It was after he had done this for the second time and had come down to the creek through a narrow, yellow-clay coulee that he came out quite suddenly upon a thing he had not before seen.
Across the creek, which at that point was so narrow that a horse could all but clear it in a running jump, lay the hills, a far-reaching ocean of fertile green.

Good grazing it was, as Billy well knew.
In another day the Double-Crank riders would be sweeping over it, gathering the cattle; at least, that had been his intent.

He looked across and his eyes settled immediately upon a long, dotted line drawn straight away to the south; at the far end a tiny huddle of figures moved indeterminately, the details of their business blunted by the distance.

But Charming Billy, though he liked them little, knew well when he looked upon a fence in the building.

The dotted line he read for post holes and the distant figures for the diggers.
While his horse drank he eyed the line distrustfully until he remembered his parting advice to Dill.