"Therefore, it doesn't follow that I'm getting foolish about a girl just because I—hang it! what the Dickens makes you look at a fellow that way? You make me?"
"Uh-huh," said Hank again, smoothing the lower half of his face with one hand. "You're a mighty nice little boy, Bud. I'll bet Mona thinks so, too and when yuh get growed up you'll know a whole lot more than yuh do right now. Well, I guess I'll be moving. When yuh get that—er—story done, you'll come back to the ranch, I reckon. Be good."
Thurston watched him ride away, and then flounced, oh, men do flounce at times, in spirit, if not in deed; and there would be no lack of the deed if only they wore skirts that could rustle indignantly in sympathy with the wearer—to his room. Plainly, Hank did not swallow the excuse any more readily than did his conscience.
To prove the sincerity of his assertion to himself, his conscience, and to Hank Graves, he straightway got out a thick pad of paper and sharpened three lead pencils to an exceeding fine point. Then he sat him down by the window—where he could see the kitchen door, which was the one most used by the family—and nibbled the tip off one of the pencils like any school-girl. For ten minutes he bluffed himself into believing that he was trying to think of a title; the plain truth is, he was wondering if Mona would go for a ride that afternoon and if so, might he venture to suggest going with her.
He thought of the crimply waves in Mona's hair, and pondered what adjectives would best describe it without seeming commonplace. "Rippling" was too old, though it did seem to hit the case all right. He laid down the pad and nearly stood on his head trying to reach his Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms without getting out of his chair. While he was clawing after it- -it lay on the floor, where he had thrown it that morning because it refused to divulge some information he wanted—he heard some one open and close the kitchen door, and came near kinking his neck trying to get up in time to see who it was. He failed to see anyone, and returned to the dictionary.
"'Ripple—to have waves—like running water.'" (That was just the way her hair looked, especially over the temples and at the nape of her neck—Jove, what a tempting white neck it was!) "Um-m. 'Ripple; wave; undulate; uneven; irregular.'" (Lord, what fools are the men who write dictionaries!) "'Antonym —hang the antonyms!"
The kitchen door slammed. He craned again. It was Jack— going to town most likely. Thurston shrewdly guessed that Mrs. Stevens leaned far more upon Mona than she did upon Jack, although he could hardly accuse her of leaning on anyone. But he observed that the men looked to her for orders.
He perceived that the point was gone from his pencil, and proceeded to sharpen it. Then he heard Mona singing in the kitchen, and recollected that Mrs. Stevens had promised him warm doughnuts for supper. Perhaps Mona was frying them at that identical moment—and he had never seen anyone frying doughnuts. He caught up his cane and limped out to investigate. That is how much his heart just then was set upon writing a story that would breathe of the plains.
One great hindrance to the progress of his story was the difficulty he had in selecting a hero for his heroine. Hank Graves suggested that he use Park, and even went so far as to supply Thurston with considerable data which went to prove that Park would not be averse to figuring in a love story with Mona. But Thurston was not what one might call enthusiastic, and Hank laughed his deep, inner laugh when he was well away from the house.
Thurston, on the contrary, glowered at the world for two hours after. Park was a fine fellow, and Thurston liked him about as well as any man he knew in the West, but—And thus it went. On each and every visit to the Stevens ranch— and they were many— Hank, learning by direct inquiry that the story still suffered for lack of a hero, suggested some fellow whom he had at one time and another caught "shining" around Mona. And with each suggestion Thurston would draw down his eyebrows till he came near getting a permanent frown.
A love story without a hero, while it would no doubt be original and all that, would hardly appeal to an editor. Phil tried heroes wholly imaginary, but he had a trick of making his characters seem very real to himself and sometimes to other people as well. So that, after a few passages of more or less ardent love-making, he would in a sense grow jealous and spoil the story by annihilating the hero thereof.
Heaven only knows how long the thing would have gone on if he hadn't, one temptingly beautiful evening, reverted to the day of the hold-up and apologized for not obeying her command. He explained as well as he could just why he sat petrified with his hands in the air.
And then having brought the thing freshly to her mind, he somehow lost control of his wits and told her he loved her. He told her a good deal in the next two minutes that he might better have kept to himself just then. But a man generally makes a glorious fool of himself once or twice in his life and it seems the more sensible the man the more thorough a job he makes of it.
Mona moved a little farther away from him, and when she answered she did not choose her words. "Of all things," she said, evenly, "I admire a brave man and despise a coward. You were chicken-hearted that day, and you know it; you've just admitted it. Why, in another minute I'd have had that gun myself, and I'd have shown you—but Park got it before I really had a chance. I hated to seem spectacular, but it served you right. If you'd had any nerve I wouldn't have had to sit there and tell you what to do. If ever I marry anybody, Mr. Thurston, it will be a man."
"Which means, I suppose, that I'm not one?" he asked angrily.
"I don't know yet." Mona smiled her unpleasant smile—the one that did not belong in the story he was going to write. "You're new to the country, you see. Maybe you've got nerve; you haven't shown much, so far as I know—except when you talked to the boys that night. But you must have known that they wouldn't hurt you anyway. A man must have a little courage as much as I have; which isn't asking much—or I'd never marry him in the world."
"Not even if you—liked him?" his smile was wistful.
"Not even if I loved him!" Mona declared, and fled into the house.
Thurston gathered himself together and went down to the stable and borrowed a horse of Jack, who had just got back from town, and rode home to the Lazy Eight
When Hank heard that he was home to stay—at least until he could join the roundup again—he didn't say a word for full five minutes. Then, "Got your story done?" he drawled, and his eyes twinkled.
Thurston was going up the stairs to his old room, and Hank could not swear positively to the reply he got. But he thought it sounded like, "Oh, damn the story!"
Chapter 9 The Drift of the Herds
Weeks slipped by, and to Thurston they seemed but days. His world-weariness and cynicism disappeared the first time he met Mona after he had left there so unceremoniously; for Mona, not being aware of his cynicism, received him on the old, friendly footing, and seemed to have quite forgotten that she had ever called him a coward, or refused to marry him. So Thurston forgot it also—so long as he was with her.
How he filled in the hours he could scarcely have told; certain it is that he accomplished nothing at all so far as Western stories were concerned. Reeve-Howard wrote in slightly shocked phrases to ask what was keeping him so long; and assured him that he was missing much by staying away. Thurston mentally agreed with him long enough to begin packing his trunk; it was idiotic to keep staying on when he was clearly receiving no benefit thereby. When, however, he picked up a book which he had told Mona he would take over to her the next time he went, he stopped and considered:
There was the Wagner trial coming off in a month or so; he couldn't get out of attending it, for he had been subpoenaed as a witness for the prosecution. And there was the beef roundup going to start before long—he really ought to stay and take that in; there would be some fine chances for pictures. And really he didn't care so much for the Barry Wilson bunch and the long list of festivities which trailed ever in its wake; at any rate, they weren't worth rushing two-thirds across the continent for.
He sat down and wrote at length to Reeve-Howard, explaining very carefully—and not altogether convincingly—just why he could not possibly go