dinner with the family. Since he sat opposite Mona she was
obliged to look at him occasionally, whether she would or no.
Thurston had a strain of obstinacy in his nature, and when he
decided that Mona should not only look at him, but should talk
to him as well, he set himself diligently to attain that end.
He was not the man to sit down supinely and let a girl calmly
ignore him; so Mona presently found herself talking to him with
some degree of cordiality; and what is more to the point,
listening to him when he talked. It is probable that Thurston
never had tried so hard in his life to win a girl's attention.

It was while he was still hobbling with a cane and taxing his
imagination daily to invent excuses for remaining, that Lauman,
the sheriff, rode up to the door with a deputy and asked shelter
for themselves and the two Wagners, who glowered sullenly down
from their weary horses. When they had been safely disposed in
Thurston's bedroom, with one of the ranch hands detailed to
guard them, Lauman and his man gave themselves up to the joy of
a good meal. Their own cooking, they said, got mighty tame
especially when they hadn't much to cook and dared not have a
fire.

They had come upon the outlaws by mere accident, and it is hard
telling which was the most surprised. But Lauman was, perhaps,
the quickest man with a gun in Valley County, else he would not
have been serving his fourth term as sheriff. He got the drop
and kept it while his deputy did the rest. It had been a hard
chase, he said, and a long one if you counted time instead of
miles. But he had them now, harmless as rattlers with their
fangs fresh drawn. He wanted to get them to Glasgow before