"How do you know?" Ward glanced over his shoulder at the stack, then humorously at her. He recognized the futility of trying to fool Billy Louise, but he was in the mood to tease her.
"Humph! I've helped stack hay myself, if you please. I can tell a one-man stack when I see it. Who did you get to help? Junkins?"
"No, a half-baked hobo I ran across. I had him here a month."
"Oh! Are those your horses down there? They can't be." Last April, Billy Louise had been very well informed as to Ward's resources. She was evidently trying to match her knowledge of their well-defined limitations with what she saw now of prosperity in its first stages.
"They are, though. A dandy span of mares. I got a bargain there."
Billy Louise pondered a minute. "Ward, you aren't going into debt, are you?" Her tone was anxious. "It's so beastly hard to get out, once you're in!"
"I don't owe anybody a red cent, William Louisa. Honest."
"Well, but—" Billy Louise looked at him from under puckered brows.
Ward laughed oddly. "I've been working, William. Last spring I—hunted wolves for awhile; old ones and dens. They'd killed a couple of calves for me, and I got out after them. I—made good at it; the bounty counts up pretty fast, you know."
"Yes-s, it does." Billy Louise bit her lips thoughtfully, turned and looked back at the haystack, at the long line of new, wire fence, and at the two heavy-set mares feeding contentedly along the creek. "There must be money in wolves," she remarked evenly.