The Long Shadow Part 20

Should you, William?"

This time William did not answer at all. Dill, watching his bent head tenderly, puckered his face into his peculiar smile.

"H-m-m! They stopped at the hotel to-night--Bridgers, I mean. Drove in after dark from the ranch. They mean to catch the noon train from Tower to-morrow, Bridger told me. It will be an immense benefit, William, when those big through-trains get to running through Hardup.

There is some talk among the powers-that-be of making this a division point. It will develop the country wonderfully. I really feel tempted to cut down my investment in a store for the present, and buy more land. What do you think, William?"

"Oh, I dunno," said Billy in a let-me-alone kind of tone.

"Well, it's very late. Everybody who lays any claim to respectability should be in his bed," Dill remarked placidly. "You say you start at sunrise? H-m-m! You will have to call me so that I can go over to the hotel and get the money to refund what you used of your own. I left my cash in the hotel safe. But they will be stirring early--they will have to get the Bridgers off, you know."

It was Dill who lay and smiled quizzically into the dark and listened to the wide-awake breathing of the man beside him--breathing which betrayed deep emotion held rigidly in check so far as outward movement went. He fell asleep knowing well that the other was lying there wide-eyed and would probably stay so until day. He had had a hard day and had done many things, but what he had done last pleased him best.

Now this is a bald, unpolished record of the morning: Billy saw the dawn come, and rose in the perfect silence he had learned from years of sleeping in a tent with tired men, and of having to get up at all hours and take his turn at night-guarding; for tired, sleeping cowboys do not like to be disturbed unnecessarily, and so they one and all learn speedily the Golden Rule and how to apply it. That is why Dill, always a light sleeper, did not hear Billy go out.

Billy did not quite know what he was going to do, but habit bade him first feed and water his horse. After that--well, he did not know.

Dill might not have things straight, or he might just be trying to jolly him up a little, or he might be a meddlesome old granny-gossip.

What had looked dear and straight, say at three o'clock in the morning, was at day-dawn hazy with doubt. So he led Barney down to the creek behind the hotel, where in that primitive little place they watered their horses.

The sun was rising redly, and the hurrying ripples were all tipped with gold, and the sky above a bewildering, tumbled fabric of barbaric coloring. Would the sun rise like that in New Mexico? Billy wondered, and watched the coming of his last day here, where he had lived, had loved, had dreamed dreams and builded castles--and had seen the dreams change to bitterness, and the castles go toppling to ruins. He would like to stay with Dill, for he had grown fond of the lank, whimsical man who was like no one Billy had ever known. He would have stayed even in the face of the change that had come to the range-land--but he could not bear to see the familiar line of low hills which marked the Double-Crank and, farther down, the line-camp, and know that Flora was gone quite away from him into the North.

He caught himself back from brooding, and gave a pull at the halter by way of hinting to Barney that he need not drink the creek entirely dry--when suddenly he quivered and stood so still that he scarcely breathed.

"Oh, where have you been, Billy boy, Billy boy?

Oh, where have you been, charming Billy?"

Some one at the top of the creek-bank was singing it; some one with an exceedingly small, shaky little voice that was trying to be daring and mocking and indifferent, and that was none of these things--but only wistful and a bit pathetic.

Charming Billy, his face quite pale, turned his head cautiously as though he feared too abrupt a glance would drive her away, and looked at her standing there with her gray felt hat tilted against the sun, flipping her gloves nervously against her skirt. She was obviously trying to seem perfectly at ease, but her eyes were giving the lie to her manner.

Billy tried to smile, but instead his lips quivered and his eyes blinked.

"I have been to see my wife--"

he began to sing gamely, and stuck there, because something came up in his throat and squeezed his voice to a whisper. By main strength he pulled Barney away from the gold-tipped ripples, and came stumbling over the loose rocks.

She watched him warily, half-turned, ready to run away. "We--I--aren't you going to be nice and say good-by to me?"

He came on, staring at her and saying nothing.

"Well, if you still want to sulk--I wouldn't be as nasty as that, and--and hold a grudge the way you do--and I was going to be nice and forgiving; but if you don't care, and don't want--"

By this time he was close--quite close. "Yuh know I care! And yuh know I want--_you_. Oh, girlie, girlie!"

The colors had all left the sky, save blue and silver-gray, and the sun was a commonplace, dazzling ball of yellow. Charming Billy Boyle, his hat set back upon his head at a most eloquent angle, led Barney from the creek up to the stable. His eyes were alight and his brow was unwrinkled. His lips had quite lost their bitter lines, and once more had the humorous, care-free quirk at the corners.

He slammed the stable-door behind him and went off down the street, singing exultantly:

"--I have been to see my-wife, She's the joy of my life--"

He jerked open the door of the shack, gave a whoop to raise the dead, and took Dill ungently by the shoulder.

"Come alive, yuh seven-foot Dill-pickle! What yuh want to lay here snoring for at this time uh day? Don't yuh know it's morning?"

Dill sat up and blinked, much like an owl in the suns.h.i.+ne. He puckered his face into a smile. "Aren't you rather uproarious--for so early in the day, William? I was under the impression that one usually grew hilarious--"

"Oh, there's other things besides whisky to make a man feel good,"

grinned Billy, his cheeks showing a tinge of red. "I'm in a hurry, Dilly. I've got to hit the trail immediate--and if it ain't too much trouble to let me have that money yuh spoke about--"

Dill got out of bed, eying him shrewdly. "Have you been gambling, William?"

Billy ran the green shade up from the window so energetically that it slipped from his fingers and buzzed noisily at file top. He craned his neck, trying to see the hotel. "Maybe yuh'd call it that--an old bachelor like you! Yuh see, Dilly, I've got business over in Tower.

I've got to be there before noon, and I need--aw, thunder! How's a man going to get married when he's only got six dollars in his jeans?"

"I should say that would be scarcely feasible, William." Dill was smiling down at the lacing of his shoes. "We can soon remedy that, however. I'm--I'm very glad, William."

The cheeks of Charming Billy Boyle grew quite red. "And, by the way, Dilly," he said hurriedly, as if he s.h.i.+ed at the subject of his love and his marriage, "I've changed my mind about going to New Mexico.

I--we'll settle down on the Bridger place, if yuh still want me to.

She says she'd rather stay here in this country."

Dill settled himself into his clothes, went over, and laid a hand awkwardly upon Billy's arm, "I am very glad, William," he said simply.

THE END.