The Flying Us Last Stand | Page 7

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
Missouri. They're inclined to want salt with what we say about the
resources of the country. Even our chemical analysis of the soil, and
weather bureau dope, don't go very far with those hicks. They want to

talk with someone who has tried it, you see."
"I--see," said Andy thoughtfully, and his eyes narrowed a trifle. "On the
square, Miss Hallman, what are the natural advantages out here--for
farming? What line of talk do you give those come-ons?"
Miss Hallman laughed and made a very pretty gesture with her two
ringed hands. "Whatever sounds the best to them," she said. "If they
write and ask about spuds we come back with illustrated folders of
potato crops and statistics of average yields and prices and all that. If
it's dairy, we have dairy folders. And so on. It isn't any fraud--there
ARE sections of the country that produce almost anything, from alfalfa
to strawberries. You know that," she challenged.
"Sure. But I didn't know there was much tillable land left lying around
loose," he ventured to say.
Again Miss Hallman made the pretty gesture, which might mean much
or nothing. "There's plenty of land 'lying around loose,' as you call it.
How do you know it won't produce, till it has been tried?"
"That's right," Andy assented uneasily. "If there's water to put on it--"
"And since there is the land, our business lies in getting people located
on it. The towns and the railroads are back of us. That is, they look with
favor upon bringing settlers into the country. It increases the business
of the country--the traffic, the freights, the merchants' business,
everything."
Andy puckered his eyebrows and looked out of the window upon a
great stretch of open, rolling prairie, clothed sparely in grass that was
showing faint green in the hollows, and with no water for miles--as he
knew well--except for the rivers that hurried through narrow bottom
lands guarded by high bluffs that were for the most part barren. The
land was there, all right. But--
"What I can't see," he observed after a minute during which Miss
Florence Hallman studied his averted face, "what I can't see is, where

do the settlers get off at?"
"At Easy street, if they're lucky enough," she told him lightly. "My
business is to locate them on the land. Getting a living off it is THEIR
business. And," she added defensively, "people do make a living on
ranches out here."
"That's right," he agreed again--he was finding it very pleasant to agree
with Florence Grace Hallman. "Mostly off stock, though."
"Yes, and we encourage our clients to bring out all the young stock
they possibly can; young cows and horses and--all that sort of thing.
There's quantities of open country around here, that even the most
optimistic of homeseekers would never think of filing on. They can
make out, all right, I guess. We certainly urge them strongly to bring
stock with them. It's always been famous as a cattle country--that's one
of our highest cards. We tell them--"
"How do you do that? Do you go right to them and TALK to them?"
"Yes, if they show a strong enough interest--and bank account. I follow
up the best prospects and visit them in person. I've talked to fifty
horny-handed he-men in the past month."
"Then I don't see what you need of anyone to bring up the drag," Andy
told her admiringly. "If you talk to 'em, there oughtn't be any drag!"
"Thank you for the implied compliment. But there IS a 'drag,' as you
call it. There's going to be a big one, too, I'm afraid--when they get out
and see this tract we're going to work off this spring." She stopped and
studied him as a chess player studies the board.
"I'm very much tempted to tell you something I shouldn't tell," she said
at length, lowering her voice a little. Remember, Andy Green was a
very good looking man, and his eyes were remarkable for their clear,
candid gaze straight into your own eyes. Even as keen a business
woman as Florence Grace Hallman must be forgiven for being
deceived by them." I'm tempted to tell you where this tract is. You may

know it."
"You better not, unless you're willing to take a chance," he told her
soberly. "If it looks too