The Flying U's Last Stand

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER 22. LAWFUL IMPROVEMENTS

  Florence Grace Hallman must not be counted a woman without principle orkindness of heart or these qualities which make women beloved of men.She was a pretty nice young woman, unless one roused her antagonism. HadAndy Green, for instance, accepted in good faith her offer of a positionwith the Syndicate, he would have found her generous and humorous andloyal and kind. He would probably have fallen in love with her beforethe summer was over, and he would never have discovered in her naturethat hardness and that ability for spiteful scheming which came to thesurface and made the whole Happy Family look upon her as an enemy.

  Florence Grace Hillman was intensely human, as well as intensely loyalto her firm. She had liked Andy Green better than anyone--herselfincluded--realized. It was not altogether her vanity that was hurt whenshe discovered how he had worked against her--how little her personalityhad counted with him. She felt chagrined and humiliated and as thoughnothing save the complete subjugation of Andy Green and the completethwarting of his plans could ease her own hurt.

  Deep in her heart she hoped that he would eventually want her to forgivehim his treachery. She would give him a good, hard fight--she wouldshow him that she was mistress of the situation. She would force him torespect her as a foe; after that--Andy Green was human, certainly. Shetrusted to her feminine intuition to say just what should transpireafter the fight; trusted to her feminine charm also to bring herwhatever she might desire.

  That was the personal side of the situation. There was also theprofessional side, which urged her to do battle for the interests of herfirm. And since both the personal and the professional aspects of thecase pointed to the same general goal, it may be assumed that FlorenceGrace was prepared to make a stiff fight.

  Then Andy Green proceeded to fall in love with that sharp-tonguedRosemary Allen; and Rosemary Allen had no better taste than to letherself be lost and finally found by Andy, and had the nerve to showvery plainly that she not only approved of his love but returned it.After that, Florence Grace was in a condition to stop at nothing--shortof murder--that would defeat the Happy Family in their latest project.

  While all the Bear Paw country was stirred up over the lost child,Florence Grace Hillman said it was too bad, and had they found him yet?and went right along planting contestants upon the claims of the HappyFamily. She encouraged the building of claim-shacks and urged firmnessin holding possession of them. She visited the man whom Irish hadknocked down with a bottle of whisky, and she had a long talk with himand with the doctor who attended him. She saw to it that the contestnotices were served promptly upon the Happy Family, and she hurried inshipments of stock. Oh, she was very busy indeed, during the week thatwas spent in hunting the Kid. When he was found, and the rumor ofan engagement between Rosemary Allen and that treacherous Andy Greenreached her, she was busier still; but since she had changed her methodsand was careful to mask her real purpose behind an air of passiveresentment, her industry became less apparent.

  The Happy Family did not pay much attention to Florence Grace Hallmanand her studied opposition. They were pretty busy attending to their ownaffairs; Andy Green was not only busy but very much in love, so thathe almost forgot the existence of Florence Grace except on the rareoccasions when he met her riding over the prairie trails.

  First of all they rounded up the stock that had been scattered, andthey did not stop when they crossed Antelope Coulee with the settlers'cattle. They bedded them there until after dark. Then they drove themon to the valley of Dry Lake, crossed that valley on the train traveledroad and pushed the herd up on Lonesome Prairie and out as far upon thebenchland as they had time to drive them.

  They did not make much effort toward keeping it a secret. Indeed Wearytold three or four of the most indignant settlers, next day, where theywould find their cattle. But he added that the feed was pretty good backthere, and advised them to leave the stock out there for the present.

  "It isn't going to do you fellows any good to rear up on your hind legsand make a holler," he said calmly. "We haven't hurt your cattle. Wedon't want to have trouble with anybody. But we're pretty sure to have afine, large row with our neighbors if they don't keep on their own sidethe fence."

  That fence was growing to be more than a mere figure of speech The HappyFamily did not love the digging of post-holes and the stretching ofbarbed wire; on the contrary they hated it so deeply that you could notget a civil word out of one of them while the work went on; yet they putin long hours at the fence-building.

  They had to take the work in shifts on account of having their owncattle to watch day and night. Sometimes it happened that a man tampedposts or helped stretch wire all day, and then stood guard two or threehours on the herd at night; which was wearing on the temper. Sometimes,because they were tired, they quarreled over small things.

  New shipments of cattle, too, kept coming to Dry Lake. Invariably thesewould be driven out towards Antelope Coulee--farther if the driverscould manage it--and would have to be driven back again with whatpatience the Happy Family could muster. No one helped them among thesettlers. There was every attitude among the claim-dwellers, from openopposition to latent antagonism. None were quite neutral--and yet theHappy Family did not bother any save these who had filed contests totheir claims, or who took active part in the cattle driving.

  The Happy Family were not half as brutal as they might have been. Inspite of their no-trespassing signs they permitted settlers to driveacross their claims with wagons and water-barrels, to haul water fromOne Man Creek when the springs and the creek in Antelope Coulee wentdry.

  They did not attempt to move the shacks of the later contestants offtheir claims. Though they hated the sight of them and of the owners whobore themselves with such provocative assurance, they grudged the timethe moving would take. Besides that the Honorable Blake had told themthat moving the shacks would accomplish no real, permanent good. Withinthirty days they must appear before the register and receiver and fileanswer to the contest, and he assured them that forbearance upon theirpart would serve to strengthen their case with the Commissioner.

  It goes to prove how deeply in earnest they were, that they immediatelybegan to practice assiduously the virtues of mildness and forbearance.They could, he told them, postpone the filing of their answers untilclose to the end of the thirty days; which would serve also to delaythe date of actual trial of the contests, and give the Happy Family moretime for their work.

  Their plans had enlarged somewhat. They talked now of fencing the wholetract on all four sides, and of building a dam across the mouth of acertain coulee in the foothills which drained several miles of roughcountry, thereby converting the coulee into a reservoir that wouldfurnish water for their desert claims. It would take work, of course;but the Happy Family; were beginning to see prosperity on the trailahead and nothing in the shape of hard work could stop them from comingto hang-grips with fortune.

  Chip helped them all he could, but he had the Flying U to look after,and that without the good team-work of the Happy Family which had keptthings moving along so smoothly. The team-work now was being used in adifferent game; a losing game, one would say at first glance.

  So far the summer had been favorable to dry-farming. The moreenterprising of the settlers had some grain and planted potatoes uponfreshly broken soil, and these were growing apace. They did not knowabout these scorching August winds, that might shrivel crops in a day.They did not realize that early frosts might kill what the hot windsspared. They became enthusiastic over dry-farming, and their resentmenttoward the Happy family increased as their enthusiasm waxed strong. TheHappy Family complained to one another that you couldn't pry a nesterloose from his claim with a crowbar.

  In this manner did civilization march out and take possession of thehigh prairies that lay close to the Flying U. They had a Sunday Schoolorganized, with the meetings held in a double shack near the trail toDry Lake. The Happy family, riding that way, sometimes heard voicesmingled in the shrill singing of some hymn
where, a year before, theyhad listened to the hunting song of the coyote.

  Eighty acres to the man--with that climate and that soil they nevercould make it pay; with that soil especially since it was mostly barren.The Happy Family knew it, and could find it in their hearts to pity themen who were putting in dollars and time and hard work there. But forobvious reasons they did not put their pity into speech.

  They fenced their west line in record time. There was only one gatein the whole length of it, and that was on the trail to Dry Lake. Notcontent with trusting to the warning of four strands of barbed wirestretched so tight that they hummed to the touch, they took turns inwatching it--"riding fence," in range parlance--and in watching thesettlers' cattle.

  To H. J. Owens and his fellow contestants they paid not the slightestattention, because the Honorable Blake had urged them personally toignore any and all claimants. To Florence Grace Hallman they gave noheed, believing that she had done her worst, and that her worst wasafter all pretty weak, since the contests she had caused to be filedcould not possibly be approved by the government so long as the HappyFamily continued to abide by every law and by-law and condition andrequirement in their present through-going and exemplary manner.

  You should have seen how mild-mannered and how industrious the HappyFamily were, during these three weeks which followed the excitement ofthe Kid's adventuring into the wild. You would have been astonished,and you would have made the mistake of thinking that they had changedpermanently and might be expected now to settle down with wives andraise families and hay and cattle and potatoes, and grow beards,perhaps, and become well-to-do ranchers.

  The Happy Family were almost convinced that they were actually leavingexcitement behind them for good and all. They might hold backthe encroaching tide of immigration from the rough land along theriver--that sounded like something exciting, to be sure. But they musthold back the tide with legal proceedings and by pastoral pursuits, andthat promised little in the way of brisk, decisive action and strongnerves and all these qualities which set the Happy Family somewhat apartfrom their fellows.