“Yes-s—but how'd yuh KNOW they're going to do all this? Mamma! I don't want to turn dry-farmer if I don't have to!”
Andy's face clouded. “That's just what'll block the game, I'm afraid. I don't want to, either. None of the boys'll want to. It'll mean going up there and baching, six or seven months of the year, by our high lonesomes. We'll have to fulfill the requirements, if we start in—because them pilgrims'll be standing around like dogs at a picnic, waiting for something to drop so they can grab it and run. It ain't going to be any snap.
“And there's another thing bothers me, Weary. It's going to be one peach of a job to make the boys believe it hard enough to make their entries in time.” Andy grinned wrily. “By gracious, this is where I could see a gilt-edged reputation for telling the truth!”
“You could, all right,” Weary agreed sympathetically. “It's going to strain our swallowers to get all that down, and that's a fact. You ought to have some proof, if you want the boys to grab it, Andy.” His face sobered. “Who is this Florence person? If you could get some kinda proof—a letter, say...”
“Easiest thing in the world!” Andy brightened at the suggestion. “She's stopping at the Park, in Great Falls, and she wanted me to come up or write. Anybody going to town right away? I'll send that foxy dame a letter that'll produce proof enough. You've helped ma a lot, Weary.”
Weary scrutinized him sharply and puckered his lips into a doubtful expression. “I wish I knew for a fact whether all this is straight goods, Andy,” he said pensively. “Chances are you're just stringing me. But if you are, old boy, I'm going to take it outa your hide—and don't you forget that.” He grinned at his own mental predicament. “Honest, Andy, is this some josh, or do you mean it?”
“By gracious, I wish it was a josh! But it ain't, darn it. In about two weeks or so you'll all see the point of this joke—but whether the joke's on us or on the homeseekers' Syndicate depends on you fellows. Lord! I wish I'd never told a lie!”
Weary sat knocking his heels rhythmically against the side of the box while he thought the matter over from start to hypothetical finish and back again. Meanwhile Andy Green went on with his work and scowled over his well-earned reputation that hampered him now just when he needed the confidence of his fellows in order to save their beloved Flying U from slow annihilation. Perhaps his mental suffering could not rightly be called remorse, but a poignant regret it most certainly was, and a sense of complete bafflement which came out in his next sentence.
“Even if she wrote me a letter, the boys'd call it a frame-up just the same. They'd say I had it fixed before I left town. Doctor Cecil's up at the Falls. They'd lay it to her.”
“I was thinking of that, myself. What's the matter with getting Chip to go up with you? Couldn't you ring him in on the agent somehow, so he can get the straight of it?”