his own feet, when he was merely
a "forty-dollar puncher," had helped wear deep to the stable and
corrals; giving orders where he had been wont to receive them; riding
horses which he had long completed, but which had heretofore been
kept sacred to the use of Jawbreaker and old Brown himself; eating and
sleeping in the house with Dill instead of making one of the crowd in
the bunk-house; ordering the coming and going of the round-up crew and
tasting to the full the joys--and the sorrows--of being "head push"
where he had for long been content to serve. Truly, the world had
changed amazingly for one Charming Billy Boyle.

Most of the men he had kept on, for he liked them well and they had
faith to believe that success would not spoil him. The Pilgrim he had
promised himself the pleasure of firing bodily off the ranch within an
hour of his first taking control--but the Pilgrim had not waited.
He had left the ranch with the Old Man and where he had gone did not
concern Billy at the time. For there was the shipment of young stock
from the South to meet and drive up to the home range, and there was
the calf round-up to start on time, and after all the red tape of
buying the outfit and turning over the stock had been properly wound
up, time was precious in the extreme through May and June and well
into July.

But habit is strong upon a man even after the conditions which bred
the habit have utterly changed. One privilege had been always kept
inviolate at the Double-Crank, until it had come to be looked upon as
an inalienable right. The Glorious Fourth had been celebrated, come
rain, come shine. Usually the celebration was so generous that it
did not stop at midnight; anywhere within a week was considered
permissible, a gradual tapering off--not to say sobering up--being the
custom with the more hilarious souls.

When Dill with much solemnity tore off June from the calendar in the
dining room--the calendar with Custer's Last Charge rioting redly
above the dates--Billy, home for a day from the roundup, realized
suddenly that time was on the high lope; at least, that is how he put
it to Dill.

"Say, Dilly, we sure got to jar loose from getting rich long enough
to take in that picnic over to Bluebell Grove. Didn't know there was
a picnic or a Bluebell Grove? Well now, there is. Over on Horned-Toad
Creek--nice, pretty name to go with the grove, ain't it?--they've got
a patch uh shade big over as my hat. Right back up on the