everything--store, land, the home farm and all, and
received a good figure--a _very_ good figure. I was very fortunate in
owning practically the whole townsite--the new townsite, that is. I
do not like these so-called booms, however, and so I left to begin
somewhere else. I did not care to enter the mercantile business again,
and our doctor advised me to live as much as possible in the open air.
Mother died of consumption. So I decided to come West and buy a cattle
ranch. I believed I should like it. I always liked animals."

"Uh-huh--so do I." It was not just what Charming Billy most wanted to
say, but that much was perfectly safe, and noncommittal to say.

Mr. Dill was silent a minute, looking speculatively across to
the Hardup Saloon which was practically empty and therefore quite
peaceful. Billy, because long living on the range made silence easy,
smoked and said nothing.

"Mr. Boyle," began Dill at last, in the hesitating way that he had
used when Billy first met him, "you say you know this country, and
have worked at cattle-raising for a good many years--"

"Twelve," supplemented Charming Billy. "Turned my first cow when I was
sixteen."

"So you must be perfectly familiar with the business. I frankly admit
that I am not familiar with it. You say you are at present out of
employment and so I am thinking seriously of offering you a position
myself, as confidential adviser if you like. I really need some
one who can accompany me about the country and keep me from such
deplorable blunders as was yesterday's experience. After I have bought
a place, I shall need some one who is familiar with the business and
will honestly work for my interests and assist me in the details until
I have myself gained a practical working-knowledge of it. I think I
can make such an arrangement to your advantage as well as my own. From
the start the salary would be what is usually paid to a foreman. What
do you say?"

For an appreciable space Charming Billy Boyle did not say a word. He
was not stupid and he saw in a flash all the possibilities that lay in
the offer. To be next the very top--to have his say in the running of
a model cow-outfit--and it should be a model outfit if he took charge,
for he had ideas of his own about how these things should be
done--to be foreman, with the right to "hire and fire" at his own
discretion--He turned, flushed and bright-eyed, to Dill.

"God knows why yuh cut _me_ out for the job," he said in a