ain, threaded a needle with coarse, black thread and
attacked petulantly a long rent in his coat. "Darn this bushwhacking
all over God's earth after a horse a man can't stay with, nor even
hold by the bridle reins," he complained dispiritedly. "I could uh
cleaned the blamed shack up so it would look like folks was living
here--and I woulda, if I didn't have to set all day and toggle up the
places in my clothes"--Billy muttered incoherently over a knot in his
thread. "I've been plumb puzzled, all winter, to know whether it's man
or cattle I'm supposed to chappyrone. If it's man, this coat has sure
got the marks uh the trade, all right." He drew the needle spitefully
through the cloth.

The wind gathered breath and swooped down upon the cabin so that
Billy felt the jar of it. "I don't see what's got the matter of the
weather," he grumbled. "Yuh just get a chinook that starts water
running down the coulees, and then the wind switches and she freezes
up solid--and that means tailing-up poor cows and calves by the
dozen--and for your side-partner yuh get dealt out to yuh a pilgrim
that don't know nothing and can't ride a wagon seat, hardly, and
that's bound to keep a _dawg_! And the Old Man stands for that kind uh
thing and has forbid accidents happening to it--oh, hell!"

This last was inspired by a wriggling movement under the bunk. A black
dog, of the apologetic drooping sort that always has its tail sagging
and matted with burrs, crawled out and sidled past Billy with a
deprecating wag or two when he caught his unfriendly glance, and
shambled over to the door that he might sniff suspiciously the cold
air coming in through the crack beneath.

Billy eyed him malevolently. "A dog in a line-camp is a plumb
disgrace! I don't see why the Old Man stands for it--or the Pilgrim,
either; it's a toss-up which is the worst. Yuh smell him coming, do
yuh?" he snarled. "It's about _time_ he was coming--me here eating
dried apricots and tapioca steady diet (nobody but a pilgrim would
fetch tapioca into a line-camp, and if he does it again you'll sure
be missing the only friend yuh got) and him gone four days when he'd
oughta been back the second. Get out and welcome him, darn yuh!"
He gathered the coat under one arm that he might open the door, and
hurried the dog outside with a threatening boot toe. The wind whipped
his brown cheeks so that he closed the door hastily and retired to the
cheerless shelter of the cabin.

"Another bli