"Perhaps, seeing I've come out of my way, I might as well," Mr. Dill decided hesitatingly. "That is, if you don't mind."
"Oh, I don't mind at all," Charming Billy assured him airily. "Uh course, I own this trail, and the less it's tracked up right now in its present state the better, but you're welcome to use it--if you're particular to trod soft and don't step in the middle."
Alexander P. Dill looked at him uncertainly, as if his sense of humor were weak and not to be trusted off-hand; turned his tired horse awkwardly in a way that betrayed an unfamiliarity with "neck-reining," and began to retrace his steps beside Charming Billy. His stirrups were too short, so that his knees were drawn up uncomfortably, and Billy, glancing sidelong down at them, wondered how the man could ride like that.
"You wasn't raised right around here, I reckon," Billy began amiably, when they were well under way.
"No--oh, no. I am from Michigan. I only came out West two weeks ago. I--I'm thinking some of raising wild cattle for the Eastern markets." Alexander P. Dill still had the wistful look in his eyes, which were unenthusiastically blue--just enough of the blue to make their color definite.
Charming Billy came near laughing, but some impulse kept him quiet-lipped and made his voice merely friendly. "Yes--this is a pretty good place for that business," he observed quite seriously. "A lot uh people are doing that same thing."
Mr. Dill warmed pitifully to the friendliness. "I was told that Mr. Murton wanted to sell his far---- ranch and cattle, and I was going to see him about it. I would like to buy a place outright, you see, with the cattle all branded, and--everything."
Billy suddenly felt the instinct of the champion. "Well, somebody lied to yuh a lot, then," he replied warmly. "Don't yuh never go near old Murton. In the first place, he ain't a cowman--he's a sheepman, on a small scale so far as sheep go but on a sure-enough big scale when yuh count his feelin's. He runs about twelve hundred woollies, and is about as unpolite a cuss as I ever met up with. He'd uh roasted yuh brown just for saying cattle at him--and if yuh let out inadvertant that yuh took him for a cowman, the chances is he'd a took a shot at yuh. If yuh ask me, you was playin' big luck when yuh went and lost the trail."