ber.

When she sold seven fat, three-year-old steers that fall and paid a
note twice renewed, managing besides to buy the winter supply of "grub"
and a sewing-machine and a set of silver teaspoons for her mother, oh,
but she was proud!

Ward rode down to the ranch that night, and Billy Louise showed him the
note with its red stamp, oblong and imposing and slightly blurred on
the "paid" side. Ward was almost as proud as she, if looks and tones
went for anything, and he helped Billy Louise a good deal by telling
her just how much she ought to pay for the yearlings old Johnson, over
on Snake River, had for sale. Also he told her how much hay it would
take to winter them--though she knew that already--and just what
percentage of profit she might expect from a given number in a given
period of time.

He spoke of his own work and plans, as well. He was going into cattle,
also, as fast as possible, he said. In a few years the sheep would
probably come in and crowd them out, but in the meantime there was
money in cattle--and the more cattle, the more money. He was going to
work for wages till the winter set in. He didn't know when he would
see Billy Louise, he said, but he would stop on his way back.

To them that short visit was something more than an incident. It gave
Ward new stuff for his dreams and new fuel for the fire of ambition.
To Billy Louise it also furnished new dream material. She rode the
hills and saw in fancy whole herds of cattle where now wandered
scattered animals. She dreamed of the time when Ward and Charlie Fox
and she would pool their interests and run a wagon of their own, and
gather their stock from wide ranges. She was foolish, in that; but
that is what she liked to dream.

Mentioning Charlie Fox calls to mind the fact that he was changing more
than any of them. Billy Louise did not see him very often, but when
she did it was with a deepening impression of his unflagging tenderness
to Marthy--a tenderness that manifested itself in many little,
unassuming thoughtfulnesses--and of his good-humor and his energy and
several other qualities which one must admire.

"Mommie, that nephew goes at everything just as if it were a game," she
said after one visit. "You know what that cabin has always been: dark
and dirty and not a comfortable chair to sit down in, or a book or
magazine or anything? Well, I'm just going to take you over there some
day and let you see the difference. He's cut tw