Still addressing the mirror, the younger man outlined with some embarrassment that he hadn’t been able to get over his ardor to tackle life on a cattle range. The broad back before him suddenly jerked about. Elbert was held by the first direct look of one whose son has proved a definite disappointment. Many words followed; some heat: ‘... pack a pair of pistols! Step along out over the real-estate ranges and prairie sub-divisions! Why, I’m actually ashamed to have to tell you, what any kid half your age knows--that there isn’t a West any more, no cattle country--hasn’t been for--why, you’re only about thirty years late--’ Also a final sentence, as Elbert withdrew, to the effect that if he did go forth, he would have to pay his own car fare ‘out into the fenceless spaces.’ There was present at dinner that evening one of sister Nancy’s young men friends, who had no dreams of the West whatsoever. The Sartwell family, diminished by recent marriages of two elder daughters, was pulling together socially, in spite of internal trouble. Elbert’s thoughts were mainly afar on his own problem, but after a time, he couldn’t help noticing the art with which the gentleman-guest played up to his father. It could be done, Elbert reflected. The two sons-in-law, already connected up, had also gone about it this way. He felt like a crossed stick; a spectator merely, in the home dining-room. His glance moved from face to face in the soft creamy light that flowed down through a thin bowl of alabaster, hanging from the ceiling. He alone, an only son, lacked a sort of commonplace craft to smooth his ways. He might have asked for a trip around the world before settling down to a business career--and gotten it. Elbert retired to his room early. The Sartwell mansion faced the West, and sunsets had reddened his windows from as far back as he could remember. Long ago he had stared into a crimson foam of one certain day’s end, thinking that it was the color of Wyoming. The lure of that crimson foam hadn’t ceased, though it had moved farther South and farther West--Apache country, Navajo country--leading on over the border of late into Mexico itself. He had been given an automobile at the end of high-school days, but he had wanted a pony. Hours at home he had spent in the garage, secretly wishing all the time it was a corral. Elbert turned on the lights. Over the back of the chair he was sitting on, was a blanket of Indian red. There were framed Western drawings on the wall, paintings of rodeo and round-up, lonely cattlemen, bison, longhorns, desert and mountain scenes; and in among his books, pasted in an old ledger, was his collection of Indian pictures--heads of all the tribes, famous braves and medicine men--from cigarette, gum, candy packages--no end to the lengths he had gone to get the lot together. He looked back upon the time when the bronzed head of Red Cloud, of the Nez Perces, was the noblest countenance he had ever gazed upon.