be running a wagon and full crew in another year, don't
you reckon? And send reps over into Wyoming and around, to look after
our interests!" He laughed at himself with a perfect understanding of
his own insignificance as a cattle-owner, and Billy Louise laughed with
him, though not at him, for it seemed to her that Ward had done well,
considering his small opportunities.

To be sure, in these days when civilization travels by million-dollar
milestones, and the hero of a ten-dollar story scorns any enterprise
which requires less than five figures to name its profits, Ward and
Billy Louise and Charlie Fox--and all their neighbors--do not amount to
much. But it is a fact that real men and women in the real world
beyond the horizon work hard and fight real battles for a very small
success compared with Big Interests and the modern storyman. And I'm
telling you of some real people in a real world out in the sagebrush
country, where not even a story hero may consistently become a
millionaire in ten chapters. There is no millionaire material in the
sagebrush country, you know, unless it is planted there by the Big
Interests; and the Big Interests do not plant in barren soil. So if
twelve head of cattle look too trifling to mention, I can't help it.
Ward worked mighty hard for those few animals, and saved and schemed,
and denied himself much pleasure. Therefore, he did as well as any man
under the circumstances could do and be honest.

He did not do so very well when it came to telling Billy Louise
something. Twice during his visit he had to admit to himself that the
play came right to tell her. And both times Ward shied like a horse in
the moonlight. For all that he sang about half the way home, the next
day, and for the rest of the way he built castles; which proves that
his visit had not been disappointing.

He rode out into the pasture where his cattle were grazing and sat
looking at them while he smoked a cigarette. And while he smoked, that
small herd grew and multiplied before the eyes of his imagination,
until he needed a full crew of riders to take care of them. He shipped
a trainload of beef to Chicago before he threw away the cigarette stub,
and he laughed to himself when he rode back to the log cabin in the
grove of quaking aspens.

"I'm getting my money's worth out of that bunch, just in the fun of
planning ahead," he realized, while he whittled shavings from the edge
of a cracker-box to start his