h his own
burden of threatened disaster.

CHAPTER 4. ANDY TAKES A HAND IN THE GAME

Andy Green was a day late in arriving at the Flying U. First he lost
time by leaving the train thirty miles short of the destination marked
on his ticket, and when he did resume his journey on the next train, he
traveled eighty-four miles beyond Dry Lake, which landed him in Great
Falls in the early morning. There, with the caution of a criminal
carefully avoiding a meeting with Miss Hallman, he spent an hour in
poring over a plat of a certain section of Chouteau County, and in
copying certain description of unoccupied land.

He had not slept very well the night before and he looked it. He had
cogitated upon the subject of land speculations and the welfare of his
outfit until his head was one great, dull ache; but he stuck to his
determination to do something to block the game of the Homeseekers'
Syndicate. Just what that something would be he had not yet decided. But
on general principles it seemed wise to learn all he could concerning
the particular tract of land about which Florence Grace Hallman had
talked.

The day was past when range rights might be defended honorably with
rifles and six-shooters and iron nerved men to use them--and I fear
that Andy Green sighed because it was so. Give him the "bunch" and free
swing, and he thought the Homeseekers would lose their enthusiasm before
even the first hot wind blew up from the southwest to wither their
crops. But such measures were not to be thought of; if they fought at
all they must fight with the law behind them--and even Andy's optimism
did not see much hope from the law; none, in fact, since both the law
and the moneyed powers were eager for the coming of homebuilders into
that wide land. All up along the Marias they had built their board
shacks, and back over the benches as far as one could see. There was
nothing to stop them, everything to make their coming easy.

Andy scowled at the plat he was studying, and admitted to himself that
it looked as though the Home Seekers' Syndicate were going to have
things their own way; unless--There he stuck. There must be some
way out; never in his life had he faced a situation which had been
absolutely hopeless; always there had been some chance to win, if a man
only saw it in time and took it. In this case it was the clerk in the
office who pointed the way with an idle remark.

"Going to take up a claim, are you?"

Andy looked u