his worn, gray hat; and he was thinking irrelevantly how a condemned
man must feel when they come to him in his cell and in formal words
read aloud his death-warrant. One sentence was beating monotonously
in his brain: "It is the range--and you, William, and those like
you--that must go." It was not a mere loss of dollars or of cattle or
even of hopes; it was the rending, the tearing from him of a life
he loved; it was the taking of the range--land--the wide, beautiful,
weather-worn land--big and grand in its freedom of all that was
narrow and sordid, and it was cutting and scarring it, harnessing it
to the petty uses of a class he despised with all the frank egotism
of a man who loves his own outlook; giving it over to the "nester"
and the "rube" and burying the sweet-smelling grasses with plows. It
was--he could not, even in the eloquence of his utter despair, find
words for all it meant to him.

"I should, of course, leave the details to you, so far as getting the
most out of the stock is concerned. I have been thinking of this for
some little time, and your report of range conditions merely confirms
my own judgment. If you think we would better sell at once--"

"I'd let 'em go till fall," said Billy lifelessly, snapping the
splinter back into place and reaching absently for his tobacco and
papers. "They're bound to pick up a lot--and what's left is mostly
big, husky steers that'll make prime beef. With decent prices yuh
ought to pull clear uh what yuh owe Brown, and have a little left. I
didn't make anything like a count; they was so thin I handled 'em as
light as I could and get the calves branded--what few there was. But I
feel tolerable safe in saying you can round up six--well, between six
and seven thousand head. At a fair price yuh ought to pull clear."

"Well, after dinner--"

"I can't stay for dinner, Dilly. I--there's--I've got to ride over
here a piece--I'll catch up a fresh hoss and start right off. I--" He
went rather hurriedly after his rope, as hurriedly caught the horse
that was handiest and rode away at a lope. But he did not go so very
far. He just galloped over the open range to a place where, look where
he might, he could not see a fence or sign of habitation (and it
wrung the heart of him that he must ride into a coulée to find such
a place), got down from his horse and lay a long, long while in the
grass with his hat pulled over his face.

For the first time in years the Fourth of July saw Billy in camp and
in his old clothes. He had not hurried the round-up--on the contrary
he had been guilty of dragging it out unnecessarily by all sorts of
delays and leisurely methods--simply because he hated to return to the
ranch and be near Flora. The Pilgrim he meant to settle with, but he
felt that he could wait; he hadn't much enthusiasm even for a fight,
these days.

But, after all, he could not consistently keep the wagons forever on
the range, so he camped them just outside the pasture fence; which
was far enough from the house to give him some chance of not being
tormented every day by the sight of her, and yet was close enough
for all practical purposes. And here it was that Dill came with fresh
news.

"Beef is falling again, William," he announced when he had Billy quite
to himself. "Judging from present indications, it will go quite as low
as last fall--even lower, perhaps. If it does, I fail to see how we
can ship with any but disastrous financial results."

"Well, what yuh going to do, then?" Billy spoke more irritably than
would have been possible a year ago. "Yuh can't winter again and come
out with anything but another big loss. Yuh haven't even got hay to
feed what few calves there is. And, as I told yuh, the way the fences
are strung from hell to breakfast, the stock's bound to die off like
poisoned flies every storm that comes."

"I have kept that in mind, William. I saw that I should be quite
unable to make a payment this fall, so I went to Mr. Brown to make
what arrangements I could. To be brief, William, Brown has offered to
buy back this place and the stock, on much the same terms he offered
me. I believe he wants to put this section of land under irrigation
from his ditch and exploit it with the rest; the cattle he can
turn into his immense fields until they can be shipped at a profit.
However, that is not our affair and need not concern us.

"He will take the stock as they run, at twenty-one dollars a head.
If, as you estimate, there are somewhere in the neighborhood of
six thousand, that will dear me of all indebtedness and leave a few
thousands with which to start again--at something more abreast of the
times, I hope. I am rather inclined to take the offer. What do you
think of it, William?"

"I guess yuh can't do any better. Twenty-one dollars a head as they
run--and everything else thrown in, uh course?"

"That is the way I bought it, yes," said Dill.

"Well, we ought to scare up six thousand, if we count close. I know
old Brown fine; he'll hold yuh right down t' what yuh turn over, and
he'll tally so close he'll want to dock yuh if a critter's shy one
horn--damn him. That's why I was wishing you'd bought that way,
instead uh lumping the price and taking chances. Only, uh course, I
knew just about what was on the range."

"Then I will accept the offer. I have been merely considering it until
I saw you. And perhaps it will be as well to go about it immediately."

"It's plenty early," objected Billy. "I was going to break some more
hosses for the saddle-bunch--but I reckon I'll leave 'em now for Brown
to bust. And for _God_-sake, Dilly, once yuh get wound up here, go
on back where yuh come from. If the range is going--and they's no use
saying it ain't--this ain't going to be no place for any white man."
Which was merely Billy's prejudice speaking.

CHAPTER XXI.

_The End of the Double-Crank._

Dill himself rode on that last round-up. Considering that it was all
new to him, he made a remarkably good record for himself among the
men, who were more than once heard to remark that "Dill-pickle's sure
making a hand!" Wherever Billy went--and in those weeks Billy rode
and worked with a feverish intensity that was merely a fight against
bitter thinking--Dill's stirrup clacked close alongside. He was
silent, for the most part, but sometimes he talked reminiscently
of Michigan and his earlier life there. Seldom did he refer to the
unhappy end of the Double-Crank, or to the reason why they were riding
from dawn to dusk, sweeping together all the cattle within the wide
circle of riders and later cutting out every Double-Crank animal and
holding them under careful herd.

Even when they went with the first twelve hundred and turned them over
to Brown and watched his careful counting, Dill made no comment upon
the reason for it beyond one sentence. He read the receipt over slowly
before laying it methodically in the proper compartment of his long
red-leather book, and drew his features into his puckered imitation of
a smile. "Mr. Brown has counted just twenty-one dollars more into my
pocket than I expected," he remarked. "He tallied one more than you
did, William. I ought to hold that out of your wages, young man."

Rare as were Dill's efforts at joking, even this failed to bring more
than a slight smile to the face of Charming Billy Boyle. He was trying
to look upon it all as a mere incident, a business matter, pure and
simple, but he could not. While he rode the wide open reaches, there
rode with him the keen realization that it was the end. For him the
old life on the range was dead--for had not Dill made him see it so?
And did not every raw-red fencepost proclaim anew its death? For
every hill and every coulée he buried something of his past and wept
secretly beside the grave. For every whiff of breakfast that mingled
with the smell of clean air in the morning came a pang of homesickness
for what would soon be only a memory.

He was at heart a dreamer--was Charming Billy Boyle; perhaps an
idealist--possibly a sentimentalist. He had never tried to find a name
for the side of his life that struck deepest. He knew that the
ripple of a meadow-lark swinging on a weed against the sunrise, with
diamond-sparkles all on the grass around, gripped him and hurt him
vaguely with its very sweetness. He knew that he loved to sit alone
and look away to a far skyline and day-dream. He had always known
that, for it had been as much a part of his life as sleeping.

So now it was as if a real, tangible shadow lay on the range. He could
see it always lengthening before him, and always he must ride within
its shade. After a while it would grow quite black, and the range and
the cattle and the riding over hills and into coulées untamed would
all be blotted out; dead and buried deep in the past, and with the
careless, plodding feet of the plowman trampling unthinkingly upon
the grave. It was a tragedy to Charming Billy Boyle; it was as if the
range-land were a woman he loved well, and as if civilization were the
despoiler, against whom he had no means of defense.

All this--and besides, Flora. He had not spoken to her for two months.
He had not seen her even, save for a passing glimpse now and then at
a distance. He had not named her to any man, or asked how she did--and
yet there had not been an hour when he had not longed for her. She
had told him she would marry the Pilgrim (she had _not_ said that, but
Billy in his rage had so understood her) and that he could not stop
her. He wouldn't _try_ to stop her. But he would one day settle with
the Pilgrim--settle to the full. And he wanted her--_wanted_ her!

They had taken the third herd in to Brown, and were back on the range;
Billy meaning to make a last sweep around the outer edges and gather
in what was left--the stragglers that had been missed before. There
would not be many, he knew from experience; probably not more than a
hundred or two all told, even with Billy anxious to make the count as
large as possible.

He was thinking about it uneasily and staring out across the wide
coulée to the red tumble of clouds, that had strange purples and grays
and dainty violet shades here and there. Down at the creek Dill was
trying to get a trout or two more before it grew too dark for them
to rise to the raw beef he was swishing through the riffle, and an
impulse to have the worst over at once and be done drove Billy down to
interrupt.

"Yuh won't get any more there," he said, by way of making speech.

"I just then had a bite, William," reproved Dill, and swung the bait
in a wide circle for another awkward cast. He was a persistent soul,
was Dill, when once he got started in a given direction.

Billy, dodging the red morsel of meat, sat down on a grassy hummock.
"Aw, come and set down, Dilly," he urged wearily. "I want to tell yuh
something."

"If it's about the cook being out of evaporated cream, William, I have
already been informed twice. Ah-h! I almost had one then!"

"Aw, thunder! yuh think I'm worrying over canned cream? What I want
to say may not be more important, but when yuh get fishing enough I'll
say it anyhow." He watched Dill moodily, and then lifted his eyes to
stare at the gorgeous sky--as though there would be no more sunsets
when the range-life was gone, and he must needs fill well his memory
for the barren years ahead.

When Dill flopped a six-inch trout against his ear, so steeped was he
in bitterness that he merely said, "Aw, hell!" wearily and hunched
farther along on the hummock.

"I really beg your pardon, William. From the vicious strike he made, I
was convinced that he weighed at least half a pound, and exerted more
muscular force than was quite necessary. When one hasn't a reel it is
impossible to play them properly, and it is the first quick pull that
one must depend upon. I'm very sorry--"

"Sure. Don't mention it, Dilly. Say, how many cattle have yuh got
receipts for, to date--if it ain't too much trouble?"

"No trouble at all, William. I have an excellent memory for figures.
Four thousand, three hundred and fifteen. Ah-h! See how instinct
inspires him to flop always toward the water! Did you ever--"

"Well, yes, I've saw a fish flop toward the water once or twicet
before now. It sure is a great sight, Dilly!" He did not understand
Dill these days, and wondered a good deal at his manifest indifference
to business cares. It never occurred to him that Dill, knowing quite
well how hard the trouble pressed upon his foreman, was only trying
in his awkward way to lighten it by not seeming to think it worth
worrying over.

"I hate to mention trifles at such a time, Dilly, but I thought maybe
yuh ought to know that we won't be able to scare up more than a couple
uh hundred more cattle, best we can do. We're bound to fall a lot
short uh what I estimated--and I ain't saying nothing about the
fine job uh guessing I done! If we bring the total up to forty-five
hundred, we'll do well."

Dill took plenty of time to wind the line around his willow pole. "To
use your own expressive phraseology, William," he said, when he had
quite finished and had laid the pole down on the bank, "that will
leave me in one hell-of-a-hole!"

"That's what I thought," Billy returned apathetically.

"Well, I must take these up to the cook." Dill held up the four fish
he had caught. "I'll think the matter over, William, and I thank you
for telling me. Of course you will go on and gather what there are."

"Sure," agreed Billy tonelessly, and followed Dill back to camp and
went to bed.

At daybreak it was raining, and Billy after the manner of cowboys
slept late; for there would be no riding until the weather cleared,
and there being no herd to hold, there would be none working save the
horse-wrangler, the night-hawk and cook. It was the cook who handed
him a folded paper and a sealed envelope when he did finally appear
for a cup of coffee. "Dill-pickle left 'em for yuh," he said.

Billy read the note--just a few lines, with a frown of puzzlement.

Dear William: Business compels my absence for a time. I hope you will
go on with your plans exactly as if I were with you. I am leaving a
power-of-attorney which will enable you to turn over the stock and
transact any other business that may demand immediate attention, in
case I am detained.

Yours truly,

Alexander P. Dill

It was queer, but Billy did not waste much time in wondering. He
rounded up the last of the Double-Cranks, drove them to Brown's
place and turned them over, with the home ranch, the horses, and camp
outfit--"made a clean sweep uh the whole damn', hoodooed works," was
the way he afterward put it. He had expected that Dill would be there
to attend to the last legal forms, but there was no sign of him or
from him. He had been seen to take the eastbound train at Tower, and
the rest was left to guessing.

"He must uh known them two-hundred odd wouldn't square the deal,"
argued Billy loyally to himself. "So uh course he'll come back and fix
it up. But what I'm to do about payin' off the boys gets me." For two
hours he worried, mentally in the dark. Then he hit upon an expedient
that pleased him. He told Brown he would need to keep a few of the
saddle-horses for a few days, and he sent the boys--those of them
who did not transfer their valuable services to Brown upon the
asking--over to the Bridger place to wait there until further orders.

Also, he rode reluctantly to the Double-Crank ranch, wondering, as he
had often done in the past few weeks, what would become of Flora and
Mama Joy. So far as he knew, they had not heard a word as to whether
Bridger was alive or dead, and if they had friends or family to whom
they might turn, he had never heard either mention them. If Dill had
been there he would have left it to him; but Dill was gone, and there
was no knowing when he would be back, and it devolved upon Billy
to make some arrangements for the women, or at the least offer
his services--and it was, under the circumstances, quite the most
unpleasant duty thus far laid upon him.

He knew they had been left there at the ranch when round-up started,
because Dill had said something about leaving a gentle horse or two
for them to ride. Whether they were still there he did not know,
although he could easily have asked Spikes, who had been given charge
of the ranch while Dill was away on the range. He supposed the Pilgrim
would be hanging around, as usual--not that it made much difference,
though, except that he hated the thought of a disagreeable scene
before the women.

He rode slowly up to the corral gate, turned his horse inside and
fastened the chain just as he had done a thousand times before--only
this would be the last time. His tired eyes went from one familiar
object to another, listlessly aware of the regret he should feel but
too utterly wearied of sorrow to feel much of anything. No one seemed
to be about, and the whole place had an atmosphere of desolation that
almost stirred him to a heartache--almost.

He went on to the house. There were some signs of life there, and some
sound. In the very doorway he met old Bridger himself, but he could
not even feel much surprise at seeing him there. He said hello, and
when he saw the other's hand stretching out to meet him, he clasped it
indifferently. Behind her husband, Mama Joy flashed at him a look he
did not try to interpret--of a truth it was rather complex, with a
little of several emotions--and he lifted his hat a half-inch from his
forehead in deference to her sex. Flora, he thanked God dully, he did
not see at all.

He stayed perhaps ten minutes listening impersonally to Bridger, who
talked loudly and enthusiastically of his plans. At the time they did
not seem to concern him at all, though they involved taking Flora and
Mama Joy away to Seattle to spend the winter, and in the spring moving
them on to some place in the North--a place that sounded strange in
the ears of Billy, and was straightway forgotten.

After that he went to his room and packed what few things he wanted;
and they were not many, because in his present mood nothing mattered
and nothing seemed to him of much value--not even life. He was more
careful of Dill's belongings, and packed everything he could find that
was his. They were not scattered, for Dill was a methodical man and
kept things in their places instinctively.

He paused over but one object--"The Essays of Elia," which had somehow
fallen behind a trunk. Standing there in the middle of Dill's room, he
turned the little blue book absently in his hand. There was dust upon
the other side, and he wiped it off, manlike, with a sweep of his
forearm. He looked at the trunk; he had just locked it with much
straining of muscles and he hated to open it again. He looked at the
book again. He seemed to see Dill slumped loosely down in the old
rocker, a slippered foot dangling before him, reading solemnly from
this same little blue book, the day he came to tell him about the
ditch, and that he must lease all the land he could--the day when the
shadow of passing first touched the range-land. At least, the day when
he had first seen it there. He turned a few leaves thoughtfully, heard
Flora's voice asking a question in the kitchen, and thrust the book
hastily into his pocket. "Dilly'll want it, I expect," he muttered. He
glanced quickly, comprehensively around him to make sure that he
had missed nothing, turned toward the open front door and went out
hurriedly, because he thought he heard a woman's step in the dining
room and he did not want to see anybody, not even Flora--least of all,
Flora!

"I'll send a rig out from town for the stuff that's ours," he called
back to Bridger, who came to the kitchen door and called after
him that he better wait and have some supper. "You'll be here till
to-morrow or next day; it ain't likely I'll be back; yuh say Dill
settled up with the--women, so--there's nothing left to do."

If he had known--but how could he know that Flora was watching him
wistfully from the front porch, when he never once looked toward the
house after he reached the stable?

CHAPTER XXII.

_Settled In Full_.

On a lonely part of the trail to town--queerly, it was when he was
rounding the low, barren hill where he and Dill had first met--he took
out his brand-book and went over the situation. It was Barney he rode,
and Barney could be trusted to pace along decorously with the reins
twisted twice around the saddle-horn, so Billy gave no thought to his
horse but put his whole mind on the figures. He was not much used
to these things; beyond keeping tally of the stock at branding and
shipping time and putting down what details of his business he dared
not trust to memory, a pencil was strange to his fingers. But the
legal phrases in the paper left by Dill and signed by the cook and
night-hawk as witnesses gave him a heavy sense of responsibility that
everything should be settled exactly right. So now he went over the
figures slowly, adding them from the top down and from the bottom up,
to make sure he had the totals correct. He wished they were wrong;
they might then be not quite so depressing.

"Lemme see, now. I turned over 4,523 head uh stock, all told (hell
of a fine job uh guessing I done! Me saying there'd be over six
thousand!) That made $94,983. And accordin' to old Brown--and I guess
he had it framed up correct--Dilly owes him $2,217 yet, instead uh
coming out with enough to start some other business. It's sure queer,
the way figures always come out little when yuh want 'em big, and big
when yuh want 'em little! Them debts now--they could stand a lot uh
shavin' down. Twelve thousand dollars and interest, to the bank--I
can't do a darn thing about them twelve thousand. If Dilly hadn't gone
and made a cast-iron agreement I coulda held old Brown up for a few
thousand more, on account uh the increase in saddle-stock. I'd worked
that bunch up till it sure was a dandy lot uh hosses--but what yuh
going to do?"

He stared dispiritedly out across the brown prairie. "I'd oughta put
Dilly next to that, only I never thought about it at the time, and
I was so dead sure the range-stuff--And there's the men, got to have
their money right away quick, so's they can hurry up and blow it in!
If Dilly ain't back to-night, or I don't hear from him, I reckon
I'll have to draw m' little old wad out uh the bank and pay the
sons-uh-guns. I sure ain't going to need it to buy dishes and rocking
chairs and pictures--and I was going t' git her a piano--oh, hell!"

He still rode slowly, after that, but he did not bother over
the figures that stood for Dilly's debts. He sat humped over the
saddle-horn like an old man and stared at the trail and at the
forefeet of Barney coming down _pluck, pluck_ with leisurely
regularity in the dust. Just so was Charming Billy Boyle trampling
down the dreams that had been so sweet in the dreaming, and leveling
ruthlessly the very foundations of the fair castle he had builded
in the air for Dill and himself--and one other, with the fairest,
highest, most secret chambers for that Other. And as he rode, the
face of him was worn and the blue eyes of him sombre and dull; and
his mouth, that had lost utterly the humorous, care-free quirk at the
corners, was bitter, and straight, and hard.

He had started out with such naïve assurance to succeed, and--he had
failed so utterly, so hopelessly, with not even a spectacular crash
to make the failing picturesque. He had done the best that was in
him, and even now that it was over he could not quite understand how
everything, _everything_ could go like that; how the Double-Crank and
Flora--how the range, even, had slipped from him. And now Dill was
gone, too, and he did not even know where, or if he would ever come
back.

He would pay the men; he had, with a surprising thrift, saved nearly
a thousand dollars in the bank at Tower. That, to be sure, was when he
had Flora to save for; since then he had not had time or opportunity
to spend it foolishly. It would take nearly every dollar; the way
he had figured it, he would have just twenty-three dollars left for
himself--and he would have the little bunch of horses he had in his
prosperity acquired for the pure love of owning a good horse. He would
sell the horses, except Barney and one to pack his bed, and he would
drift--drift just as do the range-cattle when a blizzard strikes
them in the open. Billy felt like a stray. His range was gone--gone
utterly. He would roll his bed and drift; and perhaps, somewhere, he
could find a stretch of earth as God had left it, unscarred by fence
and plow, undefiled by cabbages and sugar-beets (Brown's new settlers
were going strong on sugar-beets).

"Well, it's all over but the shouting," he summed up grimly when
Hardup came in sight. "I'll pay off the men and turn 'em loose--all
but Jim. Somebody's got to stay with the Bridger place till Dilly
shows up, seeing that's all he's got left after the clean-up. The rest
uh the debts can wait. Brown's mortgage ain't due yet" (Billy had his
own way of looking at financial matters) "and the old Siwash ain't got
any kick comin' if he never gets another cent out uh Dilly. The bank
ain't got the cards to call Dilly now, for his note ain't due till
near Christmas. So I reckon all I got to do after I pay the boys is
take m' little old twenty-three plunks, and my hosses--if I can't
sell 'em right off--and pull out for God-knows-where-and-I-don't-care-
a-damn!"

Charming Billy Boyle had done all that he had planned to do,
except that he had not yet pulled out for the place he had named
picturesquely for himself. Much as at the beginning, he was leaning
heavily upon the bar in the Hardup Saloon, and his hat was pushed back
on his head; but he was not hilarious to the point of singing about
"the young thing," and he was not, to any appreciable extent, enjoying
himself. He was merely adding what he considered the proper finishing
touch to his calamities. He was spinning silver dollars, one by one,
across the bar to the man with the near-white apron, and he was
endeavoring to get the worth of them down his throat. To be sure,
he was being assisted, now and then, by several acquaintances; but
considering the fact that a man's stomach has certain well-defined
limitations, he was doing very well, indeed.

When he had spun the twenty-third dollar to the bartender, Billy meant
to quit drinking for the present; after that, he was not quite clear
as to his intentions, farther than "forking his hoss and pulling out"
when there was no more to be done. He felt uneasily that between his
present occupation and the pulling-out process lay a duty unperformed,
but until the door swung open just as he was crying, "Come on,
fellows," he had not been able to name it.

The Pilgrim it was who entered jauntily; the Pilgrim, who had not
chanced to meet Billy once during the summer, and so was not aware
that the truce between them was ended for good and all. He knew that
Billy had not at any time been what one might call cordial, but
that last stare of displeasure when they met in the creek at
the Double-Crank, he had set down to a peevish mood. Under the
circumstances, it was natural that he should walk up to the bar with
the rest. Under the circumstances, it was also natural that Billy
should object to this unexpected and unwelcome guest, and that the
vague, unperformed duty should suddenly flash into his mind clear, and
well-defined, and urgent.

"Back up, Pilgrim," was his quiet way of making known his purpose.
"Yuh can't drink on _my_ money, old-timer, nor use a room that I'm
honoring with my presence. Just right now, I'm _here_. It's up to you
to back out--_away_ out--clean outside and across the street."

The Pilgrim did not move.

Billy had been drinking, but his brain was not of the stuff that
fuddles easily, and he was not, as the Pilgrim believed, drunk.
His eyes when he stared hard at the Pilgrim were sober eyes, sane
eyes--and something besides.

"I said it," he reminded softly, when men had quit shuffling their
feet and the room was very still.

"I don't reckon yuh know what yuh said," the Pilgrim retorted,
laughing uneasily and shifting his gaze a bit. "What they been doping
yuh with, Bill? There ain't any quarrel between you and me no more."
His tone was abominably, condescendingly tolerant, and his look was
the look which a mastiff turns wearily upon a hysterical toy-terrier
yapping foolishly at his knees. For the Pilgrim had changed much in
the past year and more during which men had respected him because
he was not considered quite safe to trifle with. According to the
reputation they gave him, he had killed a man who had tried to kill
him, and he could therefore afford to be pacific upon occasion.

Billy stared at him while he drew a long breath; a breath which seemed
to press back a tangible weight of hatred and utter contempt for the
Pilgrim; a breath while it seemed that he must kill him there and
stamp out the very semblance of humanity from his mocking face.

"Yuh don't know of any quarrel between you and me? Yuh say yuh don't?"
Billy's voice trembled a little, because of the murder-lust that
gripped him. "Well, pretty soon, I'll start in and tell yuh all about
it--maybe. Right now, I'm going t' give a new one--one that yuh can
easy name and do what yuh damn' please about." Whereupon he did as
he had done once before when the offender had been a sheepherder.
He stepped quickly to one side of the Pilgrim, emptied a glass down
inside his collar, struck him sharply across his grinning mouth, and
stepped back--back until there were eight or ten feet between them.

"That's the only way _my_ whisky can go down _your_ neck!" he said.

Men gasped and moved hastily out of range, never doubting what would
happen next. Billy himself knew--or thought he knew--and his hand was
on his gun, ready to pull it and shoot; hungry--waiting for an excuse
to fire.

The Pilgrim had given a bellow that was no word at all, and whirled
to come at Billy; met his eyes, wavered and hesitated, his gun in his
hand and half-raised to fire.

Billy, bent on giving the Pilgrim a fair chance, waited another
second; waited and saw fear creep into the bold eyes of the Pilgrim;
waited and saw the inward cringing of the man. It was like striking a
dog and waiting for the spring at your throat promised by his snarling
defiance, and then seeing the fire go from his eyes as he grovels,
cringingly confessing you his master, himself a cur.

What had been hate in the eyes of Billy changed slowly to incredulous
contempt. "Ain't that enough?" he cried disgustedly. "My God, ain't
yuh _man_ enough--Have I got to take yuh by the ear and slit your
gullet like they stick pigs--or else let yuh _go_? What _are_ yuh,
anyhow? Shall I give my gun to the bar-keep and go out where it's
dark? Will yuh be scared to tackle me then?" He laughed and watched
the yellow terror creep over the face of the Pilgrim at the taunt.
"What's wrong with your gun? Ain't it working good to-night? Ain't it
loaded?

"Heavens and earth! What else have I got to do before you'll come
alive? You've been living on your rep as a bad man to monkey with, and
pushing out your wishbone over it for quite a spell, now--why don't
yuh get busy and collect another bunch uh admiration from these
fellows? _I_ ain't no lightning-shot man! Papa Death don't roost on
the end uh my six-gun--or I never suspicioned before that he did; but
from the save-me-quick look on yuh, I believe yuh'd faint plumb away
if I let yuh take a look at the end uh my gun, with the butt-end
toward yuh!

"Honest t' God, Pilgrim, I won't try to get in ahead uh yuh! I
couldn't if I tried, because mine's at m' belt yet and I ain't so
swift. Come on! Please--_purty_ please!" Billy looked around the room
and laughed. He pointed his finger mockingly "Ain't he a peach of a
Bad Man, boys? Ain't yuh proud uh his acquaintance? I reckon I'll have
to turn my back before he'll cut loose. Yuh know, he's just aching t'
kill me--only he don't want me to know it when he does! He's afraid he
might hurt m' feelings!"

He swung back to the Pilgrim, went close, and looked at him
impertinently, his head on one side. He reached out deliberately with
his hand, and the Pilgrim ducked and cringed away. "Aw, look here!" he
whined. "_I_ ain't done nothing to yuh, Bill!"

Billy's hand dropped slowly and hung at his side.
"Yuh--damned--coward!" he gritted. "Yuh know yuh wouldn't get any
more than an even break with me, and that ain't enough for yuh. You're
afraid to take a chance. You're afraid--God!" he cried suddenly, swept
out of his mockery by the rage within. "And I can't kill yuh! Yuh
won't show nerve enough to give me a chance! Yuh won't even _fight_,
will yuh?"

He leaned and struck the Pilgrim savagely. "Get out uh my sight,
then! Get out uh town! Get clean out uh the country! Get out among the
coyotes--they're nearer your breed than men!" For every sentence there
was a stinging blow--a blow with the flat of his hand, driving the
Pilgrim back, step by step, to the door. The Pilgrim, shielding his
head with an uplifted arm, turned then and bolted out into the night.

[Illustration: FOR EVERY SENTENCE A STINGING BLOW WITH THE FLAT OF HIS
HAND.]

Behind him were men who stood ashamed for their manhood, not caring to
look straight at one another with so sickening an example before them
of the craven coward a man may be. In the doorway, Billy stood framed
against the yellow lamplight, a hand pressing hard against the casings
while he leaned and hurled curses in a voice half-sobbing with rage.

It was so that Dill found him when he came looking. When he reached
out and laid a big-knuckled hand gently on his arm, Billy shivered and
stared at him in a queer, dazed fashion for a minute.

"Why--hello, Dilly!" he said then, and his voice was hoarse and
broken. "Where the dickens did _you_ come from?"

Without a word Dill, still holding him by the arm, led him unresisting
away.

CHAPTER XXIII.

_Oh, Where Have You Been, Charming Billy?_

Presently they were in the little room which Dill had kept for himself
by the simple method of buying the shack that held it, and Billy was
drinking something which Dill poured out for him and which steadied
him wonderfully.

"If you are not feeling quite yourself, William, perhaps we would do
better to postpone our conversation until morning," Dill was saying
while he rocked awkwardly, his hands folded loosely together, his
elbows on the rocker--arms and his round, melancholy eyes regarding
Billy solemnly. "I wanted to ask how you came out--with the
Double-Crank."

"Go ahead; I'm all right," said Billy. "I aim to hit the trail by
sun-up, so we'll have our little say now." He made him a cigarette and
looked wistfully at Dill, while he felt for a match. "Go ahead. What
do yuh want to know the worst?"

"Well, I did not see Brown, and it occurred to me that after I left
you must have gathered more stock than you anticipated. I discovered
from the men that you have paid them off. I rode out there to-day, you
know. I arrived about two hours after you had left."

"You're still in the hole on the cow-business," Billy stated flatly,
as if there were no use in trying to soften the telling. "Yuh owe
Brown two thousand odd dollars. I turned in a few over two hundred
head--I've got it all down here, and yuh can see the exact figure
yourself. Yuh didn't show up, and I didn't want to hold the men and
let their time run on and nothing doing to make it pay, so I give 'em
their money and let 'em off--all but Jim Bleeker. I didn't pay him,
because I wanted him to look after things at the Bridger place till
yuh got back, and I knew if I give him any money he'd burn the earth
getting to where he could spend it. He's a fine fellow when he's
broke--Jim is."

"But I owed the men for several months' work. Where did you raise the
amount, William?" Dill cleared his throat raspingly.

"Me? Oh, I had some uh my wages saved up. I used that." It never
occurred to Billy that he had done anything out of the ordinary.

"_H-m-m!_" Dill cleared his throat again and rocked, his eyes on
Billy's moody face. "I observe, William, that--er--they are not
shipping any skates to--er--hell, yet!"

"Huh?" Billy had not been listening.

"I was saying, William, that I appreciate your fidelity to my
interests, and--"

"Oh, that's all right," Billy cut in carelessly.

"--And I should like to have you with me on a new venture I have in
mind. You probably have not heard of it here, but it is an assured
fact that the railroad company are about to build a cut-off that will
shut out Tower completely and put Hardup on the main line. In fact,
they have actually started work at the other end, and though they
are always very secretive about a thing like that, I happen to have a
friend on the inside, so that my information is absolutely authentic.
I have raised fifty thousand dollars among my good friends in
Michigan, and I intend to start a first-class general store here. I
have already bargained for ten acres of land over there on the creek,
where I feel sure the main part of the town will be situated. If you
will come in with me we will form a partnership, equal shares. It
is borrowed capital," he added hastily, "so that I am not giving you
anything, William. You will take the same risk I take, and--"

"Sorry, Dilly, but I couldn't come through. Fine counter-jumper I'd
make! Thank yuh all the same, Dilly."

"But there is the Bridger place. I shall keep that and go into
thoroughbred stock--good, middle-weight horses, I think, that will
find a ready sale among the settlers who are going to flock in here.
You could take charge there and--"

"No, Dilly, I couldn't. I--I'm thinking uh drifting down into New
Mexico. I--I want to see that country, bad."

Dill crossed his long legs the other way, let his hands drop loosely,
and stared wistfully at Billy. "I really wish I could induce you to
stay, William," he murmured.

"Well, yuh can't. I hope yuh come through better than yuh did with the
Double-Crank--but I guess it'll be some considerable time before the
towns and the gentle farmer (damn him!) are crowded to the wall by
your damn' Progress." It was the first direct protest against changing
conditions which Billy had so far put into words, and he looked sorry
for having said so much. "Oh, here's your little blue book," he added,
feeling it in his pocket. "I found it behind the trunk when everything
else was packed."

"You saw--er--you saw Bridger, then? He is going to take his wife and
Flora up North with him in the spring. It seems he has done well."

"I know--he told me."

Dill turned the leaves of the book slowly, and consciously refrained
from looking at Billy. "They were about to leave when I was there. It
is a shame. I am very sorry for Flora--she does not want to go. If--"
He cleared his throat again and guiltily pretended to be reading
a bit, here and there, and to be speaking casually. "If I were
a marrying man, I am not sure but I should make love to
Flora--h-m-m!--this 'Bachelor's Complaint' here--have you read it,
William? It is very--here, for instance--'Nothing is to me more
distasteful than the entire complacency and satisfaction which beam in
the countenances of a new-married couple'--and so on. I feel tempted
sometimes when I look at Flora--only she looks upon me as a--er--piece
of furniture--the kind that sticks out in the way and you have to feel
your way around it in the dark--awkward, but necessary. Poor girl,
she cried in the most heartbroken way when I told her we would not be
likely to see her again, and--I wonder what is the trouble between her
and Walland? They used to be quite friendly, in a way, but she has not
spoken to him, to my certain knowledge, since last spring. Whenever
he came to the ranch she would go to her room and refuse to come out
until he had left. H-m-m! Did she ever tell you, William?"

"No," snapped William huskily, smoking with his head bent and turned
away.

"I know positively that she cut him dead, as they say, at the last
Fourth-of-July dance. He asked her to dance, and she refused
almost rudely and immediately got up and danced with that boy of
Gunderson's--the one with the hair-lip. She could not have been taken
with the hair-lipped fellow--at least, I should scarcely think so.
Should you, William?"

This time William did not answer at all. Dill, watching his bent head
tenderly, puckered his face into his peculiar smile.

"H-m-m! They stopped at the hotel to-night--Bridgers, I mean. Drove
in after dark from the ranch. They mean to catch the noon train from
Tower to-morrow, Bridger told me. It will be an immense benefit,
William, when those big through-trains get to running through Hardup.
There is some talk among the powers-that-be of making this a division
point. It will develop the country wonderfully. I really feel tempted
to cut down my investment in a store for the present, and buy more
land. What do you think, William?"

"Oh, I dunno," said Billy in a let-me-alone kind of tone.

"Well, it's very late. Everybody who lays any claim to respectability
should be in his bed," Dill remarked placidly. "You say you start at
sunrise? H-m-m! You will have to call me so that I can go over to the
hotel and get the money to refund what you used of your own. I left
my cash in the hotel safe. But they will be stirring early--they will
have to get the Bridgers off, you know."

It was Dill who lay and smiled quizzically into the dark and listened
to the wide-awake breathing of the man beside him--breathing which
betrayed deep emotion held rigidly in check so far as outward movement
went. He fell asleep knowing well that the other was lying there
wide-eyed and would probably stay so until day. He had had a hard day
and had done many things, but what he had done last pleased him best.

Now this is a bald, unpolished record of the morning: Billy saw the
dawn come, and rose in the perfect silence he had learned from years
of sleeping in a tent with tired men, and of having to get up at all
hours and take his turn at night-guarding; for tired, sleeping cowboys
do not like to be disturbed unnecessarily, and so they one and all
learn speedily the Golden Rule and how to apply it. That is why Dill,
always a light sleeper, did not hear Billy go out.

Billy did not quite know what he was going to do, but habit bade him
first feed and water his horse. After that--well, he did not know.
Dill might not have things straight, or he might just be trying to
jolly him up a little, or he might be a meddlesome old granny-gossip.
What had looked dear and straight, say at three o'clock in the
morning, was at day-dawn hazy with doubt. So he led Barney down to
the creek behind the hotel, where in that primitive little place they
watered their horses.

The sun was rising redly, and the hurrying ripples were all tipped
with gold, and the sky above a bewildering, tumbled fabric of barbaric
coloring. Would the sun rise like that in New Mexico? Billy wondered,
and watched the coming of his last day here, where he had lived, had
loved, had dreamed dreams and builded castles--and had seen the dreams
change to bitterness, and the castles go toppling to ruins. He would
like to stay with Dill, for he had grown fond of the lank, whimsical
man who was like no one Billy had ever known. He would have stayed
even in the face of the change that had come to the range-land--but he
could not bear to see the familiar line of low hills which marked the
Double-Crank and, farther down, the line-camp, and know that Flora was
gone quite away from him into the North.

He caught himself back from brooding, and gave a pull at the halter
by way of hinting to Barney that he need not drink the creek entirely
dry--when suddenly he quivered and stood so still that he scarcely
breathed.

     "Oh, where have you been, Billy boy, Billy boy?
     Oh, where have you been, charming Billy?"

Some one at the top of the creek-bank was singing it; some one with an
exceedingly small, shaky little voice that was trying to be daring and
mocking and indifferent, and that was none of these things--but only
wistful and a bit pathetic.

Charming Billy, his face quite pale, turned his head cautiously as
though he feared too abrupt a glance would drive her away, and looked
at her standing there with her gray felt hat tilted against the sun,
flipping her gloves nervously against her skirt. She was obviously
trying to seem perfectly at ease, but her eyes were giving the lie to
her manner.

Billy tried to smile, but instead his lips quivered and his eyes
blinked.

     "I have been to see my wife--"

he began to sing gamely, and stuck there, because something came up
in his throat and squeezed his voice to a whisper. By main strength
he pulled Barney away from the gold-tipped ripples, and came stumbling
over the loose rocks.

She watched him warily, half-turned, ready to run away. "We--I--aren't
you going to be nice and say good-by to me?"

He came on, staring at her and saying nothing.

"Well, if you still want to sulk--I wouldn't be as nasty as that,
and--and hold a grudge the way you do--and I was going to be nice and
forgiving; but if you don't care, and don't want--"

By this time he was close--quite close. "Yuh know I care! And yuh know
I want--_you_. Oh, girlie, girlie!"

The colors had all left the sky, save blue and silver-gray, and the
sun was a commonplace, dazzling ball of yellow. Charming Billy Boyle,
his hat set back upon his head at a most eloquent angle, led Barney
from the creek up to the stable. His eyes were alight and his brow was
unwrinkled. His lips had quite lost their bitter lines, and once more
had the humorous, care-free quirk at the corners.

He slammed the stable-door behind him and went off down the street,
singing exultantly:

     "--I have been to see my-wife,
     She's the joy of my life--"

He jerked open the door of the shack, gave a whoop to raise the dead,
and took Dill ungently by the shoulder.

"Come alive, yuh seven-foot Dill-pickle! What yuh want to lay here
snoring for at this time uh day? Don't yuh know it's morning?"

Dill sat up and blinked, much like an owl in the sunshine. He puckered
his face into a smile. "Aren't you rather uproarious--for so early
in the day, William? I was under the impression that one usually grew
hilarious--"

"Oh, there's other things besides whisky to make a man feel good,"
grinned Billy, his cheeks showing a tinge of red. "I'm in a hurry,
Dilly. I've got to hit the trail immediate--and if it ain't too much
trouble to let me have that money yuh spoke about--"

Dill got out of bed, eying him shrewdly. "Have you been gambling,
William?"

Billy ran the green shade up from the window so energetically that
it slipped from his fingers and buzzed noisily at file top. He craned
his neck, trying to see the hotel. "Maybe yuh'd call it that--an old
bachelor like you! Yuh see, Dilly, I've got business over in Tower.
I've got to be there before noon, and I need--aw, thunder! How's a man
going to get married when he's only got six dollars in his jeans?"

"I should say that would be scarcely feasible, William." Dill was
smiling down at the lacing of his shoes. "We can soon remedy that,
however. I'm--I'm very glad, William."

The cheeks of Charming Billy Boyle grew quite red. "And, by the way,
Dilly," he said hurriedly, as if he shied at the subject of his love
and his marriage, "I've changed my mind about going to New Mexico.
I--we'll settle down on the Bridger place, if yuh still want me to.
She says she'd rather stay here in this country."

Dill settled himself into his clothes, went over, and laid a hand
awkwardly upon Billy's arm, "I am very glad, William," he said simply.

THE END.