“I—see,” said Andy thoughtfully, and his eyes narrowed a trifle. “On the square, Miss Hallman, what are the natural advantages out here—for farming? What line of talk do you give those come-ons?”
Miss Hallman laughed and made a very pretty gesture with her two ringed hands. “Whatever sounds the best to them,” she said. “If they write and ask about spuds we come back with illustrated folders of potato crops and statistics of average yields and prices and all that. If it’s dairy, we have dairy folders. And so on. It isn’t any fraud—there are sections of the country that produce almost anything, from alfalfa to strawberries. You know that,” she challenged.
“Sure. But I didn’t know there was much tillable land left lying around loose,” he ventured to say.
Again Miss Hallman made the pretty gesture, which might mean much or nothing. “There’s plenty of land ‘lying around loose,’ as you call it. How do you know it won’t produce, till it has been tried?”
“That’s right,” Andy assented uneasily. “If there’s water to put on it—”
“And since there is the land, our business lies in getting people located on it. The towns and the railroads are back of us. That is, they look with favor upon bringing settlers into the country. It increases the business of the country—the traffic, the freights, the merchants’ business, everything.”
Andy puckered his eyebrows and looked out of the window upon a great stretch of open, rolling prairie, clothed sparely in grass that was showing faint green in the hollows, and with no water for miles—as he knew well—except for the rivers that hurried through narrow bottom lands guarded by high bluffs that were for the most part barren. The land was there, all right. But—
“What I can’t see,” he observed after a minute during which Miss Florence Hallman studied his averted face, “what I can’t see is, where do the settlers get off at?”
“At Easy street, if they’re lucky enough,” she told him lightly. “My business is to locate them on the land. Getting a living off it is their business. And,” she added defensively, “people do make a living on ranches out here.”
“That’s right,” he agreed again—he was finding it very pleasant to agree with Florence Grace Hallman. “Mostly off stock, though.”
“Yes, and we encourage our clients to bring out all the young stock they possibly can; young cows and horses and—all that sort of thing. There’s quantities of open country around here, that even the most optimistic of homeseekers would never think of filing on. They can make out, all right, I guess. We certainly urge them strongly to bring stock with them. It’s always been famous as a cattle country—that’s one of our highest cards. We tell them—”
“How do you do that? Do you go right to them and talk to them?”
“Yes, if they show a strong enough interest—and bank account. I follow up the best prospects and visit them in person. I’ve talked to fifty horny-handed he-men in the past month.”
“Then I don’t see what you need of anyone to bring up the drag,” Andy told her admiringly. “If you talk to ’em, there oughtn’t be any drag!”
“Thank you for the implied compliment. But there is a ‘drag,’ as you call it. There’s going to be a big one, too, I’m afraid—when they get out and see this tract we’re going to work off this spring.” She stopped and studied him as a chess player studies the board.
“I’m very much tempted to tell you something I shouldn’t tell,” she said at length, lowering her voice a little. “Remember, Andy Green was a very good looking man, and his eyes were remarkable for their clear, candid gaze straight into your own eyes. Even as keen a business woman as Florence Grace Hallman must be forgiven for being deceived by them. I’m tempted to tell you where this tract is. You may know it.”
“You better not, unless you’re willing to take a chance,” he told her soberly. “If it looks too good, I’m liable to jump it myself.”
Miss Hallman laughed and twisted her red lips at him in what might be construed as a flirtatious manner. She was really quite taken with Andy Green. “I’ll take a chance. I don’t think you’ll jump it. Do you know anything about Dry Lake, up above Havre, toward Great Falls—and the country out east of there, towards the mountains?”
The fingers of Andy Green closed into his palms. His eyes, however, continued to look into hers with his most guileless expression.
“Y-es—that is, I’ve ridden over it,” he acknowledged simply.
“Well—now this is a secret; at least we don’t want those mossback ranchers in there to get hold of it too soon, though they couldn’t really do anything, since it’s all government land and the lease has only just run out. There’s a high tract lying between the Bear Paws and—do you know where the Flying U ranch is?”
“About where it is—yes.”
“Well, it’s right up there on that plateau—bench, you call it out here. There are several thousand acres along in there that we’re locating settlers on this spring. We’re just waiting for the grass to get nice and green, and the prairie to get all covered with those blue, blue wind flowers, and the meadow larks to get busy with their nests, and then we’re going to bring them out and—” She spread her hands again. It seemed a favorite gesture grown into a habit, and it surely was more eloquent than words. “These prairies will be a dream of beauty, in a little while,” she said. “I’m to watch for the psychological time to bring out the seekers. And if I could just interest you, Mr. Green, to the extent of being somewhere around Dry Lake, with a good team that you will drive for hire and some samples of oats and dry-land spuds and stuff that you raised on your claim—” She eyed him sharply for one so endearingly feminine. “Would you do it? There’d be a salary, and besides that a commission on each doubter you landed. And I’d just love to have you for one of my assistants.”
“It sure sounds good,” Andy flirted with the proposition, and let his eyes soften appreciably to meet her last sentence and the tone in which she spoke it. “Do you think I could get by with the right line of talk with the doubters?”
“I think you could,” she said, and in her voice there was a cooing note. “Study up a little on the right dope, and I think you could convince—even me.”
“Could I?” Andy Green knew that cooing note, himself, and one a shade more provocative. “I wonder!”
A man came down the aisle at that moment, gave Andy a keen glance and went on with a cigar between his fingers. Andy scowled frankly, sighed and straightened his shoulders.
“That’s what I call hard luck,” he grumbled, “got to see that man before he gets off the train—and the h—worst of it is, I don’t know just what station he’ll get off at.” He sighed again. “I’ve got a deal on,” he told her confidentially, “that’s sure going to keep me humping if I pull loose so as to go in with you. How long did you say?”
“Probably two weeks, the way spring is opening out here. I’d want you to get perfectly familiar with our policy and the details of our scheme before they land. I’d want you to be familiar with that tract and be able to show up its best points when you take seekers out there. You’d be so much better than one of our own men, who have the word ‘agent’