"Why, Bud, if you're a man, you'll be plumb spoiled for your
little old East." Then he swung back his feet and the horses
broke into a lope which jarred the unaccustomed frame of
Thurston mightily, though he kept the pace doggedly.

"I've got to go down to the Stevens place," Park informed him.
"You met Mona yesterday--it was her come down on the train with
me, yuh remember." Thurston did remember very distinctly. "Hank
says yuh compose stories. Is that right?"

Thurston's mind came back from wondering how Mona Stevens' mouth
looked when she was pleased with one, and he nodded.

"Well, there's a lot in this country that ain't ever been wrote
about, I guess; at least if it was I never read it, and I read
considerable. But the trouble is, them that know ain't in the
writing business, and them that write don't know. The way I've
figured it, they set back East somewhere and write it like they
think maybe it is; and it's a hell of a job they make of it."

Thurston, remembering the time when he, too, "set back East" and
wrote it like he thought maybe it was, blushed guiltily. He was
thankful that his stories of the West had, without exception,
been rejected as of little worth. He shuddered to think of one
of them falling into the hands of Park Holloway.

"I came out to learn, and I want to learn it thoroughly," he
said, in the face of much physical discomfort. Just then the
horses slowed for a climb, and he breathed thanks. "In the