by cripes, and tell 'em goodbye so's't
they'd know I meant it! Can't yuh see the difference?" he bawled,
goggling at Pink with misleading savageness in his ugly face.

"Oh, I see," Pink admitted mildly. "I only just wanted to remind you
fellows that I don't mean anything personal and I don't want you to.
Say, what about One Man Coulee?" he asked suddenly. "That's marked
vacant on the map. I always thought--"

"Sure, you did!" Chip grinned at him wisely, "because we used it for
a line camp, you thought we owned a deed to it. Well, we don't. We had
that land leased, is all."

"Say, by golly, I'll file on that, then," Slim declared selfishly. For
One Man coulee, although a place of gruesome history, was also desirable
for one or two reasons. There was wood, for instance, and water, and a
cabin that was habitable. There was also a fence on the place, a corral
and a small stable. "If Happy's ghost don't git to playin' music too
much," he added with his heavy-handed wit.

"No, sir! You ain't going to have One Man coulee unless Andy, here, says
he don't want it!" shouted Big Medicine. "I leave it to Chip if Andy
hadn't oughta have first pick. He's the feller that's put us onto this,
by cripes, and he's the feller that's going to pick his claim first."

Chip did not need to sanction that assertion. The whole Happy Family
agreed unanimously that it should be so, except Slim, who yielded a bit
unwillingly.

Till midnight and after, they bent heads over the plat and made plans
for the future and took no thought whatever of the difficulties that
might lie before them. For the coming colony they had no pity, and
for the balked schemes of the Homeseekers' Syndicate no compunctions
whatever.

So Andy Green, having seen his stratagem well on the way to success,
and feeling once more the well-earned confidence of his fellows, slept
soundly that night in his own bed, serenely sure of the future.

CHAPTER 6. THE FIRST BLOW IN THE FIGHT

Letters went speeding to Irish and Jack Bates, absent members of the
Happy Family of the Flying U; letters that explained the situation with
profane completeness, set forth briefly the plan of the proposed pool,
and which importuned them to come home or make haste to the nearest
land-office and file upon certain quarter-sections therein minutely
described. Those men who would be easiest believed wrote and signed
the letters, and certain others added characteristic postscripts best
calculate