
“No, sir! You ain’t going to have One Man coulee unless Andy, here, says he don’t want it!” shouted Big Medicine. “I leave it to Chip if Andy hadn’t oughta have first pick. He’s the feller that’s put us onto this, by cripes, and he’s the feller that’s going to pick his claim first.”
Chip did not need to sanction that assertion. The whole Happy Family agreed unanimously that it should be so, except Slim, who yielded a bit unwillingly.
Till midnight and after, they bent heads over the plat and made plans for the future and took no thought whatever of the difficulties that might lie before them. For the coming colony they had no pity, and for the balked schemes of the Homeseekers’ Syndicate no compunctions whatever.
So Andy Green, having seen his stratagem well on the way to success, and feeling once more the well-earned confidence of his fellows, slept soundly that night in his