Chapter IX. 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 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