For an appreciable space Charming Billy Boyle did not say a word.  He was not stupid and he saw in a flash all the possibilities that lay in the offer.  To be next the very top—­to have his say in the running of a 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 be done—­to be foreman, with the right to “hire and fire” at his own discretion—­He turned, flushed and bright-eyed, to Dill.

“God knows why yuh cut me out for the job,” he said in a 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.