So, borne swiftly into the West they talked, and the time seemed
short. The train had long since been racing noisily over the
silent prairies spread invitingly with tender green- great,
lonely, inscrutable, luring men with a spell as sure and as
strong as is the spell of the sea.

The train reeled across a trestle that spanned a deep, dry gash
in the earth. In the green bottom huddled a cluster of pygmy
cattle and mounted men; farther down were two white flakes of
tents, like huge snowflakes left unmelted in the green canyon.

"That's the Lazy Eight--my outfit," Graves informed Thurston
with the unconscious pride of possession, pointing a forefinger
as they whirled on. "I've got to get off, next station. Yuh
want to remember, Bud, the Lazy Eight's your home from now on.
We'll make a cow- puncher of yuh in no time; you've got it in
yuh, or yuh wouldn't look so much like your dad. And you can
write stories about us all yuh want--we won't kick. The way
I've got the summer planned out, you'll waller chin-deep in
material; all yuh got to do is foller the Lazy Eight through
till shipping time."

Thurston had not intended learning to be a cow-puncher, or
following the Lazy Eight or any other hieroglyphic through 'till
shipping time--whenever that was.

But facing Hank Graves, he had not the heart to tell him so, or
that he had planned to spend only a month--or six weeks at most-
-in the West, gathering local color and perhaps a plot or two?