There was not a better rider, not a better roper on the range than Bud Birnie.

Morally he was cleaner than most young fellows of his age.

He hated trickery, he reverenced all good women; the bad ones he pitied because he believed that they sorrowed secretly because they were not good, because they had missed somehow their real purpose in life, which was to be wife and mother.

He had, in fact grown up clean and true to type.

He was Buddy, grown to be Bud.
And Buddy, now that he was a man, had been told that he was not expected to stay at home and help his father, and be a comfort to his mother.