on his forearm.

"The point is here. I've recognized the fact, all along, that we need
a man stationed right here, living in the country, who will meet
prospective homesteaders and talk farming; keep up their enthusiasm;
whip the doubters into line; talk climate and soil and the future of the
country; look the part, you understand."

"So I look like a rube, do I?" Andy's lips quirked a half smile at her.

"No, of course you don't!" She laid her fingers on his sleeve again,
which was what Andy wanted--what he had intended to bait her into doing;
thereby proving that, in some respects at least, he amply justified Hiss
Hallman in her snap judgment of him.

"Of course you don't look like a rube! I don't want you to. But you
do look Western--because you are Western to the bone Besides, you look
perfectly dependable. Nobody could look into your eyes and even think
of doubting the truth of any statement you made to them." Andy snickered
mentally at that though his eyes never lost their clear candor. "And,"
she concluded, "being a bona fide resident of the country, your word
would carry more weight than mine if I were to talk myself black in the
face!"

"That's where you're dead wrong," Andy hastened to correct her.

"Well, you must let me have my own opinion, Mr. Green. You would be
convincing enough, at any rate. You see, there is a certain per cent
of--let us call it waste effort--in this colonization business. We
have to reckon on a certain number of nibblers who won't bite"--Andy's
honest, gray eyes widened a hair's breadth at the frankness of her
language--"when they get out here. They swallow the folders we send
out, but when they get out here and see the country, they can't see it
as a rich farming district, and they won't invest. They go back home and
knock, if they do anything.

"My idea is to stop that waste; to land every homeseeker that boards our
excursion trains. And I believe the way to do that is to have the right
kind of a man out here, steer the doubtfuls against him--and let his
personality and his experience do the rest. They're hungry enough to
come, you see; the thing is to keep them here. A man that lives right
here, that has all the earmarks of the West, and is not known to be
affiliated with our Syndicate (you could have rigs to hire, and drive
the doubtfuls to the tract)--don't you see what an enormous advantage
he'd have? The class I speak of are the suspicious ones--those who are
from Misso