<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
<h3>"<i>That's My Dill Pickle!</i>"</h3>
<p>Charming Billy Boyle was, to put it mildly, enjoying his
enforced vacation very much. To tell the plain truth and tell it
without the polish of fiction, he was hilariously moistened as to
his gullet and he was not thinking of quitting yet; he had only
just begun.</p>
<p>He was sitting on an end of the bar in the Hardtip Saloon, his
hat as far back on his head as it could possibly be pushed with any
hope of its staying there at all. He had a glass in one hand, a
cigarette in the other, and he was raking his rowels rhythmically
up and down the erstwhile varnished bar in buzzing accompaniment,
the while he chanted with much enthusiasm:</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>"How old is she, Billy boy, Billy boy?</p>
<p>How old is she, charming Billy?</p>
<p class="i4">Twice six, twice seven,</p>
<p class="i4">Forty-nine and eleven—"</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>The bartender, wiping the bar after an unsteady sheepherder, was
careful to leave a generous margin around the person of Charming
Billy who was at that moment asserting with much emphasis:</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>"She's a young thing, and cannot leave her mother."</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>"Twice-six's-twelve, 'n' twice-seven's-four-r-teen, 'n' twelve
'n'
fourteen's—er—twelve—'n'—fourteen—"
The unsteady sheepherder was laboring earnestly with the problem.
"She ain't no spring chicken, she ain't!" He laughed tipsily, and
winked up at the singer, but Billy was not observing him and his
mathematical struggles. He refreshed himself from the glass,
leaving the contents perceptibly lower—it was a large, thick
glass with a handle, and it had flecks of foam down the
inside—took a pull at the cigarette and inquired
plaintively:</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>"Can she brew, can she bake, Billy boy, Billy boy?</p>
<p>Can she brew, can she bake, charming Billy?"</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Another long pull at the cigarette, and then the triumphant
declaration:</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>"She can brew n' she can bake,</p>
<p>She can sew n' she can make—</p>
<p>She's a young thing, and cannot leave her mother."</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>"She ain't s' young!" bawled the sheepherder, who was taking it
all very seriously. "Say them numbers over again, onc't.
Twelve-'n'-fourteen—"</p>
<p>"Aw, go off and lay down!" advised Charming Billy, in a tone of
deep disgust. He was about to pursue still farther his inquiry into
the housewifely qualifications of the mysterious "young thing," and
he hated interruptions.</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>"Can she make a punkin pie, Billy boy, Billy boy?</p>
<p>Can she make a punkin pie, charming Billy?"</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>The door opened timidly and closed again, but he did not see who
entered. He was not looking; he was holding the empty, foam-flecked
glass behind him imperatively, and he was watching over his
shoulder to see that the bartender did not skimp the filling and
make it two-thirds foam. The bartender was punctiliously lavish, so
that a crest of foam threatened to deluge the hand of Charming
Billy and quite occupied him for the moment. When he squared
himself again and buzzed his spurs against the bar, his mind was
wholly given to the proper execution of the musical gem.</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>"She can make a punkin pie,</p>
<p>Quick's a cat can wink her eye—"</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Something was going on, over in the dimly lighted corner near
the door. Half a dozen men had grouped themselves there with their
backs to Billy and they were talking and laughing; but the speech
of them was an unintelligible clamor and their laughter a
commingling roar. Billy gravely inspected his cigarette, which had
gone cold, set down the glass and sought diligently for a
match.</p>
<p>"Aw, come on an' have one on me!" bawled a voice peremptorily.
"Yuh can't raise no wild cattle around <i>this</i> joint, lessen
yuh wet up good with whisky. Why, a feller as long as you be needs
a good jolt for every foot of yuh—and that's about fifteen
when you're lengthened out good. Come on—don't be a damn'
chubber! Yuh got to sample m' hospitality. Hey, Tom! set out about
a quart uh your <i>mildest</i> for Daffy-down-Dilly. He's dry,
clean down to his hand-made socks."</p>
<p>Charming Billy, having found a match, held it unlighted in his
fingers and watched the commotion from his perch on the bar. In the
very midst of the clamor towered the melancholy Alexander P. Dill,
and he was endeavoring to explain, in his quiet, grammatical
fashion. A lull that must have been an accident carried the words
clearly across to Charming Billy.</p>
<p>"Thank you, gentlemen. I really don't care for anything in the
way of refreshment. I merely came in to find a friend who has
promised to spend the night with me. It is getting along toward
bedtime. Have your fun, gentlemen, if you must—but I am
really too tired to join you."</p>
<p>"Make 'im dance!" yelled the sheepherder, giving over the
attempt to find the sum of twelve and fourteen. "By gosh, yuh made
<i>me</i> dance when I struck town. Make 'im dance!"</p>
<p>"You go off and lay down!" commanded Billy again, and to
emphasize his words leaned and emptied the contents of his glass
neatly inside the collar of the sheepherder. "Cool down, yuh
Ba-ba-black-sheep!"</p>
<p>The herder forgot everything after that—everything but the
desire to tear limb from limb one Charming Billy Boyle, who sat and
raked his spurs up and down the marred front of the bar and grinned
maliciously down at him. "Go-awn off, before I take yuh all to
pieces," he urged wearily, already regretting the unjustifiable
waste of good beer. "Quit your buzzing; I wanta listen over
there."</p>
<p>"Come on 'n' have a drink!" vociferated the hospitable one. "Yuh
got to be sociable, or yuh can't stop in <i>this</i> man's town."
So insistent was he that he laid violent hold of Mr. Dill and tried
to pull him bodily to the bar.</p>
<p>"Gentlemen, this passes a joke!" protested Mr. Dill, looking
around him in his blankly melancholy way. "I do not drink liquor. I
must insist upon your stopping this horseplay immediately!"</p>
<p>"Oh, it ain't no <i>play</i>," asserted the insistent one
darkly. "I mean it, by thunder."</p>
<p>It was at this point that Charming Billy decided to have a word.
"Here, break away, there!" he yelled, pushing the belligerent
sheepherder to one side. "Hands off that long person! That there's
<i>my</i> dill pickle!"</p>
<div class="figure" style="width:70%;"><SPAN href="images/ls001.jpg"><ANTIMG width-obs="100%" src="images/ls001.jpg" alt="" /></SPAN></div>
<p>Mr. Dill was released, and Billy fancied hazily that it was
because he so ordered; as a matter of fact, Mr. Dill, catching
sight of him there, had thrown the men and their importunities off
as though they had been rough-mannered boys. He literally plowed
his way through them and stopped deprecatingly before Billy.</p>
<p>"It is getting late," he observed, mildly reproachful. "I
thought I would show you the way to my room, if you don't
mind."</p>
<p>Billy stared down at him. "Well, I'm going to be busy for a
while yet," he demurred. "I've got to lick this misguided
son-of-a-gun that's blatting around wanting to eat me
alive—and I got my eyes on your friend in the rear, there,
that's saying words about you, Dilly. Looks to me like I'm going to
be some occupied for quite a spell. You run along to bed and don't
yuh bother none about <i>me</i>."</p>
<p>"The matter is not so urgent but what I can wait until you are
ready," Mr. Dill told him quietly, but with decision. He folded his
long arms and ranged himself patiently alongside Billy. And Billy,
regarding him uneasily, felt convinced that though he tarried until
the sun returned Mr. Dill would stand right there and
wait—like a well-broken range-horse when the reins are
dropped to the ground. Charming Billy did not know why it made him
uncomfortable, but it did and he took immediate measures to relieve
the sensation.</p>
<p>He turned fretfully and cuffed the clamorous sheepherder, who
seemed to lack the heart for actual hostilities but indulged in
much recrimination and was almost in tears. "Aw, shut up!" growled
Billy. "A little more uh that war-talk and I'll start in and learn
yuh some manners. I don't want any more of it. Yuh hear?"</p>
<p>It is a fact that trifles sometimes breed large events. Billy,
to make good his threat, jumped off the bar. In doing so he came
down upon the toes of Jack Morgan, the hospitable soul who had
insisted upon treating Mr. Dill and who had just come up to renew
the argument. Jack Morgan was a man of uncertain temper and he also
had toes exceedingly tender. He struck out, missed Billy, who was
thinking only of the herder, and it looked quite as though the blow
was meant for Mr. Dill.</p>
<p>After that, things happened quickly and with some confusion.
Others became active, one way or the other, and the clamor was
great, so that it was easily heard down the street and nearly
emptied the other saloons.</p>
<p>When the worst of it was over and one could tell for a certainty
what was taking place, Charming Billy was holding a man's face
tightly against the bar and was occasionally beating it with his
fist none too gently. Mr. Dill, an arm's length away, had Jack
Morgan and one other offender clutched by the neck in either hand
and he was solemnly and systematically butting their heads together
until they howled. The bartender had just succeeded in throwing the
sheepherder out through the back door, and he was wiping his hands
and feeling very well satisfied with himself.</p>
<p>"I'd oughta fired him long ago, when he first commenced building
trouble," he remarked, to no one in particular. "The darned
lamb-licker—he's broke and has been all evening. I don't know
what made me stand for 'im long as I did."</p>
<p>Billy, moved perhaps by weariness rather than mercy, let go his
man and straightened up, feeling mechanically for his hat. His eyes
met those of the melancholy Mr. Dill.</p>
<p>"If you're quite through"—bang! went the
heads—"perhaps we may as well"—bang!—"leave this
unruly crowd"—bang!!—"and go to our room. It is after
eleven o'clock." Mr. Dill looked as though his present occupation
was unpleasant but necessary and as though, to please Billy, he
could keep it up indefinitely.</p>
<p>Charming Billy stood quite still, staring at the other and at
what he was doing; and while he stared and wondered, something came
into the heart of him and quite changed his destiny. He did not
know what it was, or why it was so; at the time he realized only a
deep amazement that Mr. Dill, mild of manner, correct of speech and
wistful-eyed, should be standing there banging the heads of two men
who were considered rather hard to handle. Certainly Jack Morgan
was reputed a "bad actor" when it came to giving blows. And while
Alexander P. Dill was a big man—an enormous man, one might
say—he had none of the earmarks of a fighting man. It was,
perhaps, his very calmness that won Billy for good and all. Before,
Charming Billy had felt toward him a certain amused pity; his
instinct had been to protect Mr. Dill. He would never feel just
that way again; Mr. Dill, it would seem, was perfectly well able to
protect himself.</p>
<p>"Shall we go?" Mr. Dill poised the two heads for another bang
and held them so. By this time every one in the room was watching,
but he had eyes only for Billy.</p>
<p>"Just as you say," Billy assented submissively.</p>
<p>Mr. Dill shook the two with their faces close together, led them
to a couple of chairs and set them emphatically down. "Now, see if
you can behave yourselves," he advised, in the tone a father would
have used toward two refractory boys. "You have been acting
boorishly and disgracefully all evening. It was you who directed me
wrong, to-day. You have not, at any time since I first met you,
acted like gentlemen; I should be sorry to think this country held
many such brainless louts." He turned inquiringly toward Charming
Billy and nodded his head toward the door. Billy, stooping
unsteadily for his hat which he discovered under his feet, followed
him meekly out.</p>
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