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 how
he had failed to obey her commands; and if he had heard her call
him a coward. He had often wondered that, but Park had a way of
keeping things to himself, and Thurston could never quite bring
himself to open the subject boldly. At any rate, if Park had
heard, he hoped that he understood how it was and did not
secretly despise him for it. Women, he told himself bitterly,
are never quite just.

After the four o'clock supper he and Bob MacGregor went up the
valley to relieve the men on herd. There was one nice thing
about Park as a foreman: he tried to pair off his crew according
to their congeniality. That was why Thurston usually stood
guard with Bob, whom he liked better than any of the
others-always excepting Park himself.

"I brought my gun along," Bob told him apologetically when they
were left to themselves. "It's a habit I've got when I know