Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/136

 going to get a gun, Elizabeth, to-day, to-morrow, or any other day. If it comes to the point where I can't waddle around this town without the bluff of a gun, I'll pull my freight. I'm not a gunman; I'm a physician. If I can't win without a gun I'll have to lose."

"There's not much chance for any man to win out in this country west of Dodge without a gun," she said, severely positive, almost to the point of rudeness. "Especially if there's somebody layin' for him. I'll see you to-night. So long."

Dr. Hall waved to her when she looked back from the post office door. He knew she had given her advice with the utmost friendliness and good intention. She seemed to have stepped out of her refined, girlish character to do it, astonishing him not a little by this revelation of a double self. There were two Elizabeths in one, he thought: the girl of cowboy days, and the young lady of the seminary. It was not hard to imagine the one just a minute ago revealed in her slangy seriousness belted around with a gun. Two Elizabeths there, as sure as night and day. He thought of the couplet he had learned when a little boy about Elizabeth, Lizzie, Betsy and Bess, who went somewhere or another to find a bird's nest. Which was the dominant Elizabeth? he wondered.

It was queer, he thought, how the best of them harped on a man's chances out there west of Dodge. Without this, lacking that, there was no chance for a man out there. This time it was a gun. Not much chance for a man without one, especially when there was somebody laying for him.

But it wouldn't do; the time for guns had gone by. Outside of this foolish feud over the county seat, there