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 hand around the corner of the table, read as plainly as he ever read a book in his life. It was a look that said she would give her new husband, and the green hotel, and all that she possessed in this world and once held dear, for a man like the tall, lank stranger, with the straight dark locks of hair on his sun-brown temples.

Mrs. Majors, the preacher's wife, was an athletic young woman who wore no stays. She moved about with a swinging motion to her body above the hips very suggestive of combativeness, and Texas wondered whether the Rev. Mr. Majors might not have a pretty warm time of it now and then. She had scanty light hair, which she twisted up into the Psyche knot, just at that time becoming again popular with the ladies who followed the styles. Her forehead was lofty, and clear of the bangs such as Malvina and the other young ladies wore. Bangs were becoming passe as far west as Topeka. Mrs. Majors had anticipated the arrival of the edict in Cottonwood.

The minister had not recognized Texas in his black coat as the man who had won first prize in the men's roping contest at the fair that afternoon, and nobody at the table connected him with the spectacular bit of gunnery in the street that had set the whole town talking about the new gun-slinger who had come to join Cottonwood's notables