“You’re the doctor,” assented Billy briefly, more uneasy than before and yet not quite at the point of asking questions.  In his acquaintance with Dill he had learned that it was not always wise to question too closely; where Dill wished to give his confidence he gave it freely, but beyond the limit he had fixed for himself was a stone wall, masked by the flowers, so to speak, of his unfailing courtesy.  Billy had once or twice inadvertently located that wall.

A great depression seized upon him and made him quite indifferent to the little pleasures of homecoming; of seeing the grass green and velvety and hearing the familiar notes of the meadow-larks and the curlews.  The birds had not returned when he went away, and now the air was musical with them.  Driving over the prairies seemed fairly certain of being anything but pleasant to-day, with Dill doubled awkwardly in the seat beside him, carrying on an intermittent monologue of trivial stuff to which Billy scarcely listened.  He could feel that there was something at the back of it all, and that was enough for him at present.  He was not even anxious now to hear just what was the form of the disaster which had overtaken them.

“While you were away,” Dill began at last in the tone that braces one instinctively for the worst, “I met accidentally a man of whom I had heard, but whom I had not seen.  In the course of our casual conversation he discovered that I was about to launch myself and my capital into the cattle-business, whereupon he himself made me an offer which I felt should not be lightly brushed aside.”

“They all did!” Billy could not help flinging out half-resentfully, when he remembered that but for his timely interference Dill would have been gulled more than once.

“I admit that in my ignorance some offers advantageous only to those who made them appealed to me strongly.  But I believe you will agree with me that this is different.  In this case I am offered a full section of land, with water-rights, buildings, corrals, horses, wagons and all improvements necessary to the running of a good outfit, and ten thousand head of mixed cattle, just as they are now running loose on the range, for three hundred thousand dollars.  I need only pay half this amount down, a five-year mortgage at eight per cent. on the property covering the remainder, to be paid in five yearly installments, falling due after shipping time.  Now that you did not buy as much young stock as we at first intended, I can readily make the first payment on this place and have left between ten and twelve thousand dollars to carry us along until we begin to get some returns from the investment I am anxious to have you look over the proposition, and tell me what you think of it.  If you are in favor of buying, we can have immediate possession; ten days after the deal is closed, I think the man said.”

Billy tilted his hat-brim a bit to keep the sun from his eyes, and considered gravely the proposition.  It was a great relief to discover that his fears were groundless and that it was only another scheme of Dilly’s; another snare which he, perhaps, would be compelled, in Dill’s interest, to move aside.  He put the reins down between his knees and gripped them tightly while he made a cigarette.  It was not until he was pinching the end shut that he spoke.