The long shadow, p.7
The Long Shadow, page 7
CHAPTER VII.
"_Till Hell's a Skating-rink._"
Charming Billy opened his eyes slowly, but with every sense at thenormal degree of alertness; which was a way he had, born of lightsleeping and night-watching. He had slept heavily, from the feel ofhis head, and he remembered the unwisdom of drinking four glasses ofwhisky and then changing irresponsibly to beer. He had not undressed,it would seem, and he was lying across the middle of a bed with hisspurred boots hanging over the edge. A red comforter had been thrownacross him, and he wondered why. He looked around the room anddiscovered Mr. Dill seated in a large, cane rocker--which wasunquestionably not big enough for his huge person--his feet uponanother chair and his hands folded inertly on his drawn-up knees. Hewas asleep, with his head lying against the chair-back and his facemore melancholy than ever and more wistful. His eyes, Billy observed,were deep-sunk and dark-ringed. He sat up suddenly--did Billy, andthrew off the cover with some vehemence. "Darn me for a drunkenchump!" he exclaimed, and clanked over to the chair.
"Here, Dilly"--to save the life of him he could not refrain fromaddressing him so--"why in thunder didn't yuh kick me awake, and makeme get off your bed? What did yuh let me do it for--and you setting upall night--oh, this is sure a hell of a note!"
Mr. Dill opened his eyes, stared blankly and came back from hisdreaming. "You were so--so impatient when I tried to get you up," heexplained in a tired voice. "And you had a way of laying your hands onyour revolver when I insisted. It seems you took me for a shepherdand were very unfriendly; so I thought it best to let you stay as youwere, but I'm afraid you were not very comfortable. One can rest somuch better between sheets. You would not," he added plaintively,"even permit me to take your boots off for you."
Charming Billy sat down upon the edge of the bed, all tousled as hewas, and stared abstractedly at Mr. Dill. Perhaps he had never beforefelt so utterly disgusted with himself, or realized so keenly hisshortcomings. Not even the girl had humbled him so completely as hadthis long, lank, sinfully grammatical man from Michigan.
"You've sure got me where I live, Dilly," he said slowly andhaltingly, feeling mechanically for the makings of a smoke. "CharmingBilly Boyle ain't got a word to say for himself. But if yuh ain'tplumb sick and disgusted with the spectacle I've made uh myself, yuhcan count on me till hell's a skating-rink. I ain't always thisaway. Ido have spells when I'm some lucid."
It was not much, but such as it was it stood for his oath ofallegiance.
Alexander P. Dill sat up straight, his long, bony fingers--whichBilly could still mentally see gripping the necks of those two inthe saloon--lying loosely upon the chair-arms. "I hope you willnot mention the matter again," he said. "I realize that this is notMichigan, and that the temptations are--But we will not discuss it. Ishall be very grateful for your friendship, and--"
"Grateful!" snorted Billy, spilling tobacco on the strip of fadedingrain carpet before the bed. "Grateful--hell!"
Mr. Dill looked at him a moment and there was a certain keenman-measuring behind the wistfulness. But he said no more about thefriendship of Charming Billy Boyle, which was as well.
That is why the two of them later sat apart on the sunny side of thehotel "office"--which was also a saloon--and talked of many things,but chiefly of the cattle industry as Montana knows it and of thehopes and the aims of Alexander P. Dill. Perhaps, also, that is whyBilly breathed clean of whisky and had the bulk of his winter wagesstill unspent in his pocket.
"Looks to me," he was saying between puffs, "like you'd uh stayed backwhere yuh knew the lay uh the land, instead uh drifting out here whereit's all plumb strange to yuh."
"Well, several incidents influenced my actions," Mr. Dill explainedquietly. "I had always lived within twenty miles of my birthplace.I owned a general store in a little place near the old farm, and didwell. The farm paid well, also. Then mother died and the place didnot seem quite the same. A railroad was built through the town and theland I owned there rose enormously in value. I had a splendid locationfor a modern store but I could not seem to make up my mind to change.So I sold out everything--store, land, the home farm and all, andreceived a good figure--a _very_ good figure. I was very fortunate inowning practically the whole townsite--the new townsite, that is. Ido not like these so-called booms, however, and so I left to beginsomewhere else. I did not care to enter the mercantile business again,and our doctor advised me to live as much as possible in the open air.Mother died of consumption. So I decided to come West and buy a cattleranch. I believed I should like it. I always liked animals."
"Uh-huh--so do I." It was not just what Charming Billy most wanted tosay, but that much was perfectly safe, and noncommittal to say.
Mr. Dill was silent a minute, looking speculatively across tothe Hardup Saloon which was practically empty and therefore quitepeaceful. Billy, because long living on the range made silence easy,smoked and said nothing.
"Mr. Boyle," began Dill at last, in the hesitating way that he hadused when Billy first met him, "you say you know this country, andhave worked at cattle-raising for a good many years--"
"Twelve," supplemented Charming Billy. "Turned my first cow when I wassixteen."
"So you must be perfectly familiar with the business. I frankly admitthat I am not familiar with it. You say you are at present out ofemployment and so I am thinking seriously of offering you a positionmyself, as confidential adviser if you like. I really need someone who can accompany me about the country and keep me from suchdeplorable blunders as was yesterday's experience. After I have boughta place, I shall need some one who is familiar with the business andwill honestly work for my interests and assist me in the details untilI have myself gained a practical working-knowledge of it. I think Ican make such an arrangement to your advantage as well as my own. Fromthe start the salary would be what is usually paid to a foreman. Whatdo you say?"
For an appreciable space Charming Billy Boyle did not say a word. Hewas not stupid and he saw in a flash all the possibilities that lay inthe offer. To be next the very top--to have his say in the running ofa model cow-outfit--and it should be a model outfit if he took charge,for he had ideas of his own about how these things should bedone--to be foreman, with the right to "hire and fire" at his owndiscretion--He turned, flushed and bright-eyed, to Dill.
"God knows why yuh cut _me_ out for the job," he said in a ratherastonished voice. "What you've seen uh me, so far, ain't been whatI'd call a gilt-edge recommend. But if you're fool enough to mean itserious, it's as I told yuh a while back: Yuh can count on me tillthey're cutting figure-eights all over hell."
"That, according to the scientists who are willing to concede theexistence of such a place, will be quite as long as I shall be likelyto have need of your loyalty," observed Mr. Dill, puckering his longface into the first smile Billy had seen him attempt.
He did not intimate the fact that he had inquired very closely intothe record and the general range qualifications of Charming BillyBoyle, sounding, for that purpose, every responsible man in Hardup.With the new-born respect for him bred by his peculiarly efficaciousway of handling those who annoyed him beyond the limit, he was toldthe truth and recognized it as such. So he was not really as rash andas 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 heardthe testimony of his fellows concerning him. As it was, he was ratherdazed and a good deal inclined to wonder how Alexander P. Dill hadever managed to accumulate enough capital to start anything--letalone a cow-outfit--if he took on trust every man he met. He privatelybelieved that Dill had taken a long chance, and that he shouldconsider himself very lucky because he had accidentally picked a manwho would not "steal him blind."
* * * * *
After that there were many days of riding to and fro, canvassing allnorthern Montana in search of a location and an outfit that suitedthem and that could be bought. And in the riding, Mr. Dill becameunder the earnest tutelage of Charming Billy a shade less ignorant ofrange ways and of the business of "raising wild cattle for the Easternmarkets."
He even came to speak quite easily of "outfits" in all the nice shadesof meaning which are attached to that hard-worked term. He could laythe saddle-blanket smooth and unwrinkled, slap the saddle on and cinchit without fixing it either upon the withers or upon the rump of hislong-suffering mount. He could swing his quirt without damaging hisown person, and he rode with his stirrups where they should be toaccommodate the length of him--all of which speaks eloquently of thehonest intentions of Dill's confidential adviser.
