Page:Morley roberts--Painted Rock.djvu/175

 "Shorely that's playin' it low down on me," urged her lover plaintively.

"I can't help that," said Mary. "I won't have Jerome killed."

"You mean you won't have Mr. Remington killed," suggested Jack.

"I mean nothin' of the sort," said Mary. "Mr. Pillsbury, the gambler, told father only yestiddy that Mr. Remington was the best shot in Painted Rock."

Jack gasped.

"You don't say that, Mary?"

"I do," said Mary; "and he's not an Easterner either. He comes from Alabama."

"Alabammer! well, I'm doggoned," said Jack. "And I talked to him just s'if he came from Philadelphy! I shore think Jerome has run agin a snag, talkin' of killin' him. For what with the ole Colonel's derned foolishness, Jerome cayn't shoot worth a cent."

But Mary wrote her letter to Mamie, and Jack took it very unwillingly, and rode back to Ennis Creek at the slowest pace he could get out of his pony.

"Alabammer! Oh, good men comes from