He sat down and wrote at length to Reeve-Howard, explaining very
carefully--and not altogether convincingly--just why he could
not possibly go home at present. After that he saddled and rode
over to the Stevens place with the book, leaving his trunk
yawning emptily in the middle of his badly jumbled belongings.

After that he spent three weeks on the beef roundup. At first
he was full of enthusiasm, and worked quite as if he had need of
the wages, but after two or three big drives the novelty wore
off quite suddenly, and nothing then remained but a lot of hard
work. For instance, standing guard on long, rainy nights when
the cattle walked and walked might at first seem picturesque and
all that, but must at length, cease to be amusing.

Likewise the long hours which he spent on day-herd, when the
wind was raw and penetrating and like to blow him out of the
saddle; also standing at the stockyard chutes and forcing an
unwilling stream of rollicky, wild-eyed steers up into the cars
that would carry them to Chicago.

After three weeks of it he awoke one particularly nasty morning
and thanked the Lord he was not obliged to earn his bread at
all, to say nothing of earning it in so distressful a fashion.
There was a lull in the shipping because cars were not then
available. He promptly took advantage of it and rode by the
very shortest trail to the ranch--and Mona. But Mona was
visiting friends in Chinook, and there was no telling when she
would return. Thurston, in the next few days, owned to himself
that there was no good reason for his tarrying longer in the