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It was not much, and he had the sense to push the little devil of jealousy out of sight behind him, but it had come and changed something in the heart of Billy. "Why, hello!" greeted the Pilgrim, and Billy remembered keenly that the Pilgrim had spoken in just that way when he had opened the door of the line-camp upon them, that night. "I was going to ride over to the ranch, after a while.
In all his life on the range he had never had a young woman walk into a line-camp at dusk a strange young woman who tried pitifully to be at ease and whose eyes gave the lie to her manner and he groped confusedly for just the right way in which to meet the situation.
Thurston, watching him meditatively, wanted to tell him that he was the sort of whom good stories are made. But for men like Gene strong, purposeful, brave, the West would lose half its charm. He was like Bob in many ways, and for that Thurston liked him and, stayed with him in the line-camp when he might have been taking his ease at the home ranch.
Wouldn't we rake in the stakes if I could?" Straightway Billy found another element added to the list of disagreeables or, to follow his simile, another card was dealt him which he would like to have discarded, but which he must keep in his hand and play with what skill he might. He was not the care-free Charming Billy Boyle who had made prune pie for Flora Bridger in the line-camp.
"I'm very glad to meet you," said Charming Billy stammeringly. "Won't you sit down? I I wish I'd known company was coming." He smiled reassuringly, and then glanced frowningly around the cabin. Even for a line-camp, he told himself disgustedly, it was "pretty sousy." "You must be cold," he added, seeing her glance toward the stove.
An outer line was agreed upon, five miles to the south; but until the season forced the cattle to the shelter of the valley, the inner one was kept under patrol. The outer was a purely imaginary line, extending in an immense half-circle, from headquarters to the new line-camp above. It followed the highest ground, and marked the utmost limit on the winter range on the south.
When any one wanted to come in he always opened the door without further ceremony. Still, there was no telling what strange freak might impel the Pilgrim he who insisted on keeping a dog in a line-camp! so Billy recovered himself and called out impatiently: "Aw, come on in! Don't be a plumb fool," and never moved from his place.
Always, when he rode apart in the soft haze and watched the sky-line shimmer and dance toward him and then retreat like a teasing maid, his thoughts wandered from the range and the cattle and the men who rode at his bidding and rested with one slim young woman who puzzled and tantalized him and caused him more mental discomfort than he had ever known in his life before that night when she entered so unexpectedly the line-camp and his life.
"You can go in the spring," said Joel. "We're going to use four line-riders this winter, and there's every reason why you'll make a trusty one!" "That's one of the owners talking," observed Sargent; "now listen to the foreman's orders: The next thing is to brand every hoof up to date. Then, at the upper line-camp, comes the building of a new dug-out and stabling for four horses.
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.
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