Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/106

 before Original Bill's appearance the girl had been tigerish in her wrath against this man whose body she now screened against the expected bullet. Again the lounging figure against the doorpost permitted his lips to widen in silent laughter.

"Of course, Zang," he drawled, "the young lady's cuttin' into the game this way sorta puts you in a hole. You don't rightly feel like shootin' your way out from behind a woman, an' I admire your gentlemanly instincts."

No weapon had appeared in Original's hands; none even showed on his person. But he carried his right hand clinging loosely to the opened lapel of his jacket over his left breast. The range inspector had been the first to introduce into the Big Country the fashion of carrying a .45 on a flat spring holster hung from the shoulder beneath the jacket and directly over the heart; while in the holster the weapon had a protective value against a speeding bullet; it could leap out a sixteenth of a second quicker than one drawn from the hip. Original, too, had perfected through long and stern practice the somewhat delicate mastery of hammer firing—that is, the trigger of the gun was ignored and a lightning movement