Chapter 21 - Page 2

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,