r can always out-walk me.
He's made that way. But some day, just the same, if I ever see 'm again,
I'll invite 'm to put on the gloves.. .. though I won't be mean enough
to make 'm as sore as he made me."

After they left Post's on the way back to Carmel, the condition of the
road proved the wisdom of their rejection of the government land. They
passed a rancher's wagon overturned, a second wagon with a broken
axle, and the stage a hundred yards down the mountainside, where it had
fallen, passengers, horses, road, and all.

"I guess they just about quit tryin' to use this road in the winter,"
Billy said. "It's horse-killin' an' man-killin', an' I can just see 'm
freightin' that marble out over it I don't think."

Settling down at Carmel was an easy matter. The Iron Man had already
departed to his Catholic college, and the "shack" turned out to be a
three-roomed house comfortably furnished for housekeeping. Hall put
Billy to work on the potato patch--a matter of three acres which the
poet farmed erratically to the huge delight of his crowd. He planted at
all seasons, and it was accepted by the community that what did not rot
in the ground was evenly divided between the gophers and trespassing
cows. A plow was borrowed, a team of horses hired, and Billy took
hold. Also he built a fence around the patch, and after that was set
to staining the shingled roof of the bungalow. Hall climbed to the
ridge-pole to repeat his warning that Billy must keep away from his
wood-pile. One morning Hall came over and watched Billy chopping wood
for Saxon. The poet looked on covetously as long as he could restrain
himself.

"It's plain you don't know how to use an axe," he sneered. "Here, let me
show you."

He worked away for an hour, all the while delivering an exposition on
the art of chopping wood.

"Here," Billy expostulated at last, taking hold of the axe. "I'll have
to chop a cord of yours now in order to make this up to you."

Hall surrendered the axe reluctantly.

"Don't let me catch you around my wood-pile, that's all," he threatened.
"My wood-pile is my castle, and you've got to understand that."

From a financial standpoint, Saxon and Billy were putting aside much
money. They paid no rent, their simple living was cheap, and Billy had
all the work he cared to accept. The various members of the crowd seemed
in a conspiracy to keep him busy. It was all odd jobs, but he preferred
it so, for it enabled him to suit his time