CHAPTER VIII.

_Just a Day-dream._

Charming Billy rode humped over the saddle-horn, as rides one whose mind feels the weight of unpleasant thoughts. Twice he had glanced uncertainly at his companion, opening his lips for speech; twice he had closed them silently and turned again to the uneven trail.

Mr. Dill also was humped forward in the saddle, but if one might judge from his face it was because he was cold. The wind blew chill from out the north and they were facing it; the trail they followed was frozen hard and the gray clouds above promised snow. The cheek-bones of Dill were purple and the point of his long nose was very red. Tears stood in his eyes, whipped there by the biting wind.

"How far are we now from town?" he asked dispiritedly.

"Only about five miles," Billy cheered. Then, as if trivial speech had made easier what he had in mind to say, he turned resolutely toward the other. "Yuh expect to meet old man Robinson there, don't yuh?"

"That was the arrangement, as I understood it"

"And you're thinking strong of buying him out?"

"His place appeals to me more than any of the others, and--yes, it seems to me that I can't do better." Mr. Dill turned the collar of his coat up a bit farther--or fancied he did so--and looked questioningly at Billy.

"Yuh gave me leave to advise yuh where yuh needed it," Billy said almost challengingly, "and I'm going to call yuh, right here and now.

If yuh take my advice yuh won't go making medicine with old Robinson any more. He'll do yuh, sure. He's asking yuh double what the outfit's worth. They _all_ are. It looks to me like they think you're just out here to get rid of your pile and the bigger chunk they can pry loose from yuh the better. I was going to put yuh next before this, only yuh didn't seem to take to any uh the places real serious, so it wasn't necessary."

"I realize that one cannot buy land and cattle for nothing," Dill chuckled. "It seemed to me that, compared with the prices others have asked, Mr. Robinson's offer was very reasonable."

"It may be lower than Jacobs and Wilter, but that don't make it right."

"Well, there were the Two Sevens"--he meant the Seventy-Seven, but that was a mere detail--"I didn't get to see the owner, you know. I have written East, however, and should hear from him in a few days."

"Yuh ain't likely to do business with _that_ layout, because I don't believe they'd sell at any price. Old Robinson is the washout yuh want to ride around at present; I ain't worrying about the rest, right now.

He's a smooth old devil, and he'll do yuh sure."

To this Mr. Dill made no reply whatever. He fumbled the fastenings on his c.o.o.n-skin coat, tried to pull his cap lower and looked altogether unhappy. And Charming Billy, not at ail sure that his advice would be taken or his warning heeded, stuck the spurs into his horse and set a faster pace reflecting gloomily upon the trials of being confidential adviser to one who, in a perfectly mild and good-mannered fashion, goes right along doing pretty much as he pleases.

It made him think, somehow, of Miss Bridger and the way she had forced him to take his gun with him when he had meant to leave it. She was like Dill in that respect: nice and good-natured and smiling--only Dill smiled but seldom--and yet always managing to make you give up your own wishes. He wished vaguely that the wanderings of Dill would bring them back to the Double-Crank country, instead of leading them always farther afield. He did not, however, admit openly to himself that he wanted to see Miss Bridger again; yet he did permit himself to wonder if she ever played c.o.o.n-can with any one else, or if she had already forgotten the game. Probably she had, and--well, a good many other things that he remembered quite distinctly.

Later, when they had reached town, were warmed and fed and when even Billy was thinking seriously of sleep, Dill came over and sat down beside him solemnly, folded his bony hands upon knees quite as bony, regarded pensively the generously formed foot dangling some distance before him and smiled his puckered smile.

"I have been wondering, William, if you had not some plan of your own concerning this cattle-raising business, which you think is better than mine but which you hesitate to express. If you have, I hope you will feel quite free to--er--lay it before the head of the firm. It may interest you to know that I have, as you would put it, 'failed to connect' with Mr. Robinson. So, if you have any ideas--"

"Oh, I'm burning up with 'em," Charming Billy retorted in a way he meant to be sarcastic, but which Mr. Dill took quite seriously.

"Then I hope you won't hesitate--"

"Now look here, Dilly," expostulated he, between puffs. "Recollect, it's _your_ money that's going to feed the birds--and it's your privilege to throw it out to suit yourself. Uh course, I might day-dream about the way I'd start into the cow-business if I was a millionaire--"

"I'm not a millionaire," Mr. Dill hastened to correct. "A couple of hundred thousand or so, is about all--"

"Well, a fellow don't have to pin himself down to just so many dollars and cents--not when he's building himself a pet dream. And if a fellow dreams about starting up an outfit of his own, it don't prove he'd make it stick in reality." The tone of Billy, however, did not express any doubt.

Mr. Dill untangled his legs, crossed them the other way and regarded the other dangling foot. "I should like very much," he hinted mildly, "to have you tell me this--er--day-dream, as you call it."

So Charming Billy, tilted back in his chair and watching with half-shut eyes the intangible smoke-wreath from his cigarette, found words for his own particular air-castle which he had builded on sunny days when the Double-Crank herds grazed peacefully around him; or on stormy nights when he sat alone in the line-camp and played solitaire with the mourning wind crooning accompaniment; or on long rides alone, when the trail was plain before him and the gra.s.sland stretched away and away to a far sky-line, and the white clouds sailed sleepily over his head and about him the meadowlarks sang. And while he found the words, he somehow forgot Dill, long and lean and lank, listening beside him, and spoke more freely than he had meant to do when Dill first opened the subject a few minutes before.

"Recollect, this is just a day-dream," he began. "But, if I was a millionaire, or if I had two hundred thousand dollars--and to me they don't sound much different--I'd sure start a cow-outfit right away immediately at once. But I wouldn't buy out n.o.body; I'd go right back and start like they did--if they're real old-timers. I'd go down south into Texas and I'd buy me a bunch uh two-year-olds and bring 'em up here, and turn 'em loose on the best piece of open range I know--and I know a peach. In a year or so I'd go back and do the same again, and I'd keep it up whilst my money held out I'd build me a home ranch back somewheres in a draw in the hills, where there's lots uh water and lots uh shelter, and I'd get a bunch uh men that savvied cow-brutes, put 'em on horses that wouldn't trim down their self-respect every time they straddled 'em, and then I'd just ride around and watch myself get rich. And--" He stopped and dreamed silently over his cigarette.

"And then?" urged Mr. Dill, after a moment.

"And then--I'd likely get married, and raise a bunch uh boys to carry on the business when I got old and fat, and too d.a.m.n' lazy to ride off a walk."

Mr. Dill took three minutes to weigh the matter. Then, musingly: "I'm not sure about the boys. I'm not a marrying man, myself--but just giving a snap judgment on the other part of it, I will say it sounds--well, feasible."

CHAPTER IX.

_The "Double-Crank."_

The weeks that followed immediately after bulged big with the things which Billy must do or have done. For to lie on one's back in the sun with one's hat pulled low, dreaming lazily and with minute detail the perfect supervision of a model cow-outfit from its very inception up through the buying of stock and the building of corrals and the breaking of horses to the final shipping of great trainloads of sleek beef, is one thing; to start out in reality to do all that, with the hundred little annoyances and hindrances which come not to one's dreaming in the sun, is something quite different.

But with all the perplexities born of his changed condition and the responsibility it brought him, Billy rejoiced in the work and airily planned the years to come--years in which he would lead Alexander P.

Dill straight into the ranks of the Western millionaires; years when the sun of prosperity would stand always straight overhead, himself a Joshua who would, by his uplifted hands, keep it there with never a cloud to dim the glory of its light.

For the first time in his life he rode over Texas prairies and lost thereby some ideals and learned many things, the while he spent more money than he had ever owned--or ever expected to own--as the preliminary to making his pet dream come true; truth to tell, it mattered little to Billy Boyle whether his dream came true for himself or for another, so long as he himself were the chief magician.

So it was with a light heart that he swung down from the train at Tower, after his homing flight, and saw Dill, conspicuous as a flagstaff, waiting for him on the platform, his face puckered into a smile of welcome and his bony fingers extended ready to grip painfully the hand of Charming Billy.

"I'm very glad to see you back, William," he greeted earnestly. "I hope you are well, and that you met with no misfortune while you were away. I have been very anxious for your return, as I need your advice upon a matter which seems to me of prime importance. I did not wish to make any decisive move until I had consulted with you, and time is pressing. Did you--er--buy as many cattle as you expected to get?" It seemed to Billy that there was an anxious note in his voice. "Your letters were too few and too brief to keep me perfectly informed of your movements."

"Why, everything was lovely at my end uh the trail, Dilly--only I fell down on them four thousand two-year-olds. Parts uh the country was quarantined for scab, and I went way around them places. And I was too late to see the cattlemen in a bunch when they was at the a.s.sociation--only you ain't likely to savvy that part uh the business--and had to chase 'em all over the country. Uh course it was my luck to have 'em stick their prices up on the end of a pole, where I didn't feel like climbing after 'em. So I only contracted for a couple uh thousand to be laid down in Billings somewhere between the first and the tenth of June, at twenty-one dollars a head. It was the best I could do this year--but next winter I can go down earlier, before the other buyers beat me to it, and do a lot better. Don't yuh worry, Dilly; it ain't serious."

On the contrary, Dill looked relieved, and Billy could not help noticing it. His own face clouded a little. Perhaps Dill had lost his money, or the bulk of it, and they couldn't do all the things they had meant to do, after all; how else, thought Billy uneasily, could he look like that over what should ordinarily be something of a disappointment? He remembered that Dill, after the workings of the cattle business from the very beginning had been painstakingly explained to him just before Billy started south, had been anxious to get at least four thousand head of young stock on the range that spring. Something must have gone wrong. Maybe a bank had gone busted or something like that. Billy stole a glance up at the other, shambling silently along beside him, and decided that something had certainly happened--and on the heels of that he remembered oddly that he had felt almost exactly like this when Miss Bridger had asked him to show her where was the coffee, and there _wasn't_ any coffee. There was the same heavy feeling in his chest, and the same--

"I wrote you a letter three or four days ago--on the third, to be exact," Dill was saying. "I don't suppose it reached you, however. I was going to have you meet me in Hardup; but then your telegram was forwarded to me there and I came on here at once. I only arrived this morning. I think that after we have something to eat we would better start out immediately, unless you have other plans. I drove over in a rig, and as the horses have rested several hours and are none the worse for the drive, I think we can easily make the return trip this afternoon."

"You're the doctor," a.s.sented Billy briefly, more uneasy than before and yet not quite at the point of asking questions. In his acquaintance with Dill he had learned that it was not always wise to question too closely; where Dill wished to give his confidence he gave it freely, but beyond the limit he had fixed for himself was a stone wall, masked by the flowers, so to speak, of his unfailing courtesy.

Billy had once or twice inadvertently located that wall.

A great depression seized upon him and made him quite indifferent to the little pleasures of homecoming; of seeing the gra.s.s green and velvety and hearing the familiar notes of the meadow-larks and the curlews. The birds had not returned when he went away, and now the air was musical with them. Driving over the prairies seemed fairly certain of being anything but pleasant to-day, with Dill doubled awkwardly in the seat beside him, carrying on an intermittent monologue of trivial stuff to which Billy scarcely listened. He could feel that there was something at the back of it all, and that was enough for him at present. He was not even anxious now to hear just what was the form of the disaster which had overtaken them.

"While you were away," Dill began at last in the tone that braces one instinctively for the worst, "I met accidentally a man of whom I had heard, but whom I had not seen. In the course of our casual conversation he discovered that I was about to launch myself and my capital into the cattle-business, whereupon he himself made me an offer which I felt should not be lightly brushed aside."

"They all did!" Billy could not help flinging out half-resentfully, when he remembered that but for his timely interference Dill would have been gulled more than once.

"I admit that in my ignorance some offers advantageous only to those who made them appealed to me strongly. But I believe you will agree with me that this is different. In this case I am offered a full section of land, with water-rights, buildings, corrals, horses, wagons and all improvements necessary to the running of a good outfit, and ten thousand head of mixed cattle, just as they are now running loose on the range, for three hundred thousand dollars. I need only pay half this amount down, a five-year mortgage at eight per cent. on the property covering the remainder, to be paid in five yearly installments, falling due after shipping time. Now that you did not buy as much young stock as we at first intended, I can readily make the first payment on this place and have left between ten and twelve thousand dollars to carry us along until we begin to get some returns from the investment I am anxious to have you look over the proposition, and tell me what you think of it. If you are in favor of buying, we can have immediate possession; ten days after the deal is closed, I think the man said."

Billy tilted his hat-brim a bit to keep the sun from his eyes, and considered gravely the proposition. It was a great relief to discover that his fears were groundless and that it was only another scheme of Dilly's; another snare which he, perhaps, would be compelled, in Dill's interest, to move aside. He put the reins down between his knees and gripped them tightly while he made a cigarette. It was not until he was pinching the end shut that he spoke.