Thurston agreed as politely as he could for the jolting. They
had again struck the level and seven miles, at Park's usual
pace, was heartbreaking to a man not accustomed to the saddle.
Thurston had written, just before leaving home, a musical bit of
verse born of his luring dreams, about "the joy of speeding
fleetly where the grassland meets the sky," and he was gritting
his teeth now over the idiotic lines.

When they reached the ranch and Mona's mother came to the door
and invited them in, he declined almost rudely, for he had a
feeling that once out of the saddle he would have difficulty in
getting into it again. Besides, Mona was not at home, according
to her mother.

So they did not tarry, and Thurston reached the Lazy Eight
alive, but with the glamour quite gone from his West. If he had
not been the son of his father, he would have taken the first
train which pointed its nose to the East, and he would never
again have essayed the writing of Western stories or musical
verse which sung the joys of galloping blithely off to the
sky-line. He had just been galloping off to a sky-line that was
always just before and he had not been blithe; nor did the
memory of it charm. Of a truth, the very thought of things
Western made him swear mild, city-bred oaths.

He choked back his awe of the cook and asked him, quite humbly,
what was good to take the soreness from one's muscles; afterward
he had crept painfully up the stairs, clasping to his bosom a
beer bottle filled with pungent, home-made liniment which the