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