"I have been to see my wife,She's the joy of my life,She's a young thing, and cannot leave her mother!"
"I have been to see my wife,She's the joy of my life,She's a young thing, and cannot leave her mother!"
"I have been to see my wife,
She's the joy of my life,
She's a young thing, and cannot leave her mother!"
"Thought Bill had got too proud t' sing that song uh hisn," the cook yelled facetiously to the riders who were nearest. "I was lookin' for him to bust out in grand-opry, or something else that's a heap more stylish than his old come-all-ye."
Charming Billy turned and rested a hand briefly upon the cantle while he told the cook laughingly to go to the hot place, and then settled himself to the pace that matched the leaping blood of him. That pace soon discouraged the others and left them jogging leisurely a mile or two in the rear, and it also brought him the sooner to his destination.
"Wonder if she's mad yet," he asked himself, when he dismounted. No one seemed to be about, but he reflected that it was just about noon and they would probably be at dinner—and, besides, the weather was not the sort to invite one outdoors unless driven by necessity.
The smell of roast meat, coffee and some sort of pie assailed his nostrils pleasantly when he came to the house, and he went in eagerly by the door which would bring him directly to the dining room. As he had guessed, they were seated at the table. "Why, come in, William," Dill greeted, a welcoming note in his voice. "We weren't looking for you, but you are in good time. We've only just begun."
"How do you do, Mr. Boyle?" Miss Bridger added demurely.
"Hello, Bill! How're yuh coming?" cried another, and it was to him that the eyes of Billy Boyle turned bewilderedly. That the Pilgrim should be seated calmly at the Double-Crank table never once occurred to him. In his thoughts of Miss Bridger he had mentally eliminated the Pilgrim; for had she not been particular to show the Pilgrim that his presence was extremely undesirable, that night at the dance?
"Hello, folks!" he answered them all quietly, because there was nothing else that he could do until he had time to think. Miss Bridger had risen and was smiling at him in friendly fashion, exactly as if she had never run away from him and stayed away all the evening because she was angry.
"I'll fix you a place," she announced briskly. "Of course you're hungry. And if you want to wash off the dust of travel, there's plenty of warm water out here in the kitchen. I'll get you some."
She may not have meant that for an invitation, but Billy followed her into the kitchen and calmly shut the door behind him. She dipped warm water out of the reservoir for him and hung a fresh towel on the nail above the washstand in the corner, and seemed about to leave him again.
"Yuh mad yet?" asked Billy, because he wanted to keep her there.
"Mad? Why?" She opened her eyes at him. "Not as much as you look," she retorted then. "You look as cross as if—"
"What's the Pilgrim doing here?" Billy demanded suddenly and untactfully.
"Who? Mr. Walland?" She went into the pantry and came back with a plate for him. "Why, nothing; he's just visiting. It's Sunday, you know."
"Oh—is it?" Billy bent over the basin, hiding his face from her. "I didn't know; I'd kinda lost count uh the days." Whereupon he made a great splashing in his corner and let her go without more words, feeling more than ever that he needed time to think. "Just visiting—'cause it'sSunday, eh? The dickens it is!" Meditating deeply, he was very deliberate in combing his hair and settling his blue tie and shaking the dust out of his white silk neckerchief and retying it in a loose knot; so deliberate that Mama Joy was constrained to call out to him: "Your dinner is getting cold, Mr. Boyle," before he went in and took his seat where Miss Bridger had placed him—and he doubted much her innocence in the matter—elbow to elbow with the Pilgrim.
"How's shipping coming on, Billy?" inquired the Pilgrim easily, passing to him the platter of roast beef. "Most through, ain't yuh?"
"The outfit's on the way in," answered Billy, accepting noncommittally the meat and the overture for peace. "They'll be here in less than an hour."
If the Pilgrim wanted peace, he was thinking rapidly, what grounds had he for ignoring the truce? He himself had been the aggressor and he also had been the victor. According to the honor of fighting men, he should be generous. And when all was said and done—and the thought galled Billy more than he could understand—the offense of the Pilgrim had been extremely intangible; it had consisted almost wholly of looks and a tone or two, and he realized quite plainly that his own dislike of the Pilgrim had probably colored his judgment. Anyway, he had thrashed the Pilgrim and driven him away from camp and killed his dog. Wasn't that enough? And if the Pilgrim chose to forget the unpleasant circumstances of their parting and be friends, what could he do but forget also? Especially since the girl did not appear to be holding any grudge for what had passed between them in the line-camp. Billy, buttering a biscuit with much care, wished he knew just whathadhappened that night before he opened the door, and wondered if he dared ask her.
Under all his thoughts and through all he hated the Pilgrim, his bold blue eyes, his full, smiling lips and smooth cheeks, as he had never hated him before; and he hated himself because, being unable to account even to himself for his feelings toward the Pilgrim, he was obliged to hide his hate and be friends—or else act the fool. And above all the mental turmoil he was somehow talking and listening and laughing now and then, as if there were two of him and each one was occupied with his own affairs. "I wisht to thunder there wasthreeuh me," he thought fleetingly during a pause. "I'd set the third one uh me to figuring out just where the girl stands in this game, and what she's thinking about right now. There's a kinda twinkling in her eyes, now and then when she looks over here, that sure don't line up with her innocent talk. I wisht I could mind-read her—
"Yes, we didn't get through none too soon. Looks a lot like we're going to get our first slice uh winter. We've been playing big luck that we didn't get it before now; and that last bunch uh beef was sure rollicky and hard to handle—we'd uh had a picnic with all the trimmings if a blizzard had caught us with them on our hands. As it is, we're all dead on our feet. I expect to sleep about four days without stopping for meals, if you askme."
One cannot wonder that Charming Billy heard thankfully the clatter of his outfit arriving, or that he left half his piece of pie uneaten and hurried off, on the plea that he must show them what to do—which would have caused a snicker among the men if they had overheard him. He did not mind Dill following him out, nor did he greatly mind the Pilgrim remaining in the house with Miss Bridger. The relief of being even temporarily free from the perplexities of the situation mastered all else and sent him whistling down the path to the stables.
There are times when, although the months as they pass seem full, nothing that has occurred serves to mark a step forward or back in the destiny of man. After a year, those months of petty detail might be wiped out entirely without changing the general trend of events—and such a time was the winter that saw "Dill and Bill," as one alliterative mind called them, in possession of the Double-Crank. The affairs of the ranch moved smoothly along toward a more systematic running than had been employed under Brown's ownership. Dill settled more and more into the new life, so that he was so longer looked upon as a foreign element; he could discuss practical ranch business and be sure of his ground—and it was then that Billy realized more fully how shrewd a brain lay behind those mild, melancholy blue eyes, and how much a part of the man was that integrity which could not stoop to small meanness or deceit. It would have been satisfying merely to know that such a man lived, and if Billy had needed any one to point the way to square living he must certainly have been better for the companionship of Dill.
As to Miss Bridger, he stood upon much the same footing with her as he had in the fall, except that he called her Flora, in the familiarity which comes of daily association; to his secret discomfort she had fulfilled her own prophecy and called him Billy Boy. Though he liked the familiarity, he emphatically did not like the mental attitude which permitted her to fall so easily into the habit of calling him that. Also, he was in two minds about the way she would come to the door of the living room and say: "Come, Billy Boy, and dry the dishes for me—that's a good kid!"
Billy had no objections to drying the dishes; of a truth, although that had been a duty which he shirked systematically in line-camps until everything in the cabin was in that state which compels action, he would have been willing to stand beside Flora Bridger at the sink and wipe dishes (and watch her bare, white arms, with the dimply elbows) from dark until dawn. What he did object to was the half-patronizing, wholly matter-of-fact tone of her, which seemed to preclude any possibility of sentiment so far as she was concerned. She always looked at him so frankly, with never a tinge of red in her cheeks to betray that consciousness of sex which goes ever—say what you like—with the love of a man and a maid.
He did not want her to call him "Billy Boy" in just that tone; it made him feel small and ineffective and young—he who was eight or nine years older than she! It put him down, so that he could not bring himself to making actual love to her—and once or twice when he had tried it, she took it as a great joke.
Still, it was good to have her there and to be friends. The absence of the Pilgrim, who had gone East quite suddenly soon after the round-up was over, and the generosity of the other fellows, who saw quite plainly how it was—with Billy, at least—and forbore making any advances on their own account, made the winter pass easily and left Charming Billy in the spring not content, perhaps, but hopeful.
It was in the warm days of late April—the days which bring the birds and the tender, young grass, when the air is soft and all outdoors beckons one to come out and revel. On such a day Billy, stirred to an indefinable elation because the world as he saw it then was altogether good, crooned his pet song while he waited at the porch with Flora's horse and his own. They were going to ride together because it was Sunday and because, if the weather held to its past and present mood of sweet serenity, he might feel impelled to start the wagons out before the week was done; so that this might be their last Sunday ride for nobody knew how long.
"Let's ride up the creek," she suggested when she was in the saddle. "We haven't been up that way this spring. There's a trail, isn't there?"
"Sure, there's a trail—but I don't know what shape it's in. I haven't been over it myself for a month or so. We'll try it, but yuh won't find much to see; it's all level creek-bottom for miles and kinda monotonous to look at."
"Well, we'll go, anyway," she decided, and they turned their horses' heads toward the west.
They had gone perhaps five or six miles and were thinking of turning back, when Billy found cause to revise his statement that there was nothing to see. There had been nothing when he rode this way before, but now, when they turned to follow a bend in the creek and in the trail, they came upon a camp which looked more permanent than was usual in that country. A few men were lounging around in the sun, and there were scrapers of the wheeled variety, and wagons, and plows, and divers other implements of toil that were strange to the place. Also there was a long, reddish-yellow ridge branching out from the creek; Billy knew it for a ditch—but a ditch larger than he had seen for many a day. He did not say anything, even when Flora exclaimed over the surprise of finding a camp there, but headed straight for the camp.
When they came within speaking distance, a man showed in the opening of one of the tents, looked at them a moment, and came forward.
"Why, that's Fred Walland!" cried Flora, and then caught herself suddenly. "I didn't know he was back," she added, in a tone much less eager.
Billy gave her a quick look that might have told her much had she seen it. He did not much like the color which had flared into her cheeks at sight of the Pilgrim, and he liked still less the tone in which she spoke his name. It was not much, and he had the sense to push the little devil of jealousy out of sight behind him, but it had come and changed something in the heart of Billy.
"Why, hello!" greeted the Pilgrim, and Billy remembered keenly that the Pilgrim had spoken in just that way when he had opened the door of the line-camp upon them, that night. "I was going to ride over to the ranch, after a while. How are yuh, anyhow?" He came and held up his hand to Flora, and she put her own into it. Billy, with eyebrows pinched close, thought that they sure took their own time about letting go again, and that the smile which she gave the Pilgrim was quite superfluous to the occasion.
"Yuh seem to be some busy over here," he remarked carelessly, turning his eyes to the new ditch.
"Well, yes. Brown's having a ditch put in here. We only started a few days ago; them da—them no-account Swedes he got to do the rough work are so slow, we're liable to be at it all summer. How's everybody at the ranch? How's your mother, Miss Bridger? Has she got any mince pies baked?"
"I don't know—you might ride over with us and see," she invited, smiling at him again. "We were just going to turn back—weren't we, Billy Boy?"
"Sure!" he testified, and for the first time found some comfort in being called Billy Boy; because, if looks went for anything, it certainly made the Pilgrim very uncomfortable. The spirits of Billy rose a little.
"If you'll wait till I saddle up, I'll go along. I guess the Svenskies won't run off with the camp before I get back," said the Pilgrim, and so they stayed, and afterward rode back together quite amiably considering certain explosive elements in the party.
Perhaps Billy's mildness was due in a great measure to his preoccupation, which made him deaf at times to what the others were saying. He knew that they were quite impersonal in their talk, and so he drifted into certain other channels of thought.
Was Brown going to start another cow-outfit, or was he merely going to try his hand at farming? Billy knew that—unless he had sold it—Brown owned a few hundred acres along the creek there; and as he rode over it now he observed the soil more closely than was his habit, and saw that, from a passing survey, it seemed fertile and free from either adobe or alkali. It must be that Brown was going to try ranching. Still, he had held out all his best stock, and Billy had not heard that he had sold it since. Now that he thought of it, he had not heard much about Brown since Dill bought the Double-Crank. Brown had been away, and, though he had known in a general way that the Pilgrim was still in his employ, he did not know in what capacity. In the absorption of his own affairs he had not given the matter any thought, though he had wondered at first what crazy impulse caused Brown to sell the Double-Crank. Even now he did not know, and when he thought of it the thing irritated him like a puzzle before it is solved.
So greatly did the matter trouble him that immediately upon reaching the ranch he left Flora and the Pilgrim and hunted up Dill. He found him hunched like a half-open jackknife in a cane rocker, with his legs crossed and one long, lean foot dangling loosely before him; he was reading "The Essays of Elia," and the melancholy of his face gave Billy the erroneous impression that the book was extremely sad, and caused him to dislike it without ever looking inside the dingy blue covers.
"Say, Dilly, old Brown's putting in a ditch big enough to carry the whole Missouri River. Did yuh know it?"
Dill carefully creased down the corner of the page where he was reading, untangled his legs and pulled himself up a bit in the chair. "Why, no, I don't think I have heard of it," he admitted. "If I have it must have slipped my mind—which isn't likely." Dill was rather proud of his capacity for keeping a mental grasp on things.
"Well, he's got a bunch uh men camped up the creek and the Pilgrim to close-herd 'em—and I'm busy wondering what he's going to do with that ditch. Brown don't do things just to amuse himself; yuh can gamble he aims to make that ditch pack dollars into his jeans—and if yuh can tell mehow, I'll be a whole lot obliged." Dill shook his head, and Billy went on. "Did yuh happen to find out, when yuh was bargaining for the Double-Crank, how much land Brown's got held out?"
"No-o—I can't say I did. From certain remarks he made, I was under the impression that he owns quite a tract. I asked about getting all the land he had, and he said he preferred not to put a price on it, but that it would add considerably to the sum total. He said I would not need it, anyhow, as there is plenty of open range for the stock. He was holding it, he told me, for speculation and had never made any use of it in running his stock, except as they grazed upon it."
"Uh-huh. That don't sound to me like any forty-acre field; does it to you?"
"As I said," responded Dill, "I arrived at the conclusion that he owns a good deal of land."
"And I'll bet yuh the old skunk is going to start up a cow-outfit right under our noses—though why the dickens the Double-Crank wasn't good enough for him gets me."
"If he does," Dill observed calmly, "the man has a perfect right to do so, William. We must guard against that greed which would crowd out every one but ourselves—like pigs around a trough of sour milk! I will own, however—"
"Say, Dilly! On the dead, are yuh religious?"
"No, William, I am not, in the sense you mean. I hope, however, that I am honest. If Mr. Brown intends to raise cattle again I shall be glad to see him succeed."
Charming Billy sat down suddenly, as though his legs would no longer support him, and looked queerly at Dill. "Hell!" he said meditatively, and sought with his fingers for his smoking material.
Dill showed symptoms of going back to "The Essays of Elia," so that Billy was stirred to speech.
"Now, looky here, Dilly. You're all right, as far as yuh go—but this range is carrying just about all the stock it needs right at present. I don't reckon yuh realize that all the good bottoms and big coulées are getting filled up with nesters; one here and one there, and every year a few more. It ain't much, uh course, but every man that comes is cutting down the range just that much. And I know one thing: when Brown had this outfit himself he was mighty jealous uh the range, and he didn't take none to the idea of anybody else shoving stock onto it more than naturally drifted on in the course uh the season. If he's going to start another cow-outfit, I'll bet yuh he's going to gobble land—and that's whatwebetter do, and do it sudden."
"Since I have never had much personal experience in the 'gobbling' line, I'm afraid you'll have to explain," said Dill dryly.
"I mean leasing. We got to beat Brown to it. We got to start in and lease up all the land we can get our claws on. I ain't none desirable uh trying to make yuh a millionaire, Dilly, whilst we've only got one lone section uh land and about twelve thousand head uh stock, and somebody else aiming to throw a big lot uh cattle onto our range. I kinda shy at any contract the size uh that one. I've got to start the wagons out, if this weather holds good, and I want to go with 'em—for a while, anyhow—and see how things stack up on the range. And whatyou'vegot to do is to go and lease every foot uh land you can. Eh? State land. All the land around here almost is State land—all that's surveyed and that ain't held by private owners. And State land can be leased for a term uh years.
"The way they do it, yuh start in and go over the map all samee flea; yuh lease a section here and there and skip one and take the next, and so on, and then if yuh need to yuh throw a fence around the whole blame chunk—and there yuh are. No, itain'tcheating, because if anybody don't like it real bad, they can raise the long howl and make yuh revise your fencing; but in this neck uh the woods folks don't howl over a little thing like that, because you could lift up your own voice over something they've done, and there'd be a fine, pretty chorus! So that's what yuh can do if yuh want to—but anyway, yuh want to get right after that leasing. It'll cost yuh something, but we're just plumb obliged to protect ourselves. See?"
At that point he heard Flora laugh, and got up hastily, remembering the presence of the Pilgrim on the ranch.
"I see, and I will think it over and take what precautionary measures are necessary and possible."
Billy, not quite sure that he had sufficiently impressed Dill with the importance of the matter, turned at the door and looked in again, meaning to add an emphatic word or two; but when he saw that Dill was staring round-eyed at nothing at all, and that Lamb was lying sprawled wide open on the floor, his face relaxed from its anxious determination.
"I got his think-works going—he'll do the rest," he told himself satisfiedly, and pushed the subject from him. Just now he wanted to make sure the Pilgrim wasn't getting more smiles than were coming to him—and if you had left the decision of that with Billy, the Pilgrim would have had none at all.
"I wisht he'ddosomething I could lay my finger on—damn him," he reflected. "I can't kick him out on the strength uh my own private opinion. I'd just simply lay myself wide open to all kinds uh remarks. Iain'tjealous; he ain't got any particular stand-in with Flora—but if I started action on him, that's what the general verdict would be. Oh, thunder!"
Nothing of his thoughts showed in his manner when he went out to where they were. He found them just putting up a target made of a sheet of tablet paper marked with a lead pencil into rings and an uncertain centre, and he went straight into the game with a smile. He loaded the gun for Flora, showed her exactly how to "draw a fine bead," and otherwise deported himself in a way not calculated to be pleasing to the Pilgrim. He called her Flora boldly whenever occasion offered, and he exulted inwardly at the proprietary way in which she said "Billy Boy" and ordered him around. Of course,heknew quite well that there was nothing but frank-eyed friendship back of it all; but the Pilgrim plainly did not know and was a good deal inclined to sulk over his interpretation.
So Billy, when came the time for sleeping, grinned in the dark of his room and dwelt with much satisfaction upon the manner of the Pilgrim's departure. He prophesied optimistically that he guessed that would hold the Pilgrim for a while, and that he himself could go on round-up and not worry any over what was happening at the ranch.
For the Pilgrim had come into the kitchen, ostensibly for a drink of water, and had found Miss Flora fussily adjusting the Klondyke nugget pin in the tie of Charming Billy, as is the way of women when they know they may bully a man with impunity—and she was saying: "Now, Billy Boy, if you don't learn to stick that pin in straight and not have the point standing out a foot, I'll—" That is where the Pilgrim came in and interrupted. And he choked over the dipper of water even as Billy choked over his glee, and left the ranch within fifteen minutes and rode, as Billy observed to the girl, "with a haughty spine."
"Oh, joy!" chuckled Billy when he lived those minutes over again, and punched the pillow facetiously. "Oh, joy, oh Johnathan! I guess maybe he didn't get a jolt, huh? And the way—the verytonewhen I called her Flora—sounded like the day was set for the wedding and we'd gone and ordered the furniture!"
The mood of him was still triumphant three days after when he turned in his saddle and waved his hand to Flora, who waved wistfully back at him. "It ain't any cinch right now—but I'll have her yet," he cheered himself when the twinge of parting was keenest.
Over the green uplands, into the coulées and the brushy creek-bottoms swept the sun-browned riders of the Double-Crank; jangling and rattling over untrailed prairie sod, the bed and mess wagons followed after with hasty camping at the places Billy appointed for brief sleeping and briefer eating, a hastier repacking and then the hurry over the prairies to the next stop. Here, a wide coulée lay yawning languorously in the sunshine with a gossipy trout stream for company; with meadowlarks rippling melodiously from bush and weed or hunting worms and bugs for their nestful of gaping mouths; with gophers trailing snakily through the tall grasses; and out in the barren centre where the yellow earth was pimpled with little mounds, plump-bodied prairie dogs sitting pertly upon their stubby tails the while they chittered shrewishly at the world; and over all a lazy, smiling sky with clouds always drifting and trailing shadows across the prairie-dog towns and the coulée and the creek, and a soft wind stirring the grasses.
Then the prairie dogs would stand a-tiptoe to listen. The meadowlarks would stop their singing—even the trailing shadows would seem to waver uncertainly—and only the creek would go gurgling on, uncaring. Around a bend would rattle the wagons of the Double-Crank, with a lone rider trotting before to point the way; down to the very bank of the uncaring creek they would go. There would be hurrying to and fro with much clamor of wood-chopping, tent-raising and all the little man-made noises of camp life and cooking. There would be the added clamor of the cavvy, and later, of tired riders galloping heavily into the coulée, and of many voices upraised in full-toned talk with now and then a burst of laughter.
All these things, and the prairie folk huddled trembling in their homes, a mute agony of fear racking their small bodies. Only the creek and the lazy, wide-mouthed coulee and the trailing clouds and the soft wind seemed not to mind.
Came another sunrise and with it the clamor, the voices, the rattle of riding gear, the trampling. Then a final burst and rattle, a dying of sounds in the distance, a silence as the round-up swept on over the range-land, miles away to the next camping place. Then the little prairie folk—the gopher, the plump-bodied prairie dogs, the mice and the rabbits, would listen long before they crept timidly out to sniff suspiciously the still-tainted air and inspect curiously and with instinctive aversion the strange marks left on the earth to show that it was all something more than a horrible nightmare.
So, under cloud and sun, when the wind blew soft and when it raved over the shrinking land, when the cold rain drove men into their yellow slickers and set horses to humping backs and turning tail to the drive of it and one heard the cook muttering profanity because the wood was wet and the water ran down the stovepipe and hungry men must wait because the stove would not "draw," the Double-Crank raked the range. Horses grew lean and ill-fitting saddles worked their wicked will upon backs that shrank to their touch of a morning. Wild range cattle were herded, a scared bunch of restlessness, during long, hot forenoons, or longer, hotter afternoons, while calves that had known no misfortune beyond a wet back or a searching wind learned, panic-stricken, the agony of capture and rough handling and tight-drawn ropes and, last and worst, the terrible, searing iron.
There were not so many of them—these reluctant, wild-eyed pupils in the school of life. Charming Billy, sitting his horse and keeping tally of the victims in his shabby little book, began to know the sinking of spirit that comes to a man when he finds that things have, after all, gone less smoothly than he had imagined. There were withered carcasses scattered through the coulée bottoms and upon side hills that had some time made slippery climbing for a poor, weak cow. The loss was not crippling, but it was greater than he had expected. He remembered certain biting storms which had hidden deep the grasses, and certain short-lived chinooks that had served only to soften the surface of the snow so that the cold, coming after, might freeze it the harder.
It had not been a hard winter, as winters go, but the loss of cows had been above the average and the crop of calves below, and Billy for the first time faced squarely the fact that, in the cattle business as well as in others, there are downs to match the ups. In his castle building, and so far in his realization of his dreams, he had not taken much account of the downs.
Thus it was that, when they swung back from the reservation and camped for a day upon lower Burnt Willow, he felt a great yearning for the ranch and for sight of the girl who lived there. For excuses he had the mail and the natural wish to consult with Dill, so that, when he saddled Barney and told Jim Bleeker to keep things moving till to-morrow or the day after, he had the comfortable inner assurance that there were no side-glances or smiles and no lowered lids when he rode away. For Charming Billy, while he would have faced the ridicule of a nation if that were the price he must pay to win his deep desire, was yet well pleased to go on his way unwatched and unneeded.
Since the Double-Crank ranch lay with Burnt Willow Creek loitering through the willows within easy gunshot of the corrals, Billy's trail followed the creek except in its most irresponsible windings, when he would simplify his journey by taking straight as might be across the prairie. It was after he had done this for the second time and had come down to the creek through a narrow, yellow-clay coulee that he came out quite suddenly upon a thing he had not before seen.
Across the creek, which at that point was so narrow that a horse could all but clear it in a running jump, lay the hills, a far-reaching ocean of fertile green. Good grazing it was, as Billy well knew. In another day the Double-Crank riders would be sweeping over it, gathering the cattle; at least, that had been his intent. He looked across and his eyes settled immediately upon a long, dotted line drawn straight away to the south; at the far end a tiny huddle of figures moved indeterminately, the details of their business blunted by the distance. But Charming Billy, though he liked them little, knew well when he looked upon a fence in the building. The dotted line he read for post holes and the distant figures for the diggers.
While his horse drank he eyed the line distrustfully until he remembered his parting advice to Dill. "Dilly's sure getting a move on him," he decided, estimating roughly the size of the tract which that fence, when completed, would inclose. To be sure, it was pure guesswork, for he was merely looking at one corner. Up the creek he could not see, save a quarter mile or so to the next bend; even that distance he could not see the dotted line—for he was looking upon a level clothed with rank weeds and grass and small brush—but he knew it must be there. When he turned his horse from the water and went his way, his mind was no longer given up to idle dreaming of love words and a girl. This fencing business concerned him intimately, and his brain was as alert as his eyes. For he had not meant that Dilly should fence any land just yet.
Farther up the creek he crossed, meaning to take another short cut and so avoid a long detour; also, he wanted to see just where and how far the fence went. Yes, the post holes were there, only here they held posts leaning loosely this way and that like drunken men. A half mile farther the wire was already strung, but not a man did he see whom he might question—and when he glanced and saw that the sun was almost straight over his head and that Barney's shadow scurried along nearly beneath his stirrup, he knew that they would be stopping for dinner. He climbed a hill and came plump upon a fence, wire-strung, wire-stayed, aggressively barring his way.
"Dilly's about the most thorough-minded man I ever met up with," he mused, half annoyed, stopping a moment to survey critically the barrier. "Yuh never find a job uh hisn left with any loose ends a-dangling. He's got a fence here like he was guarding a railroad right-uh-way. I guess I'll go round, this trip."
At the ranch Charming Billy took the path that led to the kitchen, because when he glanced that way from the stable he caught a flicker of pink—a shade of pink which he liked very much, because Flora had a dress of that color and it matched her cheeks, it seemed to him. She had evidently not seen him, and he thought he would surprise her. To that end, he suddenly stopped midway and removed his spurs lest their clanking betray him. So he went on, with his eyes alight and the blood of him jumping queerly.
Just outside the door he stopped, saw the pink flutter in the pantry and went across the kitchen on his toes; sure, he was going to surprise her a lot! Maybe, he thought daringly, he'd kiss her—if his nerve stayed with him long enough. He rather thought it would. She was stooping a little over the flour barrel, and her back was toward him.
More daring than he would have believed of himself, he reached out his arms and caught her to him, and—It was not Flora at all. It was Mama Joy.
"Oh, I—I beg your pardon—I—" stammered Billy helplessly.
"Billy! You're a bad boy; how you frightened me!" she gasped, and showed an unmistakable inclination to snuggle.
Charming Billy, looking far more frightened than she, pulled himself loose and backed away. Mama Joy looked at him, and there was that in her eyes which sent a qualm of something very like disgust over Billy, so that in his toes he felt the quiver.
"It was an accident, Mrs. Bridger," he said laconically, and went out hastily, leaving her standing there staring after him.
Outside, he twitched his shoulders as if he would still free himself of something distasteful. "Hell! What do I want withher?" he muttered indignantly, and did not stop to think where he was going until he brought up at the stable. He had the reins of Barney in his hand, and had put his foot in the stirrup before he quite came to himself. "Hell!" he exploded again, and led Barney back into the stall.
Charming Billy sat down on a box and began to build a smoke; his fingers shook a great deal, so that he sifted out twice as much tobacco as he needed. He felt utterly bewildered and ashamed and sorry, and he could not think very clearly. He lighted the cigarette, smoked it steadily, pinched out the stub and rolled another before he came back to anything like calm.
Even when he could bring himself to face what had happened and what it meant, he winced mentally away from the subject. He could still feel the clinging pressure of her round, bare arms against his neck, and he once more gave his shoulders a twitch. Three cigarettes he smoked, staring at a warped board in the stall partition opposite him.
When the third was burned down to a very short stub he pinched out the fire, dropped the stab to the dirt floor and deliberately set his foot upon it, grinding it into the damp soil. It was as if he also set his foot upon something else, so grimly intent was the look on his face.
"Hell!" he said for the third time, and drew a long breath. "Well, this has got to stop right here!" He got up, took off his hat and inspected it gravely, redimpled the crown, set it upon his head a trifle farther back than usual, stuck his hands aggressively into his pockets and went back to the house. This time he did not go to the kitchen but around to the front porch, and he whistled shrilly the air of his own pet ditty that his arrival might be heralded before him.
Later, when he was sitting at the table eating a hastily prepared dinner with Mama Joy hovering near and seeming, to the raw nerves of Billy, surrounded by an atmosphere of reproach and coy invitation, he kept his eyes turned from her and ate rapidly that he might the sooner quit her presence. Flora was out riding somewhere, she told him when he asked. Dill came in and saved Billy from fleeing the place before his hunger slept, and Billy felt justified in breathing easily and in looking elsewhere than at his plate.
"I see you've been getting busy with the barbwire," he remarked, when he rose from the table and led the way out to the porch.
"Why, no. I haven't done any fencing at all, William," Dill disclaimed.
"Yuh haven't? Who's been fencing up all Montana south uh the creek, then?" Billy turned, a cigarette paper fluttering in his fingers, and eyed Dill intently.
"I believe Mr. Brown is having some fencing done. Mr. Walland stopped here to-day and said they were going to turn in a few head of cattle as soon as the field was finished."
"The dickens they are!" Billy turned away and sought a patch of shade where he might sit on the edge of the porch and dig his heels into the soft dirt. He dug industriously while he turned the matter over in his mind, then looked up a bit anxiously at Dill.
"Say, Dilly, yuh fixed up that leasing business, didn't yuh?" he inquired. "How much did yuh get hold of?"
Dill, towering to the very eaves of the porch, gazed down solemnly upon the other. "I'm afraid you will think it bad news, William. I did not lease an acre. I went, and I tried, but I discovered that others had been there before me. As you would say, they beat metoit. Mr. Brown leased all the land obtainable, as long ago as last fall."
Billy did not even say a word. He merely snapped a match short off between his thumb and forefinger and ground the pieces into the dirt with his heel. Into the sunlight that had shone placidly upon the castle he had builded in the air for Dill and for himself—yes, and for one other—crept a shadow that for the moment dimmed the whole.
"Say, Dilly, it's hell when things happen yuh haven't been looking for and can't help," he said at last, smiling a little. "I'd plumb got my sights raised to having a big chunk uh Montana land under a Double-Crank lease, but I reckon they can come down a notch. We'll come out on top—don't yuh worry none aboutthat."
"I'm not worrying at all, William. I did not expect to have everything come just as we wanted it; that, so far, has not been my experience in business—or in love." The last two words, if one might judge from the direction of his glance, were meant as pure sympathy.
Billy colored a little under the brown. "The calf-crop is running kinda short," he announced hurriedly. "A lot uh cows died off last winter, and I noticed a good many uh that young stock we shipped in laid 'em down. I was hoping we wouldn't have to take any more jolts this season—but maybe I've got more nerves than sense on this land business. I sure do hate to see old Brown cutting in the way he's doing—but if he just runs what cattle he can keep under fence, it won't hurt us none."
"He's fencing a large tract, William—a very large tract. It takes in—"
"Oh, let up, Dilly! I don't want to know how big it is—not right now. I'm willing to take my dose uh bad medicine when it's time for it—but I ain't none greedy about swallowing the whole bottle at once! I feel as if I'd got enough down me to do for a while."
"You are wiser than most people," Dill observed dryly.
"Oh, sure. Say, if I don't see Flora—I'm going to hike back to camp pretty quick—you tell her I'm going to try and pull in close enough to take in that dance at Hardup, the Fourth. I heard there was going to be one. We can't get through by then, and I may not show up at the ranch, but I'll sure be at the dance. I—I'm in a hurry, and I've got to go right now." Which he did, and his going savored strongly of flight.
Dill, looking after him queerly, turned and saw Mama Joy standing in the doorway. With eyes that betrayed her secret she, too, was looking after Billy.
"There is something more I wanted to say to William," explained Dill quite unnecessarily, and went striding down the path after him. When he reached the stable, however, he did not have anything in particular to say—or if he had, he refrained from disturbing Billy, who was stretched out upon a pile of hay in one of the stalls.
"My hoss ain't through eating, yet," said Billy, lifting his head like a turtle. "I'm going, pretty soon. I sure do love a pile uh fresh hay."
Their eyes met understandingly, and Dill shook his head.
"Too bad—too bad!" he said gravely.
The wagons of the Double-Crank had stopped to tarry over the Fourth at Fighting Wolf Spring, which bubbles from under a great rock in a narrow "draw" that runs itself out to a cherry-masked point halfway up the side of Fighting Wolf Butte. Billy, with wisdom born of much experience in the ways of a round-up crew when the Fourth of July draws near, started his riders at day-dawn to rake all Fighting Wolf on its southern side. "Better catch up your ridge-runners," he had cautioned, "because I'll set yuh plumb afoot if yuh don't." The boys, knowing well his meaning and that the circle that day would be a big one over rough country, saddled their best horses and settled themselves to a hard day's work.
Till near noon they rode, and branded after dinner to the tune of much scurrying and bawling and a great deal of dust and rank smoke, urged by the ever-present fear that they would not finish in time. But their leader was fully as anxious as they and had timed the work so that by four o'clock the herd was turned loose, the fires drenched with water and the branding irons put away.
At sundown the long slope from Fighting Wolf Spring was dotted for a space with men, fresh-shaven, clean-shirted and otherwise rehabilitated, galloping eagerly toward Hardup fifteen miles away. That they had been practically in the saddle since dawn was a trifle not to be considered; they would dance until another dawn to make up for it.
Hardup, decked meagrely in the colors that spell patriotism, was unwontedly alive and full of Fourth of July noises. But even with the distraction of a holiday and a dance just about to start and the surrounding country emptied of humans into the town, the clatter of the Double-Crank outfit—fifteen wiry young fellows hungry for play—brought men to the doors and into the streets.
Charming Billy, because his eagerness was spiced with expectancy, did not stop even for a drink, but made for the hotel. At the hotel he learned that his "crowd" was over at the hall, and there he hurried so soon as he had removed the dust and straightened his tie and brushed his hair and sworn at his upstanding scalp-lock, in the corner of the hotel office dedicated to public cleanliness.
It was a pity that such single-hearted effort must go unrewarded, but the fact remains that he reached the hall just as the couples were promenading for the first waltz. He was permitted the doubtful pleasure of a welcoming nod from Flora as she went by with the Pilgrim. Dill was on the floor with Mama Joy, and at a glance he saw how it was; the Pilgrim had "butted in" and come along with them. He supposed Flora really could not help it, but it was pretty hard lines, all the same. For even in the range-land are certain rules of etiquette which must be observed when men and women foregather in the pursuit of pleasure. Billy remembered ruefully how a girl must dance first, last, and oftenest with her partner of the evening, and must eat supper with him besides, whether she likes or not; to tweak this rule means to insult the man beyond forgiveness.
"Well, it wouldn't hurt me none if Floradidcut him off short," Billy concluded, his eyes following them resentfully whenever they whirled down to his end of the room. "The way I've got it framed up, I'd spoke for her first—if Dilly told her what I said."
Still, what he thought privately did not seem to have much effect upon realities. Flora he afterward saw intermittently while they danced a quadrille together, and she made it plain that she had not considered Billy as her partner; how could she, when he was trailing around over the country with the round-up, and nobody knew whether he would come or not? No, Mr. Walland did not come to the ranch so very often. She added naïvely that he was awfully busy. He had ridden in with them—and why not? Was there any reason—
Billy, though he could think of reasons in plenty, turned just then to balance on the corner and swing, and to do many other senseless things at the behest of the man on the platform, so that when they stood together again for a brief space, both were breathless and she was anxiously feeling her hair and taking out side combs and putting them back again, and Billy felt diffident about interrupting her and said no more about who was her partner.
An hour or so later he was looking about for her, meaning to dance with her again, when a man pushed him aside hurriedly and went across the floor and spoke angrily to another. Billy, moving aside so that he could see, discovered Flora standing up with the Pilgrim for the dance in another "set" that was forming. The man who had jostled him was speaking to them angrily, but Billy could not catch the words.
"He's drunk," called the Pilgrim to the floor manager. "Put him out!"
Several men left their places and rushed over to them. Because Flora was there and likely to be involved, Billy reached them first.
"This wasmydance!" the fellow was expostulating. "She promised it to me."
"Aw, he's drunk," repeated the Pilgrim, turning to Billy. "It's Gus Svenstrom. He's got it in for me because I fired him last week. Throw him out! Miss Bridger isn't going to dance with a drunken stiff like him."
"Oh, I'll go—I ain't so drunk I've got to be carried!" retorted the other, and pushed his way angrily through the crowd.
Flora had kept her place. Though the color had gone from her cheeks, she seemed to have no intention of quitting the quadrille, so there was nothing for Billy to do but get off the floor and leave her to her partner. He went out after the Swede, and, seeing him headed for the saloon across from the hotel, followed aimlessly. He was not quite comfortable in the hall, anyway, for he had caught Mama Joy eying him strangely, and he thought she was wondering why he had not asked her to dance.
Charming Billy was not by nature a diplomat; it never once occurred to him that he would better treat Mama Joy as if that half minute in the kitchen had never been. He had said good evening to her when he first met her that evening, and he considered his duty done. He did not want to dance with her, and that was, in his opinion, an excellent reason for not doing so. He did not like to have her watching him with those big, round, blue eyes of hers, so he stayed in the saloon for a while and only left it to go to supper when some one said that the dance crowd was over there. There might be some chance that would permit him to eat with Flora.
There are moments in a town when, even with many people coming and going, one may look and see none. When Billy closed the door of the saloon behind him and started across to the hotel, not a man did he see, though there was sound in plenty from the saloons and the hotel and the hall. He was nearly half across the street when two men came into sight and met suddenly just outside a window of the hotel. Billy, in the gloom of starlight and no moon, could not tell who they were; he heard a sharp sentence or two, saw them close together, heard a blow. Then they broke apart and there was the flash of a shot. One man fell and the other whirled about as if he would run, but Billy was then almost upon them and the man turned back and stood looking down at the fallen figure.
"Damn him, he pulled a knife on me!" he cried defensively. Billy saw that it was the Pilgrim.
"Who is he?" he asked, and knelt beside the form. The man was lying just where the lamp-light streamed out from the window, but his face was in shadow. "Oh, it's that Swede," he added, and rose. "I'll get somebody; I believe he's dead." He left the Pilgrim standing there and hurried to the door of the hotel office.
In any other locality a shot would have brought on the run every man who heard it; but in a "cow-town," especially on a dance night, shots are as common as shouts. In Hardup that night there had been periodical outbursts which no one, not even the women, minded in the least.
So it was not until Billy opened the door, put his head in, and cried: "Come alive! A fellow's been shot, right out here," that there was a stampede for the door.
The Pilgrim still stood beside the other, waiting. Three or four stooped over the man on the ground. Billy was one of them.
"He pulled a gun on me," explained the Pilgrim. "I was trying to take it away from him, and it went off."
Billy stood up, and, as he did so, his foot struck against a revolver lying beside the Swede. He looked at the Pilgrim queerly, but he did not say anything. They were lifting the Swede to carry him into the office; they knew that he was dead, even before they got him into the light.
"Somebody better get word to the coroner," said the Pilgrim, fighting for self-control. "It was self-defense. My God, boys, I couldn't help it! He pulled a gun on me. Yuh saw it on the ground there, right where he dropped it."
Billy turned clear around and looked again at the Pilgrim, and the Pilgrim met his eyes defiantly before he turned away.
"I understood yuh to say it was a knife," he remarked slowly.
The Pilgrim swung back again. "I didn't—or, if I did, I was rattled. It was a gun—that gun on the ground. He met me there and started a row and said he'd fix me. He pulled his gun, and I made a grab for it and it went off. That's all there is to it." He stared hard at Billy.
There was much talk among the men, and several told how they had heard the Swede "cussing" Walland in the saloon that evening. Some remembered threats—the threats which a man will foolishly make when he is pouring whisky down his throat by the glassful. No one seemed to blame Walland in the least, and Billy felt that the Pilgrim was in a fair way to become something of a hero. It is not every man who has the nerve to grab a gun with which he is threatened.
They made a cursory search of the Pilgrim and found that he was not armed, and he was given to understand that he would be expected to stay around town until the coroner came and "sat" on the case. But he was treated to drinks right and left, and when Billy went to find Flora the Pilgrim was leaning heavily upon the bar with a glass in his hand and his hat far back on his head, declaiming to the crowd that he was perfectly harmless so long as he was left alone. But he wasn't safe to monkey with, and any man who came at him hunting trouble would sure get all he wanted and then some. He said he didn't kill people if he could help it—but a man was plumb obliged to, sometimes.
"I'm sure surprised to think I got off with m' life, last winter, when I hazed him away from line-camp; I guess I must uh had a close call, all right!" Billy snorted contemptuously and shut the door upon the wordy revelation of the Pilgrim's deep inner nature which had been until that night carefully hidden from an admiring world.
The dance stopped abruptly with the killing; people were already going home. Billy, with the excuse that he would be wanted at the inquest, hunted up Jim Bleeker, gave him charge of the round-up for a few days, and told him what route to take. For himself, he meant to ride home with Flora or know the reason why.
"Come along, Dilly, and let's get out uh town," he urged, when he had found him. "It's a kinda small burg, and at the rate the Pilgrim is swelling up over what he done, there won't be room for nobody but him in another hour. He's making me plumb nervous and afraid to be around him, he's so fatal."
"We'll go at once, William. Walland is drinking a great deal more than he should, but I don't think he means to be boastful over so unfortunate an affair. Do you think you are taking an altogether unprejudiced view of the matter? Our judgment," he added deprecatingly, "is so apt to be warped by our likes and dislikes."
"Well, if that was the case here," Billy told him shortly, "I've got dislike enough for him to wind my judgment up like a clock spring. I'll go see if Flora and her mother are ready." In that way he avoided discussing the Pilgrim, for Dill was not so dull that he failed to take the hint.
The inquest resulted to the satisfaction of those who wished well to the Pilgrim, for it cleared him of all responsibility for the killing. Gus Svenstrom had been drunk; he had been heard to make threats; he had been the aggressor in the trouble at the dance; and the Pilgrim, in the search men had made immediately after the shooting, had been found unarmed. The case was very plainly one of self-defense.
Billy, when questioned, repeated the Pilgrim's first words to him—that the Swede had pulled a knife; and told the jury, on further questioning, that he had not seen any gun on the ground until after he had gone for help.
Walland explained satisfactorily to the jury. He may have said knife instead of gun. He had heard some one say that the Swede carried a knife, and he had been expecting him to draw one. He was rattled at first and hardly knew what he did say. He did not remember saying it was a knife, but it was possible that he had done so. As to Billy's not seeing any gun at first—they did not question the Pilgrim about that, because Billy in his haste and excitement could so easily overlook an object on the ground. They gave a verdict of self-defense without any discussion, and the Pilgrim continued to be something of a hero among his fellows.
Billy, as soon as the thing was over, mounted in not quite the best humor and rode away to join his wagons. He had not ridden to the Double-Crank to hear Flora talk incessantly of Mr. Walland, and repeat many times the assertion that she did not see how, under the circumstances, he could avoid killing the man. Nor had he gone to watch Mama Joy dimple and frown by turns and give him sidelong glances which made him turn his head quickly away. He hated to admit to himself how well he understood her. He did not want to be rude, but he had no desire to flirt with her, and it made him rage inwardly to realize how young and pretty she really was, and how, if it were not for Flora, he might so easily be tempted to meet her at least halfway. She could not be more than four or five years older than Flora, and in her large, blonde way she was quite as alluring. Billy wished profanely that she had gone to Klondyke with her husband, or that Bridger had known enough about women to stay at home with a wife as young as she.
He was glad in his heart when came the time to go. Maybe she would get over her foolishness by the time he came in with the round-up. At any rate, the combination at the ranch did not tempt him to neglect his business, and he galloped down the trail without so much as looking back to see if Flora would wave—possibly because he was afraid he might catch the flutter of a handkerchief in fingers other than hers.
It was when the round-up was on its way in that Billy, stopping for an hour in Hardup, met Dill in the post office.
"Why, hello, Dilly!" he cried, really glad to see the tall, lank form come shambling in at the door. "I didn't expect to see yuh off your own ranch. Anybody dead?" It struck him that Dill looked a shade more melancholy than was usual, even for him.
"Why, no, William. Every one is well—very well indeed. I only rode in after the mail and a few other things. I'm always anxious for my papers and magazines, you know. If you will wait for half an hour—you are going home, I take it?"
"That's where I'm sure headed, and we can ride out together, easy as not. We're through for a couple uh weeks or so, and I'm hazing the boys home to bust a few hosses before we strike out again. I guess I'll just keep the camp running down by the creek. Going to be in town long enough for me to play a game uh pool?"
"I was going right out again, but there's no particular hurry," said Dill, looking over his letters. "Were you going to play with some one in particular?"
"No—just the first gazabo I could rope and lead up to the table," Billy told him, sliding off the counter where he had been perched.
"I wouldn't mind a game myself," Dill observed, in his hesitating way.
In the end, however, they gave up the idea and started for home; because two men were already playing at the only table in Hardup, and they were in no mind to wait indefinitely.
Outside the town, Dill turned gravely to the other, "Did you say you were intending to camp down by the creek, William?" he asked slowly.
"Why, yes. Anything against it?" Billy's eyes opened a bit wider that Dill should question so trivial a thing.
"Oh, no—nothing at all." Dill cleared his throat raspingly. "Nothing at all—so long as there is any creek to camp beside."
"I reckon you've got something to back that remark. Has the creek went and run off somewhere?" Billy said, after a minute of staring.
"William, I have been feeling extremely ill at ease for the past week, and I have been very anxious for a talk with you. Eight days ago the creek suddenly ran dry—so dry that one could not fill a tin dipper except in the holes. I observed it about noon, when I led my horse down to water. I immediately saddled him and rode up the creek to discover the cause." He stopped and looked at Billy steadily.
"Well, I reckon yuh found it," Billy prompted impatiently.
"I did. I followed the creek until I came to the ditch Mr. Brown has been digging. I found that he had it finished and was filling it from the creek in order to test it. I believe," he added dryly, "he found the result very satisfying—to himself. The ditch carried the whole creek without any trouble, and there was plenty of room at the top for more!"
"Hell!" said Billy, just as Dill knew he would say. "But he can't take out any more than his water-right calls for," he added. "Yuh got a water right along with the ranch, didn't yuh say?"
"I got three—the third, fourth, and fifth. I have looked into the matter very closely in the last week. I find that we can have all the water there is—after Brown gets through. His rights are the first and second, and will cover all the water the creek will carry, if he chooses to use them to the limit. I suspect he was looking for some sort of protest from me, for he had the papers in his pocket and showed them to me. I afterward investigated, as I said, and found the case to be exactly as I have stated."
Billy stared long at his horse's ears. "Well, he can't use the whole creek," he said at last, "not unless he just turned it loose to be mean, and I don't believe he can waste water even if he does hold the rights. We can mighty quick put a stop to that. Do yuh know anything about injunctions? If yuh don't, yuh better investigate 'em a lot—because I don't know a damn' thing about the breed, and we're liable to need 'em bad."
"I believe I may truthfully say that I understand the uses—and misuses—of injunctions, William. In the East they largely take the place of guns as fighting weapons, and I think I may say without boasting that I can hit the bull's-eye with them as well as most men. But suppose Mr. Brownusesthe water? Suppose there is none left to turn back into the creek channel when he is through? He has a large force of men at work running laterals from the main ditch, which carries the water up and over the high land, and I took the liberty of following his lines of stakes. As you would put it, William, he seems about to irrigate the whole of northern Montana; certainly his stakes cover the whole creek bottom, both above and below the main ditch, and also the bench land above."
"Hell! Anything else?"
"I believe not—except that he has completed his fencing and has turned in a large number of cattle. I say completed, though strictly speaking he has not. He has completed the great field south of the creek and east of us. But Mr. Walland was saying that Brown intends to fence a tract to the north of us, either this fall or early in the spring. I know to a certainty that he has a good many sections leased there. I tried to obtain some of it last spring and could not." Into the voice of Dill had crept a note of discouragement.
"Well, don't yuh worry none, Dilly. I'm here to see yuh pull out on top, and you'll do it, too. You're a crackerjack when it comes to the fine points uh business, and I sure savvy the range end uh the game, so between us we ought to make good, don't yuh think? You just keep your eye on Brown, and if yuh can slap him in the face with an injunction or anything, don't yuh get a sudden attack uh politeness and let him slide. I'll look after the cow brutes myself—and if I ain't good for it, after all these years, I ought to be kicked plumb off the earth. The time has gone by when we could ride over there and haze his bunch clear out uh the country on a high lope, with our six guns backing our argument. I kinda wish," he added pensively, "wehadn'tgot so damn' decent and law-abiding. We could get action a heap more speedy and thorough with a dozen or fifteen buckaroos that liked to fight and had lots uh shells and good hosses. Why, I could have the old man's bunch shoveling dirt into that ditch to beat four aces, in about fifteen minutes, if—"
"But, as you say," Dill cut in anxiously, "we are decent and law-abiding, and such a procedure is quite out of the question."
"Aw, I ain't meditating no moonlight attack, Dilly—but the boys would sure love to do it if I told 'em to get busy, and I reckon we could make a better job of it than forty-nine injunctions and all kinds uh law sharps."
"Careful, William. I used to be a 'law sharp' myself," protested Dill, pulling his face into a smile. "And I must own I feel anxious over this irrigation project of Brown's. He is going to work upon a large scale—averylarge scale—for a private ranch. You have made it plain to me, William, how vitally important a wide, unsettled country is to successful cattle raising; and since then I have thought deeply upon the subject. I feel sure that Mr. Brown isnotgoing to start a cattle ranch."
"If he ain't, then what—"
"I am not prepared at present to make a statement, even to you, William. I never enjoyed recanting. But one thing I may say. Mr. Brown has so far kept well within his legal rights, and we have no possible ground for protest. So you see, perhaps we would better turn our entire attention to our own affairs."
"Sure. I got plenty uh troubles uh my own," Billy agreed, more emphatically than he intended.
Dill looked at him hesitatingly. "Mrs. Bridger," he observed slowly, "has received news that her husband is seriously ill. There will not be another boat going north until spring, so that it will be impossible for her to go to him. I am extremely sorry." Then, as if that statement seemed to him too bald, in view of the fact that they had never discussed Mama Joy, he added, "It is very hard for Flora. The letter held out little hope of recovery."
Billy, though he turned a deep red and acquired three distinct creases between his eyebrows, did not even make use of his favorite expletive. After a while he said irritably that a man was a damn fool to go off like that and leave a wife—and family—behind him. He ought either to stay at home or take them with him.
He did not mean that he wished her father had taken Flora to Klondyke, though he openly implied that he wished Mama Joy had gone. He knew he was inconsistent, but he also knew—and there was comfort as well as discomfort in the knowledge—that Dill understood him very well.
It seemed to Billy, in the short time that the round-up crew was camped by the creek, that no situation could be more intolerable than the one he must endure. He could not see Flora without having Mama Joy present also—or if he did find Flora alone, Mama Joy was sure to appear very shortly. If he went near the house there was no escaping her. And when he once asked Flora to ride with him he straightway discovered that Mama Joy had developed a passion for riding and went along. Flora had only time to murmur a rapid sentence or two while Mama Joy was hunting her gloves.
"Mama Joy has been taking theLadies' Home Journal" she said ironically, "and she has been converted to the idea that a girl must never be trusted alone with a man. I've acquired a chaperon now! Have you begun to study diplomacy yet, Billy Boy?"
"Does she chapyron yuh this fervent when the Pilgrim's the man?" countered Billy resentfully.
He did not get an answer, because Mama Joy found her gloves too soon, but he learned his lesson and did not ask Flora to ride with him again. Nevertheless, he tried surreptitiously to let her know the reason and so prevent any misunderstanding.
He knew that Flora was worrying over her father, and he would like to have cheered her all he could; but he had no desire to cheer Mama Joy as well—he would not even give her credit for needing cheer. So he stayed away from them both and gave his time wholly to the horse-breaking and to affairs in general, and ate and slept in camp to make his avoidance of the house complete.
Sometimes, of a night when he could not sleep, he wondered why it is that one never day-dreams unpleasant obstacles and disheartening failures into one's air castles. Why was it that, just when it had seemed to him that his dream was miraculously come true; when he found himself complete master of the Double-Crank where for years he had been merely one of the men; when the One Girl was also settled indefinitely in the household he called his home; when he knew she liked him, and had faith to believe he could win her to something better than friendship—all these good things should be enmeshed in a tangle of untoward circumstances?
Why must he be compelled to worry over the Double-Crank, that had always seemed to him a synonym for success? Why must his first and only love affair be hampered by an element so disturbing as Mama Joy? Why, when he had hazed the Pilgrim out of his sight—and as he supposed, out of his life—must the man hover always in the immediate background, threating the peace of mind of Billy, who only wanted to be left alone that he and his friends might live unmolested in the air castle of his building?
One night, just before they were to start out again gathering beef for the shipping season, Billy thought he had solved the problem—philosophically, if not satisfactorily. "I guess maybe it's just one uh the laws uh nature that you're always bumping into," he decided. "It's a lot like draw-poker. Yah can't get dealt out to yuh the cards yuh want, without getting some along with 'em that yuh don't want. What gets me is, I don't see how in thunder I'm going to ditch m' discard. If I could just turn 'em face down on the table and count 'em out uh the game—old Brown and his fences and his darn ditch, and that dimply blonde person and the Pilgrim—oh, hell! Wouldn't we rake in the stakes if I could?"
Straightway Billy found another element added to the list of disagreeables—or, to follow his simile, another card was dealt him which he would like to have discarded, but which he must keep in his hand and play with what skill he might. He was not the care-free Charming Billy Boyle who had made prune pie for Flora Bridger in the line-camp. He looked older, and there were chronic creases between his eyebrows, and it was seldom that he asked tunefully