The latter seemed unable to keep off the subject. He knew that his suspicions only strengthened the girl's obstinate opposition, but he could not help their expression for all that. Sometimes he pleaded, sometimes he threatened, sometimes he assumed the prophet's mantle and foretold all sorts of dire disasters. The girl laughed, or became angry. It would have puzzled Graham to tell which of these moods he preferred: perhaps it would have depended on which of them he was experiencing at the moment. His saving grace was a sturdy sense of his duty to himself. He felt that sense to be sadly shaken in many ways; but he clung to his work tenaciously, perhaps a little feverishly. "Nuthin' like a woman to make a man work," observed Bill Martin sagely, "whether she's _fur_ him, or agin' him." "How about Billy?" inquired Old Mizzou. Bill Martin laughed. "Billy? Oh, he's _playin'_," he replied. XXVII PROSPERITY Billy did not think so, however. He posed to himself as the most industrious man in the territory. He had so much to see to that year, for throughout the mild winter that succeeded he had pushed forward with the greatest rapidity all work on the Great Snake and its sister claims. The log structures, the plans of which he had displayed to Lafond, were completed, so far as the mere erection of them went, within a fortnight. Billy gave a great deal of personal direction to this work; but after all it was simple enough, so he managed to chink in a moment here and there for the completion of certain bargains which came to him. For instance, a man in Spring Creek Valley offered eight draught horses at a marvellously low figure. That made two teams. Billy did not need two teams just then; but of course later, when the mill was up, he would need a great many more than two teams for the purpose of carting ore; and it seemed criminal to let such a bargain go. Then he found he required a man to take care of them. Some days later he came to the conclusion that it would be good economy to buy the ore wagons now instead of waiting until later, for the following ingenious reason: the horses must be fed; hay costs fifteen dollars a ton in the hills and five on the prairie; with wagons the horses could be utilized to haul their own forage from the plains at a net saving of ten dollars a ton on all consumed. So Billy placed an order for two heavy wagons, and dismissed the matter from his mind until they were delivered. During the interim he sat on top of a ladder and dabbed contentedly at a scroll-work cornice with a small red paint brush.