Chapter 7. The Coming of the Colony

If you would see northern Montana at its most beautiful best, you should see it in mid-May when the ground-swallows are nesting and the meadow larks are puffing their throats and singing of their sweet ecstasy with life; when curlews go sailing low over the green, grassy billows, peering and perking with long bills thrust rapier-wise through the sunny stillness, and calling shrilly, "Cor-r-eck, cor-r-eck!"-- which, I take it, is simply their opinion of world and weather given tersely in plain English. You should see the high prairies then, when all the world is a-shimmer with green velvet brocaded brightly in blue and pink and yellow flower-patterns; when the heat waves go quivering up to meet the sun, so that the far horizons wave like painted drop- scenes stirred by a breeze; when a hypnotic spell of peace and bright promises is woven over the rangeland--you should see it then, if you would love it with a sweet unreason that will last you through all the years to come.

The homeseekers' Syndicate, as represented by Florence Grace Hallman--she of the wheat-yellow hair and the tempting red lips and the narrow, calculating eyes and stubborn chin--did well to wait for the spell of the prairies when the wind flowers and the lupines blue the hillsides and the new grass paints green the hollows.

There is in us all a deep-rooted instinct to create, and never is that instinct so nearly dominant as in the spring when the grass and the flowers and the little, new leaves and the birds all sing the song of Creation together. Then is when case-hardened city dwellers study the bright array of seed-packets in the stores, and meditate rashly upon the possibilities of back-yard gardening. Then is when the seasoned country-dwellers walk over their farms in the sunset and plan largely for harvest time. Then is when the salaried- folk read avidly the real-estate advertisements, and pore optimistically over folders and dream of chicken ranches and fruit ranches and the like. Surely, then, the homeseekers' Syndicate planned well the date of their excursion into the land of large promise (and problematical fulfillment) which lay east of Dry Lake.

Rumors of the excursion seeped through the channels of gossip and set the town talking and chuckling and speculating--after the manner of very small towns.

Rumors grew to definite though erroneous statements of what was to take place. Definite statements became certified facts that bore fruit in detailed arrangements.

Came Florence Grace Hallman smilingly from Great Falls, to canvass the town for "accommodations." Florence Grace Hallman was a capable woman and a persuasive one, though perhaps a shade too much inclined to take certain things for granted-- such as Andy's anchored interest in her and her project, and the probability of the tract remaining just as it had been when last she went carefully over the plat in the land office. Florence Grace