Outside the town, Dill turned gravely to the other, “Did you say you were intending to camp down by the creek, William?” he asked slowly.

“Why, yes.  Anything against it?” Billy’s eyes opened a bit wider that Dill should question so trivial a thing.

“Oh, no—­nothing at all.”  Dill cleared his throat raspingly.  “Nothing at all—­so long as there is any creek to camp beside.”

“I reckon you’ve got something to back that remark.  Has the creek went and run off somewhere?” Billy said, after a minute of staring.

“William, I have been feeling extremely ill at ease for the past week, and I have been very anxious for a talk with you.  Eight days ago the creek suddenly ran dry—­so dry that one could not fill a tin dipper except in the holes.  I observed it about noon, when I led my horse down to water.  I immediately saddled him and rode up the creek to discover the cause.”  He stopped and looked at Billy steadily.

“Well, I reckon yuh found it,” Billy prompted impatiently.

“I did.  I followed the creek until I came to the ditch Mr. Brown has been digging.  I found that he had it finished and was filling it from the creek in order to test it.  I believe,” he added dryly, “he found the result very satisfying—­to himself.  The ditch carried the whole creek without any trouble, and there was plenty of room at the top for more!”

“Hell!” said Billy, just as Dill knew he would say.  “But he can’t take out any more than his water-right calls for,” he added.  “Yuh got a water right along with the ranch, didn’t yuh say?”

“I got three—­the third, fourth, and fifth.  I have looked into the matter very closely in the last week.  I find that we can have all the water there is—­after Brown gets through.  His rights are the first and second, and will cover all the water the creek will carry, if he chooses to use them to the limit.  I suspect he was looking for some sort of protest from me, for he had the papers in his pocket and showed them to me.  I afterward investigated, as I said, and found the case to be exactly as I have stated.”

Billy stared long at his horse’s ears.  “Well, he can’t use the whole creek,” he said at last, “not unless he just turned it loose to be mean, and I don’t believe he can waste water even if he does hold the rights.  We can mighty quick put a stop to that.  Do yuh know anything about injunctions?  If yuh don’t, yuh better investigate ’em a lot—­because I don’t know a damn’ thing about the breed, and we’re liable to need ’em bad.”

“I believe I may truthfully say that I understand the uses—­and misuses—­of injunctions, William.  In the East they largely take the place of guns as fighting weapons, and I think I may say without boasting that I can hit the bull’s-eye with them as well as most men.  But suppose Mr. Brown uses the water?  Suppose there is none left to turn back into the creek channel when he is through?  He has a large force of men at work running laterals from the main ditch, which carries the water up and over the high land, and I took the liberty of following his lines of stakes.  As you would put it, William, he seems about to irrigate the whole of northern Montana; certainly his stakes cover the whole creek bottom, both above and below the main ditch, and also the bench land above.”