hat nice, sleek little lawyer of yours
a few facts that will let Irish come back to his claim."

"Irish has been coming back to his claim pretty regular as it is," Andy
informed her quietly. "Did you think he was hiding out, all this time?
Why"--he laughed at her--"you talked to him yourself, one day, and
thought it was Weary. Remember when you came over with the mail? That
was Irish helping me string wire. He's been wearing Weary's hat and
clothes and cultivating a twinkle to his eyes--that's all."

"Why, I--well, anyway, that man they've been making a fuss over is just
as well as you are, James. They only wanted to get Irish in jail and
make a little trouble--pretty cheap warfare at that, if you want my
opinion."

"Oh, well--what's the odds? While they're wasting time and energy that
way, we're going right along doing what we've laid out to do. Say, do
you know I'm kinda getting stuck on this ranch proposition. If I just
had a housekeeper--"

Miss Rosemary Allen seldom let him get beyond that point, and she
interrupted him now by wrinkling her nose at him in a manner that made
Andy Green forget altogether that he had begun a sentence upon a subject
forbidden. Later she went back to her worries; she was a very persistent
young woman.

"I hope you boys are going to attend to that contest business right
away," she said, with a pucker between her eyes and not much twinkle in
them. "There's something about that which I don't quite understand.
I heard Florence Hallman and Kate talking yesterday about it going by
default. Are you sure it's wise to put off filing your answers so long?
When are you supposed to appear, James?"

"Me? On or before the twenty-oneth day of July, my dear girl. They
lumped us up and served us all on the same day--I reckon to save
shoe-leather; therefore, inasmuch as said adverse parties have got over
a week left--"

"You'd better not take a chance, waiting till the last day in the
afternoon," she warned him vaguely. "Maybe they think you've forgotten
the date or something--but whatever they think, I believe they're
counting on your not answering in time. I think Florence Hallman knows
they haven't any real proof against you. I know she knows it. She's
perfectly wild over the way you boys have stuck here and worked. And
from what I can gather, she hasn't been able to scrape up the weentiest
bit of evidence that the Flying U is backing you--and of course that
is the only ground they could cont