What gets me is, I don't see how in thunder I'm going to ditch m' discard.

If I could just turn 'em face down on the table and count 'em out uh the game--old Brown and his fences and his darn ditch, and that dimply blonde person and the Pilgrim--oh, hell! Wouldn't we rake in the stakes if I could ?" Straightway Billy found another element added to the list of disagreeables--or, to follow his simile, another card was dealt him which he would like to have discarded, but which he must keep in his hand and play with what skill he might.

He was not the care-free Charming Billy Boyle who had made prune pie for Flora Bridger in the line-camp.

He looked older, and there were chronic creases between his eyebrows, and it was seldom that he asked tunefully "Can she make a punkin pie, Billy boy, Billy Boy ?" He had too much on his mind for singing anything.
It was when he had gathered the first train load of big, rollicky steers for market and was watching Jim Bleeker close the stockyard gate on the tail of the herd at Tower, the nearest shipping point, that the disagreeable element came in the person of Dill and the news he bore.
He rode up to where Billy, just inside the wing of the stockyards, was sitting slouched over with one foot out of the stirrup, making a cigarette.

Dill did not look so much the tenderfoot, these days.