<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
<h3><i>Charming Billy Has a Fight.</i></h3>
<p>If Billy Boyle had any ideals he did not recognize them as such,
and he would not have known just how to answer you if you had asked
him what was his philosophy of life. He was range-bred—as
purely Western as were the cattle he tended—but he was not
altogether ignorant of the ways of the world, past or present. He
had that smattering of education which country schools and those of
"the county seat" may give a boy who loves a horse better than
books, and who, sitting hunched behind his geography, dreams of
riding afar, of shooting wild things and of sleeping under the
stars.</p>
<p>From the time he was sixteen he had lived chiefly in tents and
line-camp cabins, his world the land of far horizons, of big sins,
and virtues bigger. One creed he owned: to live "square," fight
square, and to be loyal to his friends and his "outfit." Little
things did not count much with him, and for that reason he was the
more enraged against the Pilgrim, because he did not quite know
what it was all about. So far as he had heard or seen, the Pilgrim
had offered no insult to Miss Bridger—"the girl," as he
called her simply in his mind. Still, he had felt all along that
the mere presence of the Pilgrim was an offense to her, no less
real because it was intangible and not to be put into words; and
for that offense the Pilgrim must pay.</p>
<p>But for the presence of the Pilgrim, he told himself
ill-temperedly, they might have waited for breakfast; but he had
been so anxious to get her away from under the man's leering gaze
that he had not thought of eating. And if the Pilgrim had been a
<i>man</i>, he might have sent him over to Bridger's for her father
and a horse. But the Pilgrim would have lost himself, or have
refused to go, and the latter possibility would have caused a scene
unfit for the eyes of a young woman.</p>
<p>So he rode slowly and thought of many things he might have done
which would have been better than what he did do; and wondered what
the girl thought about it and if she blamed him for not doing
something different. And for every mile of the way he cursed the
Pilgrim anew.</p>
<p>In that unfriendly mood he opened the door of the cabin, stood a
minute just inside, then closed it after him with a slam. The
cabin, in contrast with the bright light of sun shining on
new-fallen snow, was dark and so utterly cheerless and chill that
he shrugged shoulders impatiently at its atmosphere, which was as
intangibly offensive as had been the conduct of the Pilgrim.</p>
<p>The Pilgrim was sprawled upon the bunk with his face in his
arms, snoring in a peculiarly rasping way that Billy, heavy-eyed as
he was, resented most unreasonably. Also, the untidy table showed
that the Pilgrim had eaten unstintedly—and Billy was
exceedingly hungry. He went over and lifted a snowy boot to the
ribs of the sleeper and commanded him bluntly to "Come alive."</p>
<p>"What-yuh-want?" mumbled the Pilgrim thickly, making one word of
the three and lifting his red-rimmed eyes to the other. He raised
to an elbow with a lazy doubling of his body and stared dully for a
space before he grinned unpleasantly. "Took 'er home all right, did
yuh?" he leered, as if they two were in possession of a huge joke
of the kind which may not be told in mixed company.</p>
<p>If Charming Billy Boyle had needed anything more to stir him to
the fighting point, that one sentence admirably supplied the lack.
"Yuh low-down skunk!" he cried, and struck him full upon the
insulting, smiling mouth. "If I was as rotten-minded as you are,
I'd go drown myself in the stalest alkali hole I could find. I
dunno why I'm dirtying my hands on yuh—yuh ain't fit to be
clubbed to death with a tent pole!" He was, however, using his
hands freely and to very good purpose, probably feeling that, since
the Pilgrim was much bigger than he, there was need of getting a
good start.</p>
<p>But the Pilgrim was not the sort to lie on his bunk and take a
thrashing. He came up after the second blow, pushing Billy back
with the very weight of his body, and they were fighting all over
the little cabin, surging against the walls and the table and
knocking the coffee-pot off the stove as they lurched this way and
that. Not much was said after the first outburst of Billy's, save a
panting curse now and then between blows, a threat gasped while
they wrestled.</p>
<p>It was the dog, sneaking panther-like behind Billy and setting
treacherous teeth viciously into his leathern chaps, that brought
the crisis. Billy tore loose and snatched his gun from the scabbard
at his hip, held the Pilgrim momentarily at bay with one hand while
he took a shot at the dog, missed, kicked him back from another
rush, and turned again on the Pilgrim.</p>
<p>"Get that dawg outdoors, then," he panted, "or I'll kill him
sure." The Pilgrim, for answer, struck a blow that staggered Billy,
and tried to grab the gun. Billy, hooking a foot around a
table-leg, threw it between them, swept the blood from his eyes and
turned his gun once more on the dog that was watching treacherously
for another chance.</p>
<p>"That's the time I got him," he gritted through the smoke,
holding the Pilgrim quiet before him with the gun. "But I've got a
heap more respect for him than I have for you, yuh damn', low-down
brute. I'd ought to kill yuh like I would a coyote. Yuh throw your
traps together and light out uh here, before I forget and shoot yuh
up. There ain't room in this camp for you and me no more."</p>
<p>The Pilgrim backed, eying Billy malevolently. "I never done
nothing," he defended sullenly. "The boss'll have something to say
about this—and I'll kill you first chance I get, for shooting
my dog."</p>
<p>"It ain't what yuh done, it's what yuh woulda done if you'd had
the chance," answered Billy, for the first time finding words for
what was surging bitterly in the heart of him. "And I'm willing to
take a whirl with yuh any old time; any dawg that'll lick the boots
of a man like you had ought to be shot for not having more sense. I
ain't saying anything about him biting me—which I'd kill him
for, anyhow. Now, git! I want my breakfast, and I can't eat with
any relish whilst you're spoiling the air in here for me."</p>
<p>At heart the Pilgrim was a coward as well as a beast, and he
packed his few belongings hurriedly and started for the door.</p>
<p>"Come back here, and drag your dawg outside," commanded Billy,
and the Pilgrim obeyed.</p>
<p>"You'll hear about this later on," he snarled. "The boss won't
stand for anything like this. I never done a thing, and I'm going
to tell him so."</p>
<p>"Aw, go on and tell him, yuh—!" snapped Billy. "Only yuh
don't want to get absent-minded enough to come back—not
whilst I'm here; things unpleasant might happen." He stood in the
doorway and watched while the Pilgrim saddled his horse and rode
away. When not even the pluckety-pluck of his horse's feet came
back to offend the ears of him, Charming Billy put away his gun and
went in and hoisted the overturned table upon its legs again. A
coarse, earthenware plate, which the Pilgrim had used for his
breakfast, lay unbroken at the feet of him. Billy picked it up,
went to the door and cast it violently forth, watching with grim
satisfaction the pieces when they scattered over the frozen ground.
"No white man'll ever have to eat after <i>him</i>," he muttered.
To ease his outraged feelings still farther, he picked up the
Pilgrim's knife and fork, and sent them after the plate—and
knives and forks were not numerous in that particular camp, either.
After that he felt better and picked up the coffee-pot, lighted a
fire and cooked himself some breakfast, which he ate hungrily, his
wrath cooling a bit with the cheer of warm food and strong
coffee.</p>
<p>The routine work of the line-camp was performed in a hurried,
perfunctory manner that day. Charming Billy, riding the high-lines
to make sure the cattle had not drifted where they should not, was
vaguely ill at ease. He told himself it was the want of a smoke
that made him uncomfortable, and he planned a hurried trip to
Hardup, if the weather held good for another day, when he would lay
in a supply of tobacco and papers that would last till roundup.
This running out every two or three weeks, and living in hell till
you got more, was plumb wearisome and unnecessary.</p>
<p>On the way back, his trail crossed that of a breed wolfer on his
way into the Bad Lands. Billy immediately asked for tobacco, and
the breed somewhat reluctantly opened his pack and exchanged two
small sacks for a two-bit piece. Billy, rolling a cigarette with
eager fingers, felt for the moment a deep satisfaction with life.
He even felt some compunction about killing the Pilgrim's dog, when
he passed the body stiffening on the snow. "Poor devil! Yuh hadn't
ought to expect much from a dawg—and he was a heap more
white-acting than what his owner was," was his tribute to the
dead.</p>
<p>It seemed as though, when he closed the cabin door behind him,
he somehow shut out his newborn satisfaction. "A shack with one
window is sure unpleasant when the sun is shining outside," he said
fretfully to himself. "This joint looks a heap like a cellar. I
wonder what the girl thought of it; I reckon it looked pretty
sousy, to her—and them with everything shining. Oh, hell!" He
took off his chaps and his spurs, rolled another cigarette and
smoked it meditatively. When it had burned down so that it came
near scorching his lips, he lighted a fire, carried water from the
creek, filled the dishpan and set it on the stove to heat. "Darn a
dirty shack!" he muttered, half apologetically, while he was taking
the accumulation of ashes out of the hearth.</p>
<p>For the rest of that day he was exceedingly busy, and he did not
attempt further explanations to himself. He overhauled the bunk and
spread the blankets out on the wild rose bushes to sun while he
cleaned the floor. Billy's way of cleaning the floor was
characteristic of the man, and calculated to be effectual in the
main without descending to petty details. All superfluous objects
that were small enough, he merely pushed as far as possible under
the bunk. Boxes and benches he piled on top; then he brought
buckets of water and sloshed it upon the worst places, sweeping and
spreading it with a broom. When the water grew quite black, he
opened the door, swept it outside and sloshed fresh water upon the
grimy boards. While he worked, his mind swung slowly back to
normal, so that he sang crooningly in an undertone; and the song
was what he had sung for months and years, until it was a part of
him and had earned him his nickname.</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>"Oh, where have you been, Billy boy, Billy boy?</p>
<p>Oh, where have you been, charming Billy?</p>
<p class="i4">I've been to see my wife,</p>
<p class="i4">She's the joy of my life,</p>
<p>She's a young thing and cannot leave her mother."</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Certainly it was neither musical nor inspiring, but Billy had
somehow adopted the ditty and made it his own, so far as eternally
singing it could do so, and his comrades had found it not
unpleasant; for the voice of Billy was youthful, and had a
melodious smoothness that atoned for much in the way of imbecile
words and monotonous tune.</p>
<p>He had washed all the dishes and had repeated the ditty fifteen
times, and was for the sixteenth time tunefully inquiring:</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>Can she make a punkin pie, charming Billy?</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>when he opened the door to throw out the dishwater, and narrowly
escaped landing it full upon the fur-coated form of his
foreman.</p>
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