Hank laughed his deep, inner laugh when he was well
away from the house.

Thurston, on the contrary, glowered at the world for two hours after.
Park was a fine fellow, and Thurston liked him about as well as any man
he knew in the West, but--And thus it went. On each and every visit to
the Stevens ranch--and they were many--Hank, learning by direct inquiry
that the story still suffered for lack of a hero, suggested some fellow
whom he had at one time and another caught "shining" around Mona. And
with each suggestion Thurston would draw down his eyebrows till he came
near getting a permanent frown.

A love story without a hero, while it would no doubt be original and
all that, would hardly appeal to an editor. Phil tried heroes wholly
imaginary, but he had a trick of making his characters seem very real
to himself and sometimes to other people as well. So that, after a few
passages of more or less ardent love-making, he would in a sense grow
jealous and spoil the story by annihilating the hero thereof.

Heaven only knows how long the thing would have gone on if he hadn't,
one temptingly beautiful evening, reverted to the day of the hold-up and
apologized for not obeying her command. He explained as well as he could
just why he sat petrified with his hands in the air.

And then having brought the thing freshly to her mind, he somehow lost
control of his wits and told her he loved her. He told her a good deal
in the next two minutes that he might better have kept to himself just
then. But a man generally makes a glorious fool of himself once or twice
in his life and it seems the more sensible the man the more thorough a
job he makes of it.

Mona moved a little farther away from him, and when she answered she
did not choose her words. "Of all things," she said, evenly, "I admire
a brave man and despise a coward. You were chicken-hearted that day, and
you know it; you've just admitted it. Why, in another minute I'd have
had that gun myself, and I'd have shown you--but Park got it before
I really had a chance. I hated to seem spectacular, but it served you
right. If you'd had any nerve I wouldn't have had to sit there and tell
you what to do. If ever I marry anybody, Mr. Thurston, it will be a
man."

"Which means, I suppose, that I'm not one?" he asked angrily.

"I don't know yet." Mona smiled her unpleasant smile--the one that
did not belong in the story he was going to write. "You're new to the
country, you see. May