Andy Green

“ Andy Green squinted at the shank before he made reply. Andy, also, was "gifted," in his modest Western way.
"A country that can now and then show the papers for a civilization old as the Phenixes of Egypt," he said, in a drawling tone that was absolutely convincing, "ain't what I'd call raw." He decided that a little more hammering right next the rowel was necessary, and bent over the anvil solicitously. Even the self-complacency of Sherwood Branciforte could not fail to note his utter indifference to the presence and opinions of his companion. ”

“ In a week all Chouteau County knew that Andy Green would ride for the purse, and nearly all Chouteau County backed him with all the money it could command; certainly, all of it that knew Andy Green and had seen him ride, made haste to find someone who did not know him and whose faith in another contestant was strong, and to bet all the money it could lay hands upon.
For Andy was one of those mild-mannered men whose genius runs to riding horses which object violently to being ridden; one of those lucky fellows who never seems to get his neck broken, however much he may jeopardize it ”

“ 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. ”

“ Andy ran back to the engine room where he telephoned Serge to reduce their speed to a minimum. The same call brought Bert and Harry back on the run and another call brought two expert riggers with a roll of the metal cloth and a can of cement, which they heated in the engine room.
The chief rigger, Mac Glassgow, looked at the rip in the elevator.
“It’s a mean one to fix,” he asserted, “but we’ll do the job.”
“We’ve got to,” urged Andy. “It’s growing larger every minute.”
“An inside job won’t be so hard,” said Mac, “but to make it stick, it should be patched from the outside.” ”

“ And another queer thing happened to him; he got so he had a totally different idea of what work was. For his mates down in Glastonbury told him, “You work only during the winter, don’t you?”
Whereas, he found himself answering: “Why, no. ’Tis just the other way around. I can work only during the summer. I can’t work at all during the winter. I’m dead all winter long—like all the Green Things.” Then his comrades spoke wildly of him and touched their heads. They had learned the American idea, you see. Andy was crazy and he was lazy ”

“ They left the office and jumped into Andy’s roadster which was parked nearby. With a clashing of hastily shifted gears, they roared along the outside of the hangar. While they dashed toward the end, the door continued its slow, relentless movement. At the top they could see a half dozen men clinging to the girders. The control room for the doors was on the other side and Andy whipped his roadster around the end of the hangar. He was out of the machine before it stopped and raced toward the motor room with Bert at his heels. ”

“ Bert and Harry will come along to lower me away.”
Andy’s friends protested that it was a foolhardy attempt, but he refused to listen to them.
“We are all in grave danger,” he said. “The attempt must be made. As long as you fellows hang onto the rope I’ll be in no danger.”
Other members of the crew were summoned and under Mac’s expert direction a temporary patch was placed inside the elevator fin. While this was being accomplished, Andy prepared for the outside job. ”

“ Hello Andy,” said Harry, eight hundred miles away and under water in the radio room of the Neptune. “Tell Blatz hello, too, if he’s with you,” added Harry.
“The three of us are in the radio shack,” replied Bert, “and I resent your implication that I overate tonight. I over-talked.”
“Which is just as bad,” came back the voice over the ether waves.
Andy picked up the microphone and spoke to Harry.
“How is the trip going?” he asked, “and where are you?”
“We’re about 130 miles out of New York harbor,” replied Harry. “The sea is a little choppy but nothing to write home about. ”

“ There was nothing Harry could do in the control room and he returned to his own quarters. Bob was sound asleep in the chair. One dim light glowed over the now useless radio set. Harry sat down and picked up a message blank. He’d write a note to Andy and Bert. Someone might find the hulk of the submarine some day; a freak of the Arctic might cast it where it would again be viewed by man.
Harry had just started the note when he was startled by a sudden bumping and scraping. The Neptune tilted sharply. Were they headed for the bottom; crushed under the ice pack? ”

“ But, no, you knew best.”
“Listen,” replied Harry. “I couldn’t let you go to the North Pole and slip one over on me so when I heard the Neptune was going to make the trip I signed up. You fellows wait until old man weather gets a real good shot at you and you won’t think it is quite so funny.”
“We’ve had our turn,” said Andy, and he told Harry in detail of the events which had occurred on their return from New York and of their strenuous battle against the elements.
“Looks to me like the Goliath and the Neptune proved their ability at about the same time,” said Harry. ”

“ Everybody will be through dinner pretty soon, and salt pork and beans makes a man pretty thirsty. We ought to take in $1,500 more by midnight.'
"So Andy goes out of the Blue Snake, and I see him stopping men on the street and talking to 'em. By and by he has half a dozen in a bunch listening to him; and pretty soon I see him waving his arms and elocuting at a good-sized crowd on a corner. When he walks away they string out after him, talking all the time; and he leads 'em down the main street of Bird City with more men joining the procession as they go. ”

“ Andy was sixty-eight then and for full forty years had done his winter stint and his Big ‘W’ Work in the hills. But he did not feel tired that year. No; he simply felt odd-like, as if it might be something unforeseen was going to happen to him and it would not tell its name to him first. (You know how you feel that way sometimes—as if wings were flying over your head and you think you see their shadows on the grass; but you look up and see no wings at all in the sky. Then you say: “Isn’t the sky a queer color to-day?” and you feel uneasy.) ”

“ And finally some day ’twill all be steel-blue everywhere—in the snow-drifts and in the skies—and neither the lass nor I will be here then.”
Well may you believe that the departing of that first Summer was a sad matter to him. He had done his best, you see, and a whole new world of trying had been thrown open to him. And really he was beginning to get the knack of that kind of weaving. And she was a fine big apple-cheeked woman now, and—
“Well, if I do say it myself,” growled Andy, “she looks very handsome in those dresses; and for the first time in my life I take a Pride in my Work.” ”

“ He's entrenched behind the advantages of electricity, education, literature and intelligence.'
"'I'll try,' said Andy. 'There are certain Laws of Nature that Free Rural Delivery can't overcome.'
"Andy fumbles around awhile in the closet and comes out dressed in a suit with brown and yellow checks as big as your hand. His vest is red with blue dots, and he wears a high silk hat. I noticed he'd soaked his sandy mustache in a kind of blue ink.
"'Great Barnums?' says I. 'You're a ringer for a circus thimblerig man.'
"'Right,' says Andy. 'Is the buggy outside? Wait here till I come back. ”

“ He found indeed that he would have to work as fast as his fingers could go. For the little Summer grew big and bigger in an amazingly short time; and she kept throwing things away as fast as she put them on just as the Voice had foretold.
Her days, though, went happily along, all full of sweet smells out of cups and umbels of flowers and from the liquor of the leaves as they steeped in the hot sun; and Andy himself felt quite happy (when he wasn’t terribly interested in his Work, and then he paid attention to nothing at all save what was between his thumb and forefinger) . ”

“ Oh, Andy's up to some game all right."
"I thought he must be, hanging around here the way he has been, instead of being home. But I admit I may have been wrong about the police being after him. If he'd done something wrong, he would hardly hire a man to work on the house while he was hiding in it. I guess he just wants to keep out of the way of everybody but his own particular cronies. But I wonder what he is up to, anyhow; getting his airship in shape again?"
"Give it up, unless there's an aero meet on somewhere soon," replied Ned. "Maybe he's going to try a race again." ”

“ What part of Montana was his baggage checked to?” he asked, of Andy.
“I couldn’t make out the tags very well, but the last part of the name was ‘Spell,’” spoke the excitable youth.
“Spell—spell,” murmured Jerry. “I have it—the town of Kabspell—it’s near Flathead Lake, and we were counting on sending our airship there to make the start! Noddy has gotten on to our plans somehow!”
“What’s that?” asked Andy, quickly, for Jerry was half talking to himself.
“Oh—nothing. I was just wondering what Noddy would do, that’s all. Much obliged for telling me. Here’s a quarter, Andy. Get yourself a soda.” ”

“ So it came about that while that Summer lingered and hid and ran, Andy again asked the old, old question he had always asked and to which he had never received an answer:
“Shall I be weaving this lass her shroud?”
And, lo and behold, the Voice, very soft and full of kindness, said: “If ’twill please you, you might as well, Andy. Your Work is done. But—a question first. Have you ever once regretted the labor and the loss I have put upon you?”
Andy said to himself, “I am about to die.” In a loud, clear tone though he answered: “Not once, O Voice! ”

“ Sure he's neither sugar nor salt, that he'd melt."
"Well, I won't anyhow," said Andy, who by this time had got the horse into a good high trot, that shook every word of argument out of Paudeen's body; besides, it was as much as the boys could do to keep their seats on Owny's Bucephalus, who was not long in reaching the miller's bridge. Here voice and halter were employed to pull him in, that he might cross the narrow wooden structure at a quiet pace. ”

“ If Andy could not ride the blue roan in their own corral, how was he to ride that same blue roan in Great Falls? Or, if he could ride him, how could any sane man hope that he could win the purse and the belt under the stringent rules of the contest, where "riding on the spurs," "pulling leather" and a dozen other things were barred? So Andy, under the sting of their innuendoes and blunt reproaches, was so patient as to seem to them cowed. ”

“ Black Andy stood behind the stove, looking over at the new-comers with quizzical, almost furtive eyes, and his father remained for a moment with mouth open, gazing at his dead son's wife and child, as though not quite comprehending the scene. The sight of the boy had brought back, in some strange, embarrassing way, a vision of thirty years before, when George was a little boy in buckskin pants and jacket, and was beginning to ride the prairie with him. This boy was like George, yet not like him. ”

“ You wasn't fit to black George's boots."
Black Andy's mouth took on a bitter sort of smile, and his eyes drooped furtively, as he struck the damper of the stove heavily with his foot, then he replied slowly:
"Well, that's all right; but if I wasn't fit to black his boots, it ain't my fault. I git my nature honest, as he did. We wasn't any cross- breeds, I s'pose. We got the strain direct, and we was all right on her side." He jerked his head towards Aunt Kate, whose face was growing pale. She interposed now.
"Can't you leave the dead alone?" ”

“ Andy, sizing up the bunch and the brands, lighted upon a rangy blue roan that he knew—or thought he knew, and the eyes of him brightened with desire. If he could get that roan in his string, he told himself, he could go to sleep in the saddle on night-guard; for an easier horse to ride he never had straddled. It was like sitting in grandma's pet rocking chair when that roan loosened his muscles for a long, tireless gallop over the prairie sod, and as a stayer Andy had never seen his equal. ”

“ Whereupon Andy smoked relishfully and in silence, and from the tail of his eye watched his audience squirm with impatience. "A man gets along a whole lot better without any conscience," he began at last, irrelevantly, "'specially if he wants to be mean. I trailed this jasper up the coulee and out on the bench, across that level strip between Black Coulee and Dry Spring Gulch, and down the gulch a mile or so. ”

“ Andy made one or two efforts to loosen his bonds, found them unusually secure, and gave up the experiment. What his captors had said startled and disturbed him considerably.
“Mr. Parks doesn’t expect me to show up in time to make the race, and this man they talked about, Tyrrell, is going to take my place,” reflected Andy. “He is a friend of the people here, and that certainly means harm for Mr. Parks.”
Andy worried himself a good deal during the next hour, imagining all kinds of plots on the part of Duske and his friends to prevent the Racing Star from winning the prize. ”

“ He must act, and act quickly, or take a plunge sixty feet down.
Andy did not lose his presence of mind. Just the same as if he was on the rafters of the old barn at home, or practicing on a rope strung from two high tree tops, as had been many a time the case, he calculated his chances and set his skill at work.
He ventured a brief swing on the frail strip of canvas. As it finally tore free in his hand, Andy dropped it. He had got his momentum, however. It was to swing sideways and down. The next instant Andy was at the side of Thacher. One hand caught and held to a rope of the trapeze. ”