If he could figure in something heroic--only he said melodramatic--he might possibly force her to think well of him.
But heroic situations and opportunities come not every day to a man, and girls who demand that their knights shall be brave in face of death need not complain if they are left knightless at the last.
He wrote to Reeve-Howard, the night before they were to start, and apologized gracefully for having neglected him during the past three weeks and told him he would certainly be home in another month.

He said that he was "in danger of being satiated with the Western tone" and would be glad to shake the hand of civilized man once more.

This was distinctly unfair, because he had no quarrel with the masculine portion of the West.

If he had said civilized woman it would have been more just and more illuminating to Reeve-Howard who wondered what scrape Phil had gotten himself into with those savages.
For the first few days of the trip Thurston was in that frame of mind which makes a man want to ride by himself, with shoulders hunched moodily and eyes staring straight before the nose of his horse.
But the sky was soft and seemed to smile down at him, and the clouds loitered in the blue of it and drifted aimlessly with no thought of reaching harbor on the sky-line.

From under his horse's feet the prairie sod sent up sweet, earthy odors into his nostrils and the tinkle of the bells in the saddle-bunch behind him made music in his ears--the sort of music a true cowboy loves.