etness. He knew that he loved to sit alone
and look away to a far skyline and day-dream. He had always known
that, for it had been as much a part of his life as sleeping.

So now it was as if a real, tangible shadow lay on the range. He could
see it always lengthening before him, and always he must ride within
its shade. After a while it would grow quite black, and the range and
the cattle and the riding over hills and into coulees untamed would
all be blotted out; dead and buried deep in the past, and with the
careless, plodding feet of the plowman trampling unthinkingly upon
the grave. It was a tragedy to Charming Billy Boyle; it was as if the
range-land were a woman he loved well, and as if civilization were the
despoiler, against whom he had no means of defense.

All this--and besides, Flora. He had not spoken to her for two months.
He had not seen her even, save for a passing glimpse now and then at
a distance. He had not named her to any man, or asked how she did--and
yet there had not been an hour when he had not longed for her. She
had told him she would marry the Pilgrim (she had _not_ said that, but
Billy in his rage had so understood her) and that he could not stop
her. He wouldn't _try_ to stop her. But he would one day settle with
the Pilgrim--settle to the full. And he wanted her--_wanted_ her!

They had taken the third herd in to Brown, and were back on the range;
Billy meaning to make a last sweep around the outer edges and gather
in what was left--the stragglers that had been missed before. There
would not be many, he knew from experience; probably not more than a
hundred or two all told, even with Billy anxious to make the count as
large as possible.

He was thinking about it uneasily and staring out across the wide
coulee to the red tumble of clouds, that had strange purples and grays
and dainty violet shades here and there. Down at the creek Dill was
trying to get a trout or two more before it grew too dark for them
to rise to the raw beef he was swishing through the riffle, and an
impulse to have the worst over at once and be done drove Billy down to
interrupt.

"Yuh won't get any more there," he said, by way of making speech.

"I just then had a bite, William," reproved Dill, and swung the bait
in a wide circle for another awkward cast. He was a persistent soul,
was Dill, when once he got started in a given direction.

Billy, dodging the red morsel of meat, sat down on a grassy hummock.
"Aw