Chapter 23. Oh, Where Have You Been, Charming Billy?

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_ 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]
[B. M. Bower's Book: Long Shadow] _


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