Weary looked up from whittling a notch in the end of a platform plank and closed his jack-knife languidly.
Andy pushed his hat backward and then tilted it forward over one eyebrow and threw away his cigarette.
"Wonder if Florence Grace will be riding point on the bunch?" he speculated aloud. "If she is, I'm liable to have my hands full. Florence Grace will sure be sore when she finds out how I got into the game."
"Aw, I betche there ain't no such a person," said Happy Jack, doubter to the last.
"I wish there wasn't," sighed Andy. "Florence Grace is kinda getting on my nerves. If I done what I feel like doing, I'd crawl under the platform and size up the layout through a crack. Honest to gracious, Boys, I hate to meet that lady."
They grinned at him heartlessly and stared at the black smudge that was rolling toward them. "She's sure hittin' her up," Pink vouchsafed with a certain tenseness of tone. That train was not as ordinary trains; dimly they felt that it was relentlessly bringing them trouble, perhaps; certainly a problem--unless the homeseekers hovered only so long as it took them to see that wisdom lay in looking elsewhere for a home. Still--"If this was August instead of May, I wouldn't worry none about them pilgrims staying long," Jack Bates voiced the thought that was uppermost in their minds.
"There comes two livery rigs to haul 'em to the hotel," Pink pointed out as he glanced toward town. And there's another one. Johnny told me every room they've got is spoke for, and two in every bed."
"That wouldn't take no crowd," Happy Jack grumbled, remembering the limitations of Dry Lake's hotel. "Here come Chip and the missus. Wonder what they want?"
The Little Doctor left Chip to get their tickets and walked quickly toward them.
"Hello, boys! Waiting for someone, or just going somewhere?"
"Waiting. Same to you, Mrs. Chip," Weary replied.
"To me? Well, we're going up to make our filings. Claude won't take a homestead, because we'll have to stay on at the Flying U, of course, and we couldn't hold one. But we'll both file desert claims. J. G. hasn't been a bit well, and I didn't dare leave him before--and of course Claude wouldn't go till I did. That the passenger coming, or a freight?"
"It's the train--with the dry-farmers," Andy informed her with a glance at the nearing smoke-smudge.
"Is it? We aren't any too soon then, are we? I left Son at home--and he threatened to run away and live with you boys. I almost wish I'd brought him along. He's been perfectly awful.
So have the men Claude hired to take your places, if you want to know, boys. I believe that is what made J. G. sick--having those strange men on the place. He's been like a bear."
"Didn't Chip tell him--"
"He did, yes. He told him right away, that evening. But--J. G. has such stubborn ideas. We couldn't make him believe that anyone would be crazy enough to take up that land and try to make a living farming it. He--" She looked sidewise at Andy and pursed her lips to Keep from smiling.
"He thinks I lied about it, I suppose," said that young man shrewdly.
"That's what he says. He pretends that you boys meant to quit, and just thought that up for an excuse. He'll be all right--you mustn't pay any attention--"
"Here she comes!"
A black nose thrust through a Deep cut that had a curve to it. At their feet the rails began to hum. The Little Doctor turned hastily to see if Chip were coming. The agent came out with a handful of papers and stood waiting with the rest.
Stragglers moved quickly, and the discharged waitress appeared and made eyes covertly at Pink, whom she considered the handsomest one of the lot.
The train slid up, slowed and stopped. Two coaches beyond the platform a worried porter descended and placed the box-step for landing passengers, and waited. From that particular coach began presently to emerge a fluttering, exclaiming stream of humanity--at first mostly feminine. They hovered there upon the cindery path and lifted their faces to watch for others yet to come, and the babble of their voices could be, heard above the engine sounds.
The Happy Family looked dumbly at one another and drew back closer to the depot wall.
"Aw, I knowed there was some ketch to it!" blurted Happy Jack with dismal satisfaction. "That there ain't no colony--It's nothin' but a bunch of schoolma'ams!"
"That lady ridin' point is the lady herself," Andy murmured, edging behind Weary and Pink as the flutter came closer.
"That's Florence Grace Hallman, boys."
"Well, by golly, git out and speak your little piece, then!" muttered Slim, and gave Andy an unexpected push that sent him staggering out into the open just as the leaders were coming up.
"Why, how de do, Mr. Green!" cried the blonde leader of the flock. "This is an unexpected pleasure, I'm sure."
"Yes ma'am, it is," Andy assented mildly, with an eye cocked sidewise in search of the guilty man.
The blonde leader paused, her flock coming to a fluttering, staring stand behind her. The nostrils of the astonished Happy Family caught a mingled odor of travel luncheons and perfume.
"Well, where have you been, Mr. Green? Why didn't you come and see me?" demanded Florence, Grace Hallman in the tone of one who has a right to ask leading questions. Her cool, brown, calculating eyes went appraisingly over the Happy Family while she spoke.
"I've been right around here, all the time," Andy gave meek account of himself. "I've been busy."
"Oh. Did you go over the tract, Mr. Green?" she lowered her voice.
"Yes-s--I went over it."
"And what do you think of it--privately?"
"Privately--it's pretty big." Andy sighed. The bigness of that tract had worried the Happy Family a good deal.
"Well, the bigger the better. You see I've got 'em started."
She flicked a glance backward at her waiting colony. "You men are perfectly exasperating! Why didn't you tell me where you were and what you were doing?" She looked up at him with charming disapproval. "I feel like shaking you! I could have made good use of you, Mr. Green."