He was at heart a dreamer—­was Charming Billy Boyle; perhaps an idealist—­possibly a sentimentalist.  He had never tried to find a name for the side of his life that struck deepest.  He knew that the ripple of a meadow-lark swinging on a weed against the sunrise, with diamond-sparkles all on the grass around, gripped him and hurt him vaguely with its very sweetness.  He knew that he loved to sit alone and look away to a far skyline and day-dream.  He had always known that, for it had been as much a part of his life as sleeping.

So now it was as if a real, tangible shadow lay on the range.  He could see it always lengthening before him, and always he must ride within its shade.  After a while it would grow quite black, and the range and the cattle and the riding over hills and into coulees untamed would all be blotted out; dead and buried deep in the past, and with the careless, plodding feet of the plowman trampling unthinkingly upon the grave.  It was a tragedy to Charming Billy Boyle; it was as if the range-land were a woman he loved well, and as if civilization were the despoiler, against whom he had no means of defense.

All this—­and besides, Flora.  He had not spoken to her for two months.  He had not seen her even, save for a passing glimpse now and then at a distance.  He had not named her to any man, or asked how she did—­and yet there had not been an hour when he had not longed for her.  She had told him she would marry the Pilgrim (she had not said that, but Billy in his rage had so understood her) and that he could not stop her.  He wouldn’t try to stop her.  But he would one day settle with the Pilgrim—­settle to the full.  And he wanted her—­wanted her!

They had taken the third herd in to Brown, and were back on the range; Billy meaning to make a last sweep around the outer edges and gather in what was left—­the stragglers that had been missed before.  There would not be many, he knew from experience; probably not more than a hundred or two all told, even with Billy anxious to make the count as large as possible.

He was thinking about it uneasily and staring out across the wide coulee to the red tumble of clouds, that had strange purples and grays and dainty violet shades here and there.  Down at the creek Dill was trying to get a trout or two more before it grew too dark for them to rise to the raw beef he was swishing through the riffle, and an impulse to have the worst over at once and be done drove Billy down to interrupt.

“Yuh won’t get any more there,” he said, by way of making speech.

“I just then had a bite, William,” reproved Dill, and swung the bait in a wide circle for another awkward cast.  He was a persistent soul, was Dill, when once he got started in a given direction.

Billy, dodging the red morsel of meat, sat down on a grassy hummock.  “Aw, come and set down, Dilly,” he urged wearily.  “I want to tell yuh something.”