r."

"How do you know?" Ward glanced over his shoulder at the stack, then
humorously at her. He recognized the futility of trying to fool Billy
Louise, but he was in the mood to tease her.

"Humph! I've helped stack hay myself, if you please. I can tell a
one-man stack when I see it. Who did you get to help? Junkins?"

"No, a half-baked hobo I ran across. I had him here a month."

"Oh! Are those your horses down there? They can't be." Last April,
Billy Louise had been very well informed as to Ward's resources. She
was evidently trying to match her knowledge of their well-defined
limitations with what she saw now of prosperity in its first stages.

"They are, though. A dandy span of mares. I got a bargain there."

Billy Louise pondered a minute. "Ward, you aren't going into debt, are
you?" Her tone was anxious. "It's so beastly hard to get out, once
you're in!"

"I don't owe anybody a red cent, William Louisa. Honest."

"Well, but--" Billy Louise looked at him from under puckered brows.

Ward laughed oddly. "I've been working, William. Last spring
I--hunted wolves for awhile; old ones and dens. They'd killed a couple
of calves for me, and I got out after them. I--made good at it; the
bounty counts up pretty fast, you know."

"Yes-s, it does." Billy Louise bit her lips thoughtfully, turned and
looked back at the haystack, at the long line of new, wire fence, and
at the two heavy-set mares feeding contentedly along the creek. "There
must be money in wolves," she remarked evenly.

"There is. At least, I made good money hunting them." The smile was
hiding behind Ward's lips again and threatening to come boldly to the
surface. "They haven't bothered you any, I hope?"

"No," said Billy Louise, "they haven't. I guess they must be all up
your way."

For the life of him Ward could not tell to a certainty whether there
was sarcasm in her tone or whether she spoke in perfect innocence. The
shrewdest of us deceive ourselves sometimes. Ward might have known he
could not fool Billy Louise, who had careworn experience of the cost of
ranch improvements and could figure almost the exact number of
wolf-bounties it would take to pay for what he had put into his claim.
Still, he was right in thinking she would not quiz him beyond a certain
point. She seemed to have reached that point quite suddenly, for she
did not say another word about Ward's affairs.

"What all's been happening in the world,