He knew that they were quite impersonal in their talk, and so he drifted into certain other channels of thought.
Was Brown going to start another cow-outfit, or was he merely going to try his hand at farming?
Billy knew that--unless he had sold it--Brown owned a few hundred acres along the creek there; and as he rode over it now he observed the soil more closely than was his habit, and saw that, from a passing survey, it seemed fertile and free from either adobe or alkali.

It must be that Brown was going to try ranching.
Still, he had held out all his best stock, and Billy had not heard that he had sold it since.

Now that he thought of it, he had not heard much about Brown since Dill bought the Double-Crank.

Brown had been away, and, though he had known in a general way that the Pilgrim was still in his employ, he did not know in what capacity.

In the absorption of his own affairs he had not given the matter any thought, though he had wondered at first what crazy impulse caused Brown to sell the Double-Crank.