The Flying Us Last Stand | Page 3

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This etext was prepared by Mary Starr.

THE FLYING-U'S LAST STAND
BY
B. M. BOWER

CONTENTS
1. OLD WAYS AND NEW
2. ANDY GREEN'S NEW ACQUAINTANCE
3. THE KID LEARNS SOME THINGS ABOUT HORSES
4. ANDY TAKES A HAND IN THE GAME
5. THE HAPPY FAMILY TURN NESTERS
6. THE FIRST BLOW IN THE FIGHT
7. THE COMING OF THE COLONY
8. FLORENCE GRACE HALLMAN SPEAKS PLAINLY
9. THE HAPPY FAMILY BUYS A BUNCH OF CATTLE
10. WHEREIN ANDY GREEN LIES TO A LADY
ll. THE MOVING CHAPTER IN EVENTS
12. SHACKS, LIVESTOCK AND PILGRIMS PROMPTLY AND PAINFULLY REMOVED
13. IRISH WORKS FOR THE CAUSE
14. JUST ONE THING AFTER ANOTHER
15. THE KID HAS IDEAS OF HIS OWN
16. "A RELL OLD COWPUNCHER"
17. "LOST CHILD"
18. THE LONG WAY ROUND
19. HER NAME WAS ROSEMARY
20. THE RELL OLD COWPUNCHER GOES HOME
21. THE FIGHT GOES ON
22. LAWFUL IMPROVEMENTS
23. THE WATER QUESTION AND SOME GOSSIP
24. THE KID IS USED FOR A PAWN IN THE GAME
25. "LITTLE BLACK SHACK'S ALL BURNT UP!"
26. ROSEMARY ALLEN DOES A SMALL SUM IN ADDITION
27. "IT'S AWFUL EASY TO GET LOST"
28. AS IT TURNED OUT

THE FLYING U'S LAST STAND
CHAPTER 1.
OLD WAYS AND NEW
Progress is like the insidious change from youth to old age, except that progress does not mean decay. The change that is almost imperceptible and yet inexorable is much the same, however. You will see a community apparently changeless as the years pass by; and yet, when the years have gone and you look back, there has been a change. It is not the same. It never will be the same. It can pass through further change, but it cannot go back. Men look back sick sometimes with longing for the things that were and that can be no more; they live the old days in memory--but try as they will they may not go back. With intelligent, persistent effort they may retard further change considerably, but that is the most that they can hope to do. Civilization and Time will continue the march in spite of all that man may do.
That is the way it was with the Flying U. Old J. G. Whitmore fought doggedly against the changing conditions--and he fought intelligently and well. When he saw the range dwindling and the way to the watering places barred against his cattle with long stretches of barbed wire, he sent his herds deeper into the Badlands to seek what grazing was in the hidden, little valleys and the deep, sequestered canyons. He cut more hay for winter feeding, and he sowed his meadows to alfalfa that he might increase the crops. He shipped old cows and dry cows with his fat steers in the fall, and he bettered the blood of his herds and raised bigger cattle. Therefore, if his cattle grew fewer in number, they improved in quality and prices went higher, so that the result was much the same.
It began to look, then, as though J. G. Whitmore was cunningly besting the situation, and was going to hold out indefinitely against the encroachments of civilization upon the old order of things on the range. And it had begun to look as though he was going to best Time at his own game, and refuse also to grow old; as though he would go on being the same pudgy, grizzled, humorously querulous Old Man