the cow-business if I was a
millionaire--"

"I'm not a millionaire," Mr. Dill hastened to correct. "A couple of
hundred thousand or so, is about all--"

"Well, a fellow don't have to pin himself down to just so many dollars
and cents--not when he's building himself a pet dream. And if a fellow
dreams about starting up an outfit of his own, it don't prove he'd
make it stick in reality." The tone of Billy, however, did not express
any doubt.

Mr. Dill untangled his legs, crossed them the other way and regarded
the other dangling foot. "I should like very much," he hinted mildly,
"to have you tell me this--er--day-dream, as you call it."

So Charming Billy, tilted back in his chair and watching with
half-shut eyes the intangible smoke-wreath from his cigarette, found
words for his own particular air-castle which he had builded on sunny
days when the Double-Crank herds grazed peacefully around him; or on
stormy nights when he sat alone in the line-camp and played solitaire
with the mourning wind crooning accompaniment; or on long rides alone,
when the trail was plain before him and the grassland stretched away
and away to a far sky-line, and the white clouds sailed sleepily over
his head and about him the meadowlarks sang. And while he found the
words, he somehow forgot Dill, long and lean and lank, listening
beside him, and spoke more freely than he had meant to do when Dill
first opened the subject a few minutes before.

"Recollect, this is just a day-dream," he began. "But, if I was a
millionaire, or if I had two hundred thousand dollars--and to me they
don't sound much different--I'd sure start a cow-outfit right away
immediately at once. But I wouldn't buy out nobody; I'd go right back
and start like they did--if they're real old-timers. I'd go down south
into Texas and I'd buy me a bunch uh two-year-olds and bring 'em up
here, and turn 'em loose on the best piece of open range I know--and
I know a peach. In a year or so I'd go back and do the same again, and
I'd keep it up whilst my money held out I'd build me a home ranch back
somewheres in a draw in the hills, where there's lots uh water and
lots uh shelter, and I'd get a bunch uh men that savvied cow-brutes,
put 'em on horses that wouldn't trim down their self-respect every
time they straddled 'em, and then I'd just ride around and watch
myself get rich. And--" He stopped and dreamed silently over his
cigarette.

"And then?" urged Mr. Dill, after a moment.