"Oh! Are those your horses down there? They can't be." Last April, Billy Louise had been very well informed as to Ward's resources. She was evidently trying to match her knowledge of their well-defined limitations with what she saw now of prosperity in its first stages. "They are, though. A dandy span of mares. I got a bargain there." Billy Louise pondered a minute. "Ward, you aren't going into debt, are you?" Her tone was anxious. "It's so beastly hard to get out, once you're in!" "I don't owe anybody a red cent, William Louisa. Honest." "Well, but--" Billy Louise looked at him from under puckered brows. Ward laughed oddly. "I've been working, William. Last spring I--hunted wolves for awhile; old ones and dens. They'd killed a couple of calves for me, and I got out after them. I--made good at it; the bounty counts up pretty fast, you know." "Yes-s, it does." Billy Louise bit her lips thoughtfully, turned and looked back at the haystack, at the long line of new, wire fence, and at the two heavy-set mares feeding contentedly along the creek. "There must be money in wolves," she remarked evenly. "There is. At least, I made good money hunting them." The smile was hiding behind Ward's lips again and threatening to come boldly to the surface. "They haven't bothered you any, I hope?" "No," said Billy Louise, "they haven't. I guess they must be all up your way." For the life of him Ward could not tell to a certainty whether there was sarcasm in her tone or whether she spoke in perfect innocence. The shrewdest of us deceive ourselves sometimes. Ward might have known he could not fool Billy Louise, who had careworn experience of the cost of ranch improvements and could figure almost the exact number of wolf-bounties it would take to pay for what he had put into his claim. Still, he was right in thinking she would not quiz him beyond a certain point. She seemed to have reached that point quite suddenly, for she did not say another word about Ward's affairs. "What all's been happening in the world, anyway?" he asked, when they had exhausted some very trivial subjects. "Your world, I mean. Anything new or startling taken place?" "Not a thing. Marthy was down last week and spent the day with us. I never saw anybody change as much as she has. She looks almost neat, these days. And she can't talk about anything but Charlie and how well he's doing. She lets him do most of the managing, I think. And he had some money left to him, this spring, and has put it into cattle. He bought quite a lot of mixed stock from Seabeck and some from Winters and Nelson, Marthy says. I passed some of his cattle coming up." "Going to have a rival in the business, am I?" Ward laughed. "I was figuring on being the only thriving young cattle-king in this neck of the woods, myself."