He looked across the waving grass to where the four roomed shack was built upon the four corners of four "eighties" so that four women might live together and yet be said to live upon their own claims. That was drawing the line pretty fine, of course; finer than the Happy Family would have dared to draw it. But no one would raise any objection, on account of their being women and timid about living alone. Andy smiled sympathetically because the four conjunctive corners of the four claims happened to lie upon a bald pinnacle bare of grass or shelter or water, even. The shack stood bleakly revealed to the four winds--but also it over looked the benchland and the rolling, half-barren land to the west, which comprised Antelope Coulee and Dry Coulee and several other good-for-nothing coulees capable of supporting nothing but coyotes and prairie dogs and gophers.
A mile that way Andy rode, and stopped upon the steep side of a gulch which was an arm of Antelope Coulee. He looked down into the gulch, searched with his eyes for the stake that marked the southeast corner of the eighty lying off in this direction from the shack, and finally saw it fifty yards away on a bald patch of adobe.
He resisted the temptation to ride over and call upon Miss Allen--the resistance made easier by the hour, which was eight o'clock or thereabouts--and rode back to the others very well satisfied with himself and his plan.
He found the whole Happy Family gathered upon the level land just over his west line, extolling resentment while they waited his coming. Grinning, he told them his plan, and set them grinning also. He gave them certain work to be done, and watched them scatter to do his bidding. Then he turned and rode away upon business of his own.
The claim-jumper, watching the bench land through a pair of field glasses, saw a herd of cows and calves scattered and feeding contentedly upon the young grass a mile or so away.
Two men on horseback loitered upon the outer fringe of the herd. From a distance hilltop came the staccato sound of hammers where an other shack was going up. Cloud shadows slid silently over the land, with bright sunlight chasing after.
Of the other horsemen who had come up the bluff with the cattle, he saw not a sign. So the man yawned and went in to his breakfast.
Many times that day he stood at the corner of his shack with the glasses sweeping the bench-land. Toward noon the cattle drifted into a coulee where there was water. In a couple of hours they drifted leisurely back upon high ground and scattered to their feeding, still watched and tended by the two horsemen who looked the most harmless of individuals. One was fat and red-faced and spent at least half of his time lying prone upon some slope in the shade of his horse. The other was thin and awkward, and slouched in the saddle or sat upon the ground with his knees drawn up and his arms clasped loosely around them, a cigarette dangling upon his lower lip, himself the picture of boredom.
There was nothing whatever to indicate that events were breeding in that peaceful scene, and that adventure was creeping close upon the watcher. He went in from his fourth or fifth inspection, and took a nap.