If he had known—­but how could he know that Flora was watching him wistfully from the front porch, when he never once looked toward the house after he reached the stable?

CHAPTER XXII.

Settled In Full.

On a lonely part of the trail to town—­queerly, it was when he was rounding the low, barren hill where he and Dill had first met—­he took out his brand-book and went over the situation.  It was Barney he rode, and Barney could be trusted to pace along decorously with the reins twisted twice around the saddle-horn, so Billy gave no thought to his horse but put his whole mind on the figures.  He was not much used to these things; beyond keeping tally of the stock at branding and shipping time and putting down what details of his business he dared not trust to memory, a pencil was strange to his fingers.  But the legal phrases in the paper left by Dill and signed by the cook and night-hawk as witnesses gave him a heavy sense of responsibility that everything should be settled exactly right.  So now he went over the figures slowly, adding them from the top down and from the bottom up, to make sure he had the totals correct.  He wished they were wrong; they might then be not quite so depressing.

“Lemme see, now.  I turned over 4,523 head uh stock, all told (hell of a fine job uh guessing I done!  Me saying there’d be over six thousand!) That made $94,983.  And accordin’ to old Brown—­and I guess he had it framed up correct—­Dilly owes him $2,217 yet, instead uh coming out with enough to start some other business.  It’s sure queer, the way figures always come out little when yuh want ’em big, and big when yuh want ’em little!  Them debts now—­they could stand a lot uh shavin’ down.  Twelve thousand dollars and interest, to the bank—­I can’t do a darn thing about them twelve thousand.  If Dilly hadn’t gone and made a cast-iron agreement I coulda held old Brown up for a few thousand more, on account uh the increase in saddle-stock.  I’d worked that bunch up till it sure was a dandy lot uh hosses—­but what yuh going to do?”

He stared dispiritedly out across the brown prairie.  “I’d oughta put Dilly next to that, only I never thought about it at the time, and I was so dead sure the range-stuff—­And there’s the men, got to have their money right away quick, so’s they can hurry up and blow it in!  If Dilly ain’t back to-night, or I don’t hear from him, I reckon I’ll have to draw m’ little old wad out uh the bank and pay the sons-uh-guns.  I sure ain’t going to need it to buy dishes and rocking chairs and pictures—­and I was going t’ git her a piano—­oh, hell!”