by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER 6. THE FIRST BLOW IN THE FIGHT
Letters went speeding to Irish and Jack Bates, absent members of theHappy Family of the Flying U; letters that explained the situation withprofane completeness, set forth briefly the plan of the proposed pool,and which importuned them to come home or make haste to the nearestland-office and file upon certain quarter-sections therein minutelydescribed. Those men who would be easiest believed wrote and signedthe letters, and certain others added characteristic postscripts bestcalculated to bring results.
After that, the Happy Family debated upon the boldness of going ina body to Great Falls to file upon their claims, or the caution ofproceeding instead to Glasgow where the next nearest land-office mightbe found. Slim and Happy Jack favored caution and Glasgow. The otherssneered at their timidity, as they were wont to do.
"Yuh think Florence Grace Hallman is going to stand guard with asix-gun?" Andy challenged at last. "She's tied up till her colony getsthere. She can't file on all that land herself, can she?" He smiledreminiscently. "The lady asked me to come up to the Falls and see her,"he said softly. "I'm going. The rest of you can take the same train, Ireckon--she won't stop you from it, and I won't. And who's to stop youfrom filing? The land's there, open for settlement. At least it wasopen, day before yesterday."
"Well, by golly, the sooner we go the better," Slim declared fussily."That fencin' kin wait. We gotta go and git back before Chip wants tostart out the wagons, too."
"Listen here, hombres," called the Native Son from the window, wherehe had been studying the well-thumbed pamphlet containing the homesteadlaw. "If we want to play dead safe on this, we all better quit theoutfit before we go. Call for our time. I don't like the way some ofthis stuff reads."
"I don't like the way none of it reads," grumbled Happy Jack. "I betchewe can't make it go; they's some ketch to it. We'll never git a patent.I'll betche anything yuh like."
"Well, pull out of the game, then!" snapped Andy Green, whose nerveswere beginning to feel the strain put upon them.
"I ain't in it yet," said Happy Jack sourly, and banged the door shutupon his departure.
Andy scowled and returned to studying the map. Finally he reached forhis hat and gloves in the manner of one who has definitely made up hismind to some thing.
"Well, the rest of you can do as you darned please," he delivered hisultimatum from the doorway. "I'm going to catch up my horse, draw amonth's wages and hit the trail. I can catch the evening train tothe Falls, easy, and be ready to file on my chunk first thing in themorning."
"Ain't in any rush, are yuh?" Pink inquired facetiously. "If I had mydinner settled and this cigarette smoked, I might go along--provided youdon't take the trail with yuh."
"Hold on, boys, and listen to this," the Native Son called outimperatively. "I think we better get a move on, too; but we want to geta fair running start, and not fall over this hump. Listen here! We'vegot to swear that it is not for the benefit of any other person, personsor corporation, and so on; and farther along it says we must not actin collusion with any person, persons or corporation, to give them thebenefit of the land. There's more of the same kind, too, but you see--"
"Well, who's acting in collusion? What's collusion mean anyhow?" Slimdemanded aggressively.
"It means what we're aiming to do--if anybody could prove it on us,"explained the Native Son. "My oldest brother's a lawyer, and I caughtsome of it from him. And my expert, legal advice is this: to get into arow with the Old Man, maybe--anyway, quit him cold, so we get our time.We must let that fact percolate the alleged brains of Dry Lake andvicinity--and if we give any reason for taking claims right under thenose of the Flying U, why, we're doing it to spite the Old Man. Sabe?Otherwise we're going to have trouble--unless that colony scheme is justa pipe dream of Andy's."
The Happy Family had learned to respect the opinions of the Native Son,whose mixture of Irish blood with good Castilian may have had somethingto do with his astuteness. Once, as you may have heard, the Native Soneven scored in a battle of wits with Andy Green, and scored heavily.And he had helped Andy pull the Flying U out of an extremely ticklishsituation, by his keen wit saving the outfit much trouble and money.Wherefore they heeded now his warning to the extent of unsmilinglydiscussing the obstacle he had pointed out to them. One after anotherthey read the paragraph which they had before passed over too hastily,and sensed the possibilities of its construction. Afterward they wentinto serious consultation as to ways and means, calling Happy Jack backso that he might understand thoroughly what must be done. For the HappyFamily was nothing if not thorough, and their partisanship that had beengrowing insensibly stronger through the years was roused as it had notbeen since Dunk Whittaker drove sheep in upon the Flying U.
The Old Man, having eaten a slice of roast pork the size of his twohands, in defiance of his sister's professional prohibition of theindulgence, was sitting on the sunny side of the porch trying to ignorethe first uneasy symptoms of indigestion. The Little Doctor had takenhis pipe away from him that morning, and had badgered him into takinga certain decoction whose taste lingered bitterly. The paper he wasreading was four days old and he disagreed with its political policy,and there was no telling when anyone would have time to go in after themail and his favorite paper. Ranch work was growing heavier each year inproportion to the lightening of range work. He was going to sow anothertwenty acres of alfalfa, and to do that he must cut down the size of hispasture--something that always went against the grain. He had not beenable to renew his lease of government land,--which also went against thegrain. And the Kid, like the last affliction which the Lord sent untoJob--I've forgotten whether that was boils or the butchery of hisoffspring--came loping down the length of the porch and kicked the OldMan's bunion with a stubby boot-toe.
Thus was born the psychological moment when the treachery of the HappyFamily would cut deepest.
They came, bunched and talking low-voiced together with hatbrims hidingshamed eyes, a type-true group of workers bearing a grievance. Not a manwas absent--the Happy Family saw to that! Even Patsy, big and sloppy andbearing with him stale kitchen odors, limped stolidly in the rear besideSlim, who looked guilty as though he had been strangling somebody'sfavorite cat.
The Old Man, bent head-foremost over his growing paunch that he mightcaress his outraged bunion, glared at them with belligerent curiosityfrom under his graying eyebrows. The group came on and stopped shortat the steps--and I don't suppose the Happy Family will ever look suchsneaks again whatever crime they may commit. The Old Man straightenedwith a grunt of pain because of his lame back, and waited. Which made itall the harder for the Happy Family, especially for Andy Green who hadbeen chosen spokesman--for his sins perhaps.
"We'd like our time," blurted Andy after an unpleasant silence, andfixed his eyes frigidly upon the lowest rung of the Old Man's chair.
"Oh, you would, hunh? The whole bunch of yuh?" The Old Man eyed themincredulously.
"Yes, the whole bunch of us. We're going to quit."
The Old Man's jaw dropped a little, but his eyes didn't waver fromtheir Hangdog faces. "Well, I never coaxed a man to stay yet," he statedgrimly, "and I'm gittin' too old in the business to start coaxin' now.Dell!" He turned stiffly in his chair so that he faced the open door."Bring me my time and check books outa the desk!"
A gray hardness came slowly to the Old Man's face while he waited, hisseamed hands gripping the padded arms of his chair. A tightness pulledat his lips behind the grizzled whiskers. It never occurred to him nowthat the Happy Family might be perpetrating one of their jokes. He hadlooked at their faces, you see. They meant to quit him--quit him coldjust as spring work was beginning. They were ashamed of themselves,of course; they had a right to be ashamed, he thought bitterly. Ithurt--hurt so that he would have died before he would ask for excuse,reason, grievance, explanation--for whatever motive impelled them. So hewaited, and he gripped the arms of his chair, and he clamped his mouthshut and did not speak a word.
The Happy Family had ex
pected him to swear at them stormily; to accusethem of vile things; to call them such names as his memory could seizeupon or his ingenuity invent. They had been careful to prepare a list ofplausible reasons for leaving then. They had first invented a goldrumor that they hoped would sound convincing, but Andy had insisted upontelling him straightforwardly that they did not favor fence-building andditch-digging and such back-breaking toil; that they were range menand they demanded range work or none; that if they must dig ditches andbuild fences and perform like menial tasks, they preferred doing itfor themselves. "That," said Andy, "makes us out such dirty, low-downsons-of-guns we'd have to climb a tree to look a snake in the eye, butit's got the grain of truth that'll make it go down. We DON'T love thisfarming graft, and the Old Man knows it. He's heard us kicking oftenenough. That's where it'll git him. He'll believe this last stretch offence is what made us throw him down, and he'll be so mad he'll cuss usout till the neighbors'll think the smoke's a prairie fire. We'll getour time, all right' and the things he'll say will likely make us sohot we can all talk convincing when we hit town. Keep a stiff upper lip,boys. We got to do it, and he'll make us mad, so it won't be as hard asyou imagine."
The theory was good, and revealed a knowledge of human nature thatmade one cease to wonder why Andy was a prince of convincing liars. Thetheory was good--nothing in the world was the matter with it, exceptthat in this particular instance it did not work. The Old Man did notask for their reasons, excuses or explanations. Neither did he sayanything or do anything to make them mad. He just sat there, with hisface gray and hard, and said nothing at all.
The Little Doctor appeared with the required books and a fountain pen;saw the Happy Family standing there like condemned men at the steps;saw the Old Man's face, and trembled wide-eyed upon the verge of speech.Then she decided that this was no time for questioning and hurried,still wide of eye, away from sight of them. The Happy Family did notlook at one another--they looked chiefly at the wall of the house.
The Old Man reckoned the wages due each one, and wrote a check for theexact amount. And he spoke no word that did not intimately concern thematter in hand. He still had that gray, hard look in his face that frozewhatever explanation they would otherwise have volunteered. And whenhe handed the last man--who was Patsy--his check, he got up stiffly andturned his back on them, and went inside and closed the door while yetthey lingered, waiting to explain.
At the bunk-house, whence they walked silently, Slim turned suddenlyupon their leader. His red face had gone a sallow white, and the whitesof his eyes were veined with red.
"If that there land business falls down anywhere because you lied to us,Andy Green' I'll kill you fer this" he stated flatly.
"If it Does, Slim, I'll stand and let yuh shoot me as full of lead asyou like," Andy promised, in much the same tone. Then he strove to shakeoff the spell of the Old Man's stricken silence. "Buck up, boys. He'llthank us for what we aim to do--when he knows all about it."
"Well, it seems to me," sighed Weary lugubriously, "we mighta managed itwithout hitting the Old Man a wallop in the back, like that."
"How'n hell did I know he'd take it the way he did?" Andy questionedsharply, and began throwing his personal belongings into his "war-bag"as if he had a grudge against his own clothes.
"Aw, looks to me like he was glad to git shet of us!" grumbled HappyJack. "I betche he's more tickled than sorry, right now."
It was an exceedingly unhappy Family that rode up the Hog's Back upontheir private mounts, and away from the Flying U; in spite of Chip'sassurance that he would tell the Old Man all about it as soon as hecould, it was an ill-humored Family that rode into Dry Lake and cashedtheir several checks at the desk of the General store which also didan informal banking business, and afterwards took the train for GreatFalls.
The news spread through the town that old J. G. Whitmore had fired theHappy Family in a bunch for some unforgivable crime against the peaceand dignity of the outfit, and that the boys were hatching up somescheme to get even. From the gossip that was rolled relishfully upon thetongues of the Dry Lake scandal lovers, the Happy Family must have beenmore than sufficiently convincing.