Chapter 7. The Coming of the Colony - Page 2

Hallman had been busy arranging the details of the coming of the colony, and she had neglected to visit the land office lately. Since she cannily represented the excursion as being merely a sight-seeing trip--or some such innocuous project--she failed also to receive any inkling of recent settlements.

On a certain sunny morning in mid-May, the Happy Family stood upon the depot platform and waited for the westbound passenger, that had attached to it the special car of the homeseekers' Syndicate. The Happy Family had been very busy during the past three weeks. They had taken all the land they could, and had sighed because they could still look from their claims upon pinnacles as yet unclaimed save by the government. They had done well. From the south line of Meeker's land in the very foothills of the Bear Paws, to the north line of the Flying U, the chain of newly-filed claims remained unbroken. It had taken some careful work upon the part of the Happy Family to do this and still choose land not absolutely worthless except from a scenic viewpoint. But they had managed it, with some bickering and a good deal of maneuvering. Also they had hauled loads of lumber from Dry Lake, wherewith to build their monotonously modest ten-by- twelve shacks with one door and one window apiece and a round hole in the roof big enough for a length of stove-pipe to thrust itself aggressively into the open and say by its smoke signal whether the owner was at home. And now, having heard of the mysterious excursion due that day, they had come to see just what would take place.

"She's fifteen minutes late," the agent volunteered, thrusting his head through the open window. "Looking for friends, boys?"

"Andy is," Pink informed him cheerfully. "The rest of us are just hanging around through sympathy. It's his girl coming."

"Well, I guess he thinks he needs a housekeeper now," the agent grinned. "Why don't you fellows get busy now and rustle some cooks?"

"Girls don't like to cook over a camp-fire," Cal Emmett told him soberly. "We kinda thought we ought to build our shacks first."

"You can pick you out some when the train gets in," said the agent, accepting a match from Weary. "There's a carload of--" He pulled in his head hurriedly and laid supple fingers on the telegraph key to answer a call, and the Happy Family moved down to the other end of the platform where there was more shade.

The agent presently appeared pushing the truck of outgoing express, a cheap trunk and a basket "telescope" belonging to one of the hotel girls--who had quit her job and was sitting now inside waiting for the train and seeing what she could of the Flying U boys through the window--and the mail sack. He placed the truck where the baggage car would come to a halt, stood for a minute looking down the track where a