the range, for three hundred thousand dollars. I need only pay
half this amount down, a five-year mortgage at eight per cent. on
the property covering the remainder, to be paid in five yearly
installments, falling due after shipping time. Now that you did not
buy as much young stock as we at first intended, I can readily make
the first payment on this place and have left between ten and twelve
thousand dollars to carry us along until we begin to get some
returns from the investment I am anxious to have you look over the
proposition, and tell me what you think of it. If you are in favor of
buying, we can have immediate possession; ten days after the deal is
closed, I think the man said."

Billy tilted his hat-brim a bit to keep the sun from his eyes, and
considered gravely the proposition. It was a great relief to discover
that his fears were groundless and that it was only another scheme
of Dilly's; another snare which he, perhaps, would be compelled, in
Dill's interest, to move aside. He put the reins down between his
knees and gripped them tightly while he made a cigarette. It was not
until he was pinching the end shut that he spoke.

"If it's as you say"--and he meant no offense--"it looks like a good
thing, all right. But yuh can't most always tell. I'd have to see
it--say, yuh might tell me where this bonanza is, and what's the name
uh the brand. If it's anywheres around here I ought to know the place,
all right."

Alexander P. Dill must, after all, have had some sense of humor;
his eyes lost their melancholy enough almost to twinkle. "Well, the
owner's name is Brown," he said slowly. "I believe they call the brand
the Double-Crank. It is located--"

"Located--hell!--do yuh think _I_ don't know?" The cigarette, ready
to light as it was, slipped from Billy's fingers and dropped unheeded
over the wheel to the brown trail below. He took the reins carefully
from between his knees, straightened one that had become twisted and
turned out upon the prairie to avoid a rough spot where a mud-puddle
had dried in hard ridges. Beyond, he swung back again, leaned and
flicked an early horse-fly from the ribs of the off-horse, touched the
other one up a bit with his whip and settled back at ease, tilting his
hat at quite another angle.

"Oh, where have yuh been, Billy boy, Billy boy?
Oh, where have yuh been, charming Billy?"

He hummed, in a care-free way that would have been perfectly maddening
to any one with