so. Give him the "bunch" and free swing, and he thought the
Homeseekers would lose their enthusiasm before even the first
hot wind blew up from the southwest to wither their crops.
But such measures were not to be thought of; if they fought
at all they must fight with the law behind them--and even
Andy's optimism did not see much hope from the law; none, in
fact, since both the law and the moneyed powers were eager
for the coming of homebuilders into that wide land. All up
along the Marias they had built their board shacks, and back
over the benches as far as one could see. There was nothing
to stop them, everything to make their coming easy.

Andy scowled at the plat he was studying, and admitted to
himself that it looked as though the Home Seekers' Syndicate
were going to have things their own way; unless--There he
stuck. There must be some way out; never in his life had he
faced a situation which had been absolutely hopeless; always
there had been some chance to win, if a man only saw it in
time and took it. In this case it was the clerk in the office
who pointed the way with an idle remark.

"Going to take up a claim, are you?"

Andy looked up at him with the blank stare of preoccupation,
and changed expression as the question filtered into his
brain and fitted somehow into the puzzle. He grinned, said
maybe he would, folded the sheet of paper filled with what
looked like a meaningless jumble of letters and figures,
bought a plat of that township and begged some government
pamphlets, and went out humming a little tune just above a