rather
astonished voice. "What you've seen uh me, so far, ain't been what
I'd call a gilt-edge recommend. But if you're fool enough to mean it
serious, it's as I told yuh a while back: Yuh can count on me till
they're cutting figure-eights all over hell."

"That, according to the scientists who are willing to concede the
existence of such a place, will be quite as long as I shall be likely
to have need of your loyalty," observed Mr. Dill, puckering his long
face into the first smile Billy had seen him attempt.

He did not intimate the fact that he had inquired very closely into
the record and the general range qualifications of Charming Billy
Boyle, sounding, for that purpose, every responsible man in Hardup.
With the new-born respect for him bred by his peculiarly efficacious
way of handling those who annoyed him beyond the limit, he was told
the truth and recognized it as such. So he was not really as rash and
as given over to his impulses as Billy, in his ignorance of the man,
fancied.

The modesty of Billy would probably have been shocked if he had heard
the testimony of his fellows concerning him. As it was, he was rather
dazed and a good deal inclined to wonder how Alexander P. Dill had
ever managed to accumulate enough capital to start anything--let
alone a cow-outfit--if he took on trust every man he met. He privately
believed that Dill had taken a long chance, and that he should
consider himself very lucky because he had accidentally picked a man
who would not "steal him blind."

* * * * *

After that there were many days of riding to and fro, canvassing all
northern Montana in search of a location and an outfit that suited
them and that could be bought. And in the riding, Mr. Dill became
under the earnest tutelage of Charming Billy a shade less ignorant of
range ways and of the business of "raising wild cattle for the Eastern
markets."

He even came to speak quite easily of "outfits" in all the nice shades
of meaning which are attached to that hard-worked term. He could lay
the saddle-blanket smooth and unwrinkled, slap the saddle on and cinch
it without fixing it either upon the withers or upon the rump of his
long-suffering mount. He could swing his quirt without damaging his
own person, and he rode with his stirrups where they should be to
accommodate the length of him--all of which speaks eloquently of the
honest intentions of Dill's confidential adviser.

CH