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Was Hg a Coward? ^
By J. LeRoy Gibson
THE afternoon sunshine was flooding the bachelor apartment on Riverside Drive, where Norris Hilton, novelist, Bohemian, and midnight son, was lounging in a big, leather-cushioned chair, trying to steady his shattered nerves with a long, black cigar.
A friend who occupied the next apartment, poked his head in the door and surveyed Hilton with a cheerful grin.
"You're all to the bad, old man," he remarked; "you sure look worn to a frazzle ! What you need is a change of scene. Get away. Go West, voung man, and live on a ranch."
"What would I do out there?" growled Hilton, irritably.
"Work, my son. Get a real ranch job. Snorting steers and switching bronchos and all that sort of thing. Get some muscle and steady your nerves and, incidentally, get the material for another novel."
"I'll go tonight," said Hilton, with impulsive determination.
A man from the East is not always a wise man. At least the boys at
THE RECEPTION COMMITTEE.
■ mrnmrn
HILTON" ARRIVES AT DOUBLE BAR.
Double Bar Eanch did not think so, and when the coach came out of the dust cloud and set down a passenger from Ballena with a kit bag and a coat with tails, there was some disappointment expressed, for Double Bar needed men, and here was a substitute from beyond the great divide where, as Pop Wilson said, men of the other sort are bred and cowards are plentiful.
It was Pop Wilson's ranch, and "the daughter of the regiment" was Nan, his only child. Pop's foreman, Tom Burke, had stayed at Double Bar for many seasons, hoping that some day Nan would consent to ride across with him to Ballena and get married.
When Hilton stepped off the wheel hub after the long and dusty haul, it was Pop Wilson and Burke who acted as a reception committee, and they shook his hand, promising to give him a chance to make good at ranch work, tho they were inwardly amused at the idea of this frail-looking Easterner aspiring to do real work. While they were talking, Nan came around a corner of the shack with a clay pitcher of cool water, and, had Helen stood
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