was taken with a fit of strangling that turned his face a dark purple.
Afterward he explained brokenly that something had got down his Sunday
throat--and Thurston, who had never heard of a man's Sunday throat,
eyed him with suspicion. Hank blinked at him with tears still in
his quizzical eyes and slapped him on the back, after the way of the
West--and any other enlightened country where men are not too dignified
to be their real selves--and drawled, in a way peculiar to himself:

"That's all right, Bud. You stay right here as long as yuh want to. I
don't blame yuh--if I was you I'd want to spend a lot uh time studying
this particular brand uh female girl myself. She's out uh sight,
Bud--and I don't believe any uh the boys has got his loop on her so far;
though I could name a dozen or so that would be tickled to death if they
had. You just go right ahead and file your little, old claim--"

"You're getting things mixed," Thurston interrupted, rather testily.
"I'm not in love with her. I, well, it's like this: if you were going to
paint a picture of those mountains off there, you'd want to be where you
could look at them--wouldn't you? You wouldn't necessarily want to--to
own them, just because you felt they'd make a fine picture. Your
interest would be, er, entirely impersonal."

"Uh-huh," Hank agreed, his keen eyes searching Phil's face amusedly.

"Therefore, it doesn't follow that I'm getting foolish about a girl just
because I--hang it! what the Dickens makes you look at a fellow that
way? You make me?"

"Uh-huh," said Hank again, smoothing the lower half of his face with one
hand. "You're a mighty nice little boy, Bud. I'll bet Mona thinks so,
too and when yuh get growed up you'll know a whole lot more than yuh do
right now. Well, I guess I'll be moving. When yuh get that--er--story
done, you'll come back to the ranch, I reckon. Be good."

Thurston watched him ride away, and then flounced, oh, men do flounce at
times, in spirit, if not in deed; and there would be no lack of the deed
if only they wore skirts that could rustle indignantly in sympathy with
the wearer--to his room. Plainly, Hank did not swallow the excuse any
more readily than did his conscience.

To prove the sincerity of his assertion to himself, his conscience,
and to Hank Graves, he straightway got out a thick pad of paper and
sharpened three lead pencils to an exceeding fine point. Then he sat him
down by the window--where he could see the kit