"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' written all over them. You'll come back and--talk it over won't you?" For Andy was showing unmistakable symptoms of leaving her to follow the man.
"You KNOW it," he declared in a tone of "I won't sleep nights till this thing is settled--and settled right." He gave her a smile that rather dazzled the lady, got up with much reluctance and with a glance that had in it a certain element of longing went swaying down the aisle after the man who had preceded him.