hope you are well, and that you met with no misfortune while you were
away. I have been very anxious for your return, as I need your advice
upon a matter which seems to me of prime importance. I did not wish
to make any decisive move until I had consulted with you, and time is
pressing. Did you--er--buy as many cattle as you expected to get?" It
seemed to Billy that there was an anxious note in his voice. "Your
letters were too few and too brief to keep me perfectly informed of
your movements."

"Why, everything was lovely at my end uh the trail, Dilly--only I fell
down on them four thousand two-year-olds. Parts uh the country was
quarantined for scab, and I went way around them places. And I was
too late to see the cattlemen in a bunch when they was at the
Association--only you ain't likely to savvy that part uh the
business--and had to chase 'em all over the country. Uh course it was
my luck to have 'em stick their prices up on the end of a pole, where
I didn't feel like climbing after 'em. So I only contracted for a
couple uh thousand to be laid down in Billings somewhere between the
first and the tenth of June, at twenty-one dollars a head. It was
the best I could do this year--but next winter I can go down earlier,
before the other buyers beat me to it, and do a lot better. Don't yuh
worry, Dilly; it ain't serious."

On the contrary, Dill looked relieved, and Billy could not help
noticing it. His own face clouded a little. Perhaps Dill had lost his
money, or the bulk of it, and they couldn't do all the things they
had meant to do, after all; how else, thought Billy uneasily, could
he look like that over what should ordinarily be something of a
disappointment? He remembered that Dill, after the workings of
the cattle business from the very beginning had been painstakingly