“Well, I have found out just how you helped me colonize this tract, Mr. Green,” she began with a hard inflection under the smoothness of her voice. “I must compliment you upon your promptness and thoroughness in the matter; for an amateur you have made a remarkable showing—in—in treachery and deceit. I really did not suppose you had it in you.”
“Remember, I told you I might buy in if it looked good to me,” Andy reminded her in the mildest tone of which he was capable—and he could be as mild as new milk when he chose.
Florence Grace Hallman looked at him with a lift of her full upper lip at the left side. “It does look good, then? You told Mr. Graham and that Mr. Wirt a different story, Mr. Green. You told them this land won’t raise white beans, and you were at some pains, I believe, to explain why it would not. You convinced them, by some means or other, that the whole tract is practically worthless for agricultural purposes. Both Mr. Wirt and Mr. Graham had some capital to invest here, and now they are leaving, and they have persuaded several others to leave with them. Does it really look good to you—this land proposition?”
“Not your proposition—no, it don’t.” Andy faced her with a Keen level glance as hard as her own. One could get the truth straight from the shoulder if one pushed Andy Green into a corner. “You know and I know that you’re trying to cold-deck this bunch. The land won’t raise white beans or anything else without water, and you know it. You can plant folks on the land and collect your money and tell ’em goodbye and go to it—and that settles your part of it. But how about the poor devils that put in their time and money?”
Florence Grace Hallman spread her hands in a limited gesture because of the reins, and smiled unpleasantly. “And yet, you nearly broke your neck filing on the land yourself and getting a lot of your friends to file,” she retorted. “What was your object, Mr. Green—since the land is worthless?”
“My object don’t matter to anyone but myself.” Andy busied himself with his smoking material and did not look at her.
“Oh, but it Does! It matters to me, Mr. Green, and to my company, and to our clients.”
“I’ll have to buy me a new dictionary,” Andy observed casually, reaching behind him to scratch a match on the skirt of his saddle. “The one I’ve got don’t say anything about ‘client’ and ‘victim’ meaning the same thing. It’s getting all outa date.”
“I brought enough clients”—she emphasized the word—“to settle every eighty acres of land in that whole tract. The policy of the company was eminently fair. We guaranteed to furnish a claim of eighty, acres to every person who joined our homeseekers’ Club, and free pasturage to all the stock they wanted to bring. Failing to do that, we pledged ourselves to refund the fee and pay all return expenses. We could have located every member of this lot, and more—only for you.”
“Say, it’d be just as easy to swear as to say ‘you’ in that tone uh voice,” Andy pointed out placidly.
“You managed to gobble up just exactly four thousand acres of this tract—and you were careful to get all the water and all the best land. That means you have knocked us out of fifty settlements—”
“Fifty wads of coin to hand back to fifty come-ons, and fifty return tickets for fifty fellows glad to get back—tough luck, ain’t it?” Andy smiled sympathetically. “You oughta be glad I saved your conscience that much of a load, anyway.”
Florence Grace Hallman bit her lip to control her rage. “Smart talk isn’t going to help you, Mr. Green. You’ve simply placed yourself in a position you can’t’ hold. You’ve put it up to us to fight—and we’re going to do it. I’m playing fair with you. I’ll tell you this much: I’ve investigated you and your friends pretty thoroughly, and it’s easy to guess what your object is. We rather expected the Flying U to fight this colonization scheme, so we are neither surprised nor unprepared. Mr. Green, for your own interest and that of your employer, let me advise you to abandon your claims now, before we begin action in the matter. It will be simpler, and far, far cheaper. We have our clients to look after, and we have the law all on our side. These are bona fide settlers we are bringing in; men and women whose sole object is to make homes for themselves. The land laws are pretty strict, Mr. Green. If we set the wheels in motion they will break the Flying U.”
Andy grinned while he inspected his cigarette. “Funny—I heard a man brag once about how he’d break the Flying U, with sheep,” he drawled. “He didn’t connect, though; the Flying U broke him.” He smoked until he saw an angry retort parting the red lips of the lady, and then continued calmly:
“The Flying U has got nothing to do with this case. As a matter of fact, old man Whitmore is pretty sore at us fellows right now, because we quit him and turned nesters right under his nose. Miss Hallman, you’ll have one sweet time proving that we ain’t bona fide settlers. We’re just crazy to make homes for ourselves. We think it’s time we settled down—and we’re settling here because we’re used to this country. We’re real sorry you didn’t find it necessary to pay your folks for the fun of pointing out the land to us and steering us to the land office—but we can’t help that. We needed the money to buy plows.” He looked at her full with his honest, gray eyes that could so deceive his fellow men—to say nothing of women. “And that reminds me, I’ve got to go and borrow a garden rake. I’m planting a patch of onions,” he explained engagingly. “Say, this farming is a great game, isn’t it? Well, good day, Miss Hallman. Glad I happened to meet you.”
“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.”