badly; done, and at first, when he saw it, he laughed at the
thought that even the great, still plains of the range land
cannot protect one against the ubiquitous picture agent. In the
parlor, he supposed there would be crayon pictures of
grandmothers and aunts-further evidence of the agent's glibness.

He was glad that it was Mona who smiled down at him instead of a
grand-mother or an aunt. For Mona did smile, and in spite of
the cheap crudity the smile was roguish, with little dimply
creases at the corners of the mouth, and not at all unpleasant.
If the girl would only look like that in real life, he told
himself, a fellow would probably get to liking her. He supposed
she thought him a greater coward than ever now, just because he
hadn't got killed. If he had, he would be a hero now, like Bob.
Well, Bob was a hero; the way he had jumped up and begun
shooting required courage of the suicidal sort. He had stood up
and shot, a1so and had succeeded only in being ridiculous; he
hoped nobody had told Mona about his hitting that steer. When
he could walk again he would learn to shoot, so that the range
stock wouldn't suffer from his marksmanship.

After a week of seeing only Mrs. Stevens or sympathetic men
acquaintances, he began to wonder why Mona stayed so
persistently away. Then one morning she came in to take his
breakfast things out. She did not, however, stay a second
longer than was absolutely necessary, and she was perfectly
composed and said good morning in her most impersonal tone. At
least Thurston hoped she had no tone more impersonal than that.
He decided that she had really beautiful eyes and hair; after
she had gone he looked up at the picture, told himself that it