in the neck, which you ain't liable
to do at present; and Hank says you can have this saddle for keeps. Hank
used to ride it, but he out-growed it and got one longer in the seat.
When we start for Billings to trail up them cattle, of course you'll get
a string of your own to ride."

"A string? I'm afraid I don't quite understand."

"Yuh don't savvy riding a string? A string, m'son, is ten or a dozen
saddle-horses that yuh ride turn about, and nobody else has got any
right to top one; every fellow has got his own string, yuh see."

Thurston eyed his horse distrustfully. "I think," he ventured, "one will
be enough for me. I'll scarcely need a dozen." The truth was that he
thought Park was laughing at him.

Park slid sidewise in the saddle and proceeded to roll another
cigarette. "I'd be willing to bet that by fall you'll have a good-sized
string rode down to a whisper. You wait; wait till it gets in your
blood. Why, I'd die if you took me off the range. Wait till yuh set out
in the dark, on your horse, and count the stars and watch the big dipper
swing around towards morning, and listen to the cattle breathing close
by--sleeping while you ride around 'em playing guardian angel over their
dreams. Wait till yuh get up at daybreak and are in the saddle with
the pink uh sunrise, and know you'll sleep fifteen or twenty miles from
there that night; and yuh lay down at night with the smell of new grass
in your nostrils where your bed had bruised it.

"Why, Bud, if you're a man, you'll be plumb spoiled for your little
old East." Then he swung back his feet and the horses broke into a lope
which jarred the unaccustomed frame of Thurston mightily, though he kept
the pace doggedly.

"I've got to go down to the Stevens place," Park informed him. "You
met Mona yesterday--it was her come down on the train with me, yuh
remember." Thurston did remember very distinctly. "Hank says yuh compose
stories. Is that right?"

Thurston's mind came back from wondering how Mona Stevens' mouth looked
when she was pleased with one, and he nodded.

"Well, there's a lot in this country that ain't ever been wrote about, I
guess; at least if it was I never read it, and I read considerable. But
the trouble is, them that know ain't in the writing business, and them
that write don't know. The way I've figured it, they set back East
somewhere and write it like they think maybe it is; and it's a hell of a
job they make of it."

Thurston, rememberin