ard his voice.

"Aw, nothing," lied Billy, swinging up. "I was just cussing my hoss."

CHAPTER XII.

_Dilly Hires a Cook._

It is rather distressful when one cannot recount all sorts of exciting
things as nicely fitted together as if they had been carefully planned
and rehearsed beforehand. It would have been extremely gratifying and
romantic if Charming Billy Boyle had dropped everything in the line of
work and had ridden indefatigably the trail which led to Bridger's;
it would have been exciting if he had sought out the Pilgrim and
precipitated trouble and flying lead. But Billy, though he might have
enjoyed it, did none of those things. He rode straight to the ranch
with Dill--rather silent, to be sure, but bearing none of the marks
of a lovelorn young man--drank three cups of strong coffee with four
heaping teaspoonfuls of sugar to each cup, pulled off his boots, lay
down upon the most convenient bed and slept until noon. When the smell
of dinner assailed his nostrils he sat up yawning and a good deal
tousled, drew on his boots and made him a cigarette. After that he ate
his dinner with relish, saddled and rode away to where the round-up
was camped, his manner utterly practical and lacking the faintest
tinge of romance. As to his thoughts--he kept them jealously to
himself.

He did not even glimpse Miss Bridger for three months or more. He was
full of the affairs of the Double-Crank; riding in great haste to the
ranch or to town, hurrying back to the round-up and working much as
he used to work, except that now he gave commands instead of receiving
them. For they were short-handed that summer and, as he explained to
Dill, he couldn't afford to ride around and look as important as he
felt.

"Yuh wait, Dilly, till we get things running the way I want 'em,"
he encouraged on one of his brief calls at the ranch. "I was kinda
surprised to find things wasn't going as smooth as I used to think;
when yuh haven't got the whole responsibility on your own shoulders,
yuh don't realize what a lot of things need to be done. There's them
corrals, for instance: I helped mend and fix and toggle 'em, but
it never struck me how rotten they are till I looked 'em over this
spring. There's about a million things to do before snow flies, or we
won't be able to start out fresh in the spring with everything running
smooth. And if I was you, Dilly, I'd go on a still hunt for another
cook here at the ranch. This coffee's someth