f his wrongs away on a
distant hillside, and to the subdued snoring of Hank Graves in the room
beyond. He was trying to adjust himself to this new condition of things,
and the new condition refused utterly to be measured by his accepted
standard.

According to that standard, he should feel repulsed and annoyed by the
familiarity of strangers who persisted in calling him "Bud" without
taking the trouble to find out whether or not he liked it. And what
puzzled Thurston and put him all at sea was the consciousness that he
did like it, and that it struck familiarly upon his ears as something to
which he had been accustomed in the past.

Also, according to his well-ordered past, he should hate this raw life
and rawer country where could occur such brutal things as he had that
day witnessed. He should dislike a man like Park Holloway who, having
wounded a man unto death, had calmly dismissed the subject with the
regret that his aim had not been better, so that he could have saved the
county the expense of trying and hanging the fellow. Thurston was amazed
to find that, down in the inner man of him, he admired Park Holloway
exceedingly, and privately resolved to perfect himself in the use of
fire-arms, he who had been wont to deplore the thinly veneered savagery
of men who liked such things.

After much speculation he decided that Mona Stevens would not do for a
kidnapped heroine. He could not seem to "see" her in such a position,
and, besides, he told himself that such a type of girl did not attract
him at all. She had called him a coward--and why? simply because he,
straight from the trammels of civilization, had not been prepared to
meet the situation thrust upon him-which she had thrust upon him. She
had demanded of him something he had not the power to accomplish, and
she had called him a coward. And in his heart Thurston knew that it was
unjust, and that he was not a coward.

CHAPTER III. FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Thurston, dressed immaculately in riding clothes of the latest English
cut, went airily down the stairs and discovered that he was not early,
as he had imagined. Seven o'clock, he had told himself proudly, was not
bad for a beginner; and he had smiled in anticipation of Hank Graves'
surprise which was fortunate, since he would otherwise have been cheated
of smiling at all. For Hank Graves, he learned from the cook, had eaten
breakfast at five and had left the ranch more than an hour before; the
men also were