As the travel-weary herd swung down the long hill into the
valley of the Milk River, stepping out briskly as they sighted
the cool water in the near distance, the past month dropped away
from Thurston, and what had gone just before came back fresh as
the happenings of the morning. There was the Stevens ranch, a
scant half mile away from where the tents already gleamed on
their last camp of the long trail; the smoke from the cook-tent
telling of savory meats and puddings, the bare thought of which
made one hurry his horse.

His eyes dwelt longest, however, upon the Stevens house half
hidden among the giant cottonwoods, and he wondered if Mona
would still smile at him with that unpleasant uplift at the
corner of her red mouth. He would take care that she did not
get the chance to smile at him in any fashion, he told himself
with decision.

He wondered if those train-robbers had been captured, and if the
one Park wounded was still alive. He shivered when he thought
of the dead man in the aisle, and hoped he would never witness
another death; involuntarily he glanced down at his right
stirrup, half expecting to see his boot red with human blood.
It was not nice to remember that scene, and he gave his shoulders
an impatient hitch and tried to think of something else.

Mindful of his vow, he had bought a gun in Billings, but he had
not yet learned to hit anything he aimed at; for firearms are
hushed in roundup camps, except when dire necessity breeds a law
of its own. Range cattle do not take kindly to the popping of
pistols. So Thurston's revolver was yet unstained with powder