ing."

Mr. Dill warmed pitifully to the friendliness. "I was told that Mr.
Murton wanted to sell his far---- ranch and cattle, and I was going to
see him about it. I would like to buy a place outright, you see, with
the cattle all branded, and--everything."

Billy suddenly felt the instinct of the champion. "Well, somebody lied
to yuh a lot, then," he replied warmly. "Don't yuh never go near old
Murton. In the first place, he ain't a cowman--he's a sheepman, on a
small scale so far as sheep go but on a sure-enough big scale when
yuh count his feelin's. He runs about twelve hundred woollies, and is
about as unpolite a cuss as I ever met up with. He'd uh roasted yuh
brown just for saying cattle at him--and if yuh let out inadvertant
that yuh took him for a cowman, the chances is he'd a took a shot at
yuh. If yuh ask me, you was playin' big luck when yuh went and lost
the trail."

"I can't see what would be their object in misinforming me on the
subject," Mr. Dill complained. "You don't suppose that they had any
grudge against Mr. Murton, do you?"

Charming Billy eyed him aslant and was merciful. "I can't say, not
knowing who they was that told yuh," he answered. "They're liable to
have a grudge agin' him, though; just about everybody has, that ever
bumped into him."

It would appear that Mr. Dill needed time to think this over, for he
said nothing more for a long while. Charming Billy half turned once or
twice to importune his pack-pony in language humorously querulous,
but beyond that he kept silence, wondering what freakish impulse drove
Alexander P. Dill to Montana "to raise wild cattle for the Eastern
markets." The very simplicity of his purpose and the unsophistication
of his outlook were irresistible and came near weaning Charming Billy
from considering his own personal grievances.

For a grievance it was to be turned adrift from the Double-Crank--he,
who had come to look upon the outfit almost with proprietorship; who
for years had said "my outfit" when speaking of it; who had set
the searing iron upon sucking calves and had watched them grow to
yearlings, then to sleek four-year-olds; who had at last helped prod
them up the chutes into the cars at shipping time and had seen them
take the long trail to Chicago--the trail from which, for them, there
was no return; who had thrown his rope on kicking, striking "bronks";
had worked, with the sweat streaming like tears down his cheeks, to
"gentle" them; had, wit