"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!" He still rode slowly, after that, but he did not bother over the figures that stood for Dilly's debts. He sat humped over the saddle-horn like an old man and stared at the trail and at the forefeet of Barney coming down _pluck, pluck_ with leisurely regularity in the dust. Just so was Charming Billy Boyle trampling down the dreams that had been so sweet in the dreaming, and leveling ruthlessly the very foundations of the fair castle he had builded in the air for Dill and himself--and one other, with the fairest, highest, most secret chambers for that Other. And as he rode, the face of him was worn and the blue eyes of him sombre and dull; and his mouth, that had lost utterly the humorous, care-free quirk at the corners, was bitter, and straight, and hard. He had started out with such naïve assurance to succeed, and--he had failed so utterly, so hopelessly, with not even a spectacular crash to make the failing picturesque. He had done the best that was in him, and even now that it was over he could not quite understand how everything, _everything_ could go like that; how the Double-Crank and Flora--how the range, even, had slipped from him. And now Dill was gone, too, and he did not even know where, or if he would ever come back.