Thurston had written, just before leaving home, a musical bit of verse born of his luring dreams, about "the joy of speeding fleetly where the grassland meets the sky," and he was gritting his teeth now over the idiotic lines.
When they reached the ranch and Mona's mother came to the door and invited them in, he declined almost rudely, for he had a feeling that once out of the saddle he would have difficulty in getting into it again.

Besides, Mona was not at home, according to her mother.
So they did not tarry, and Thurston reached the Lazy Eight alive, but with the glamour quite gone from his West.

If he had not been the son of his father, he would have taken the first train which pointed its nose to the East, and he would never again have essayed the writing of Western stories or musical verse which sung the joys of galloping blithely off to the sky-line.

He had just been galloping off to a sky-line that was always just before and he had not been blithe; nor did the memory of it charm.

Of a truth, the very thought of things Western made him swear mild, city-bred oaths.
He choked back his awe of the cook and asked him, quite humbly, what was good to take the soreness from one's muscles; afterward he had crept painfully up the stairs, clasping to his bosom a beer bottle filled with pungent, home-made liniment which the cook had gravely declared "out uh sight for saddle-galls." Hank Graves, when he heard the story, with artistic touches from the cook, slapped his thigh and laughed one of his soundless chuckles.