Part 19 (2/2)
_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 antic.i.p.ated. 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 s.h.i.+pping any skates to--er--h.e.l.l, 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 a.s.sured 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-cla.s.s 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 partners.h.i.+p, 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 (d.a.m.n him!) are crowded to the wall by your d.a.m.n' 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.
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