d to the front porch, and he whistled shrilly the air
of his own pet ditty that his arrival might be heralded before him.

Later, when he was sitting at the table eating a hastily prepared
dinner with Mama Joy hovering near and seeming, to the raw nerves of
Billy, surrounded by an atmosphere of reproach and coy invitation, he
kept his eyes turned from her and ate rapidly that he might the sooner
quit her presence. Flora was out riding somewhere, she told him when
he asked. Dill came in and saved Billy from fleeing the place before
his hunger slept, and Billy felt justified in breathing easily and in
looking elsewhere than at his plate.

"I see you've been getting busy with the barbwire," he remarked, when
he rose from the table and led the way out to the porch.

"Why, no. I haven't done any fencing at all, William," Dill
disclaimed.

"Yuh haven't? Who's been fencing up all Montana south uh the creek,
then?" Billy turned, a cigarette paper fluttering in his fingers, and
eyed Dill intently.

"I believe Mr. Brown is having some fencing done. Mr. Walland stopped
here to-day and said they were going to turn in a few head of cattle
as soon as the field was finished."

"The dickens they are!" Billy turned away and sought a patch of shade
where he might sit on the edge of the porch and dig his heels into the
soft dirt. He dug industriously while he turned the matter over in his
mind, then looked up a bit anxiously at Dill.

"Say, Dilly, yuh fixed up that leasing business, didn't yuh?" he
inquired. "How much did yuh get hold of?"

Dill, towering to the very eaves of the porch, gazed down solemnly
upon the other. "I'm afraid you will think it bad news, William. I did
not lease an acre. I went, and I tried, but I discovered that others
had been there before me. As you would say, they beat me _to_ it. Mr.
Brown leased all the land obtainable, as long ago as last fall."

Billy did not even say a word. He merely snapped a match short off
between his thumb and forefinger and ground the pieces into the dirt
with his heel. Into the sunlight that had shone placidly upon the
castle he had builded in the air for Dill and for himself--yes, and
for one other--crept a shadow that for the moment dimmed the whole.

"Say, Dilly, it's hell when things happen yuh haven't been looking for
and can't help," he said at last, smiling a little. "I'd plumb got
my sights raised to having a big chunk uh Montana land under a
Double-Crank lease,