ly to the popping of pistols. So Thurston's revolver was
yet unstained with powder grime, and was packed away inside his bed.
He was promising his pride that he would go up on the hill, back of the
Lazy Eight corrals, and shoot until even Mona Stevens must respect his
marksmanship, when Park galloped back to him--"The world has moved some
while we was gone," he announced in the tone of one who has news to tell
and enjoys thoroughly the telling. "Yuh mind the fellow I laid out in
the hold-up? He got all right again, and they stuck him in jail along
with another one old Lauman, the sheriff, glommed a week ago. Well, they
didn't do a thing last night but knock a deputy in the head, annex his
gun, swipe a Winchester and a box uh shells out uh the office and hit
the high places. Old Lauman is hot on their trail, but he ain't met
up with 'em yet, that anybody's heard. When he does, there'll sure be
something doing! They say the deputy's about all in; they smashed his
skull with a big iron poker."

"I wish I could handle a gun," Thurston said between his teeth. "I'd
go after them myself. I wish I'd been left to grow up out here where I
belong. I'm all West but the training--and I never knew it till a month
ago! I ought to ride and rope and shoot with the best of you, and I
can't do a thing. All I know is books. I can criticize an opera and a
new play, and I'm considered something of an authority on clothes, but I
can't shoot."

"Aw, go easy," Park laughed at him. "What if yuh can't do the
double-roll? Riding and shooting and roping's all right--we couldn't
very well get along without them accomplishments. But that's all they
are; just accomplishments. We know a man when we see him, and it don't
matter whether he can ride a bronk straight up, or don't know which way
a saddle sets on a horse. If he's a man he gets as square a deal as we
can give him." Park reached for his cigarette book. "And as for hunting
outlaws," he finished, "we've got old Lauman paid to do that. And he's
dead onto his job, you bet; when he goes out after a man he comes pretty
near getting him, m'son. But I sure do wish I'd killed that jasper while
I was about it; it would have saved Lauman a lot uh hard riding."

Thurston could scarcely explain to Park that his desire to hunt
train-robbers was born of a half-defiant wish to vindicate to Mona
Stevens his courage, and so he said nothing at all. He wondered if Park
had heard her whisper, that day, and knew