He was thinking about it uneasily and staring out across the wide coulée 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." "If it's about the cook being out of evaporated cream, William, I have already been informed twice. Ah-h! I almost had one then!" "Aw, thunder! yuh think I'm worrying over canned cream? What I want to say may not be more important, but when yuh get fishing enough I'll say it anyhow." He watched Dill moodily, and then lifted his eyes to stare at the gorgeous sky--as though there would be no more sunsets when the range-life was gone, and he must needs fill well his memory for the barren years ahead. When Dill flopped a six-inch trout against his ear, so steeped was he in bitterness that he merely said, "Aw, hell!" wearily and hunched farther along on the hummock. "I really beg your pardon, William. From the vicious strike he made, I was convinced that he weighed at least half a pound, and exerted more muscular force than was quite necessary. When one hasn't a reel it is impossible to play them properly, and it is the first quick pull that one must depend upon. I'm very sorry--" "Sure. Don't mention it, Dilly. Say, how many cattle have yuh got receipts for, to date--if it ain't too much trouble?" "No trouble at all, William. I have an excellent memory for figures. Four thousand, three hundred and fifteen. Ah-h! See how instinct inspires him to flop always toward the water! Did you ever--" "Well, yes, I've saw a fish flop toward the water once or twicet before now. It sure is a great sight, Dilly!" He did not understand Dill these days, and wondered a good deal at his manifest indifference to business cares. It never occurred to him that Dill, knowing quite well how hard the trouble pressed upon his foreman, was only trying in his awkward way to lighten it by not seeming to think it worth worrying over. "I hate to mention trifles at such a time, Dilly, but I thought maybe yuh ought to know that we won't be able to scare up more than a couple uh hundred more cattle, best we can do. We're bound to fall a lot short uh what I estimated--and I ain't saying nothing about the fine job uh guessing I done! If we bring the total up to forty-five hundred, we'll do well."