"Lemme see, now. I turned over 4,523 head uh stock, all told (hell of a fine job uh guessing I done! Me saying there'd be over six thousand!) That made $94,983. And accordin' to old Brown—and I guess he had it framed up correct—Dilly owes him $2,217 yet, instead uh coming out with enough to start some other business. It's sure queer, the way figures always come out little when yuh want 'em big, and big when yuh want 'em little! Them debts now—they could stand a lot uh shavin' down. Twelve thousand dollars and interest, to the bank—I can't do a darn thing about them twelve thousand. If Dilly hadn't gone and made a cast-iron agreement I coulda held old Brown up for a few thousand more, on account uh the increase in saddle-stock. I'd worked that bunch up till it sure was a dandy lot uh hosses—but what yuh going to do?"
He stared dispiritedly out across the brown prairie. "I'd oughta put Dilly next to that, only I never thought about it at the time, and I was so dead sure the range-stuff—And there's the men, got to have their money right away quick, so's they can hurry up and blow it in! If Dilly ain't back to-night, or I don't hear from him, I reckon I'll have to draw m' little old wad out uh the bank and pay the sons-uh-guns. I sure ain't going to need it to buy dishes and rocking chairs and pictures—and I was going t' git her a piano—oh, hell!"
He still rode slowly, after that, but he did not bother over the figures that stood for Dilly's debts. He sat humped over the saddle-horn like an old man and stared at the trail and at the forefeet of Barney coming down pluck, pluck with leisurely regularity in the dust. Just so was Charming Billy Boyle trampling down the dreams that had been so sweet in the dreaming, and leveling ruthlessly the very foundations of the fair castle he had builded in the air for Dill and himself—and one other, with the fairest, highest, most secret chambers for that Other. And as he rode, the face of him was worn and the blue eyes of him sombre and dull; and his mouth, that had lost utterly the humorous, care-free quirk at the corners, was bitter, and straight, and hard.
He had started out with such naïve assurance to succeed, and—he had failed so utterly, so hopelessly, with not even a spectacular crash to make the failing picturesque. He had done the best that was in him, and even now that it was over he could not quite understand how everything, everything could go like that; how the Double-Crank and Flora—how the range, even, had slipped from him. And now Dill was gone, too, and he did not even know where, or if he would ever come back.
He would pay the men; he had, with a surprising thrift, saved nearly a thousand dollars in the bank at Tower. That, to be sure, was when he had Flora to save for; since then he had not had time or opportunity to spend it foolishly. It would take nearly every dollar; the way he had figured it, he would have just twenty-three dollars left for himself—and he would have the little bunch of horses he had in his prosperity acquired for the pure love of owning a good horse. He would sell the horses, except Barney and one to pack his bed, and he would drift—drift just as do the range-cattle when a blizzard strikes them in the open. Billy felt like a stray. His range was gone—gone utterly. He would roll his bed and drift; and perhaps, somewhere, he could find a stretch of earth as God had left it, unscarred by fence and plow, undefiled by cabbages and sugar-beets (Brown's new settlers were going strong on sugar-beets).
"Well, it's all over but the shouting," he summed up grimly when Hardup came in sight. "I'll pay off the men and turn 'em loose—all but Jim. Somebody's got to stay with the Bridger place till Dilly shows up, seeing that's all he's got left after the clean-up. The rest uh the debts can wait. Brown's mortgage ain't due yet" (Billy had his own way of looking at financial matters) "and the old Siwash ain't got any kick comin' if he never gets another cent out uh Dilly. The bank ain't got the cards to call Dilly now, for his note ain't due till near Christmas. So I reckon all I got to do after I pay the boys is take m' little old twenty-three plunks, and my hosses—if I can't sell 'em right off—and pull out for God-knows-where-and-I-don't-care-a-damn!"
Charming Billy Boyle had done all that he had planned to do, except that he had not yet pulled out for the place he had named picturesquely for himself. Much as at the beginning, he was leaning heavily upon the bar in the Hardup Saloon, and his hat was pushed back on his head; but he was not hilarious to the point of singing about "the young thing," and he was not, to any appreciable extent, enjoying himself. He was merely adding what he considered the proper finishing touch to his calamities. He was spinning silver dollars, one by one, across the bar to the man with the near-white apron, and he was endeavoring to get the worth of them down his throat. To be sure, he was being assisted, now and then, by several acquaintances; but considering the fact that a man's stomach has certain well-defined limitations, he was doing very well, indeed.
When he had spun the twenty-third dollar to the bartender, Billy meant to quit drinking for the present; after that, he was not quite clear as to his intentions, farther than "forking his hoss and pulling out" when there was no more to be done. He felt uneasily that between his present occupation and the pulling-out process lay a duty unperformed, but until the door swung open just as he was crying, "Come on, fellows," he had not been able to name it.
The Pilgrim it was who entered jauntily; the Pilgrim, who had not chanced to meet Billy once during the summer, and so was not aware that the truce between them was ended for good and all. He knew that Billy had not at any time been what one might call cordial, but that last stare of displeasure when they met in the creek at the Double-Crank, he had set down to a peevish mood. Under the circumstances, it was natural that he should walk up to the bar with the rest. Under the circumstances, it was also natural that Billy should object to this unexpected and unwelcome guest, and that the vague, unperformed duty should suddenly flash into his mind clear, and well-defined, and urgent.