Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/196

 "Have you ever seen her in any shooting scrapes, or is this just hearsay?"

Hall was severe. He frowned like a cross-examining lawyer as he bored Justice with a challenging look.

"I wasn't right there, but I was in town. That was four or five years ago."

"Why, she wasn't anything but a kid four or five years ago."

"She was wild when she was young. She was brought up wild, and I guess she always will be wild."

"Was that the time she shot the cigar?"

"That was the time," Jim said, nodding soberly. "She come to the post office one day wearin' a pair of them straddle-leggid women's britches—you know the kind I mean, the kind that looks like they're all one piece till they straddle a horse, then they look like two women."

"Divided skirts, I think they call them, Jim. A very sensible arrangement for riding, I think."

"I wouldn't feel right if any relation of mine was to come out in public with 'em on, Doc. I guess that's what the feller thought when he made a remark as she went in the post office. She let that crack go by, but when the same feller got off something funny when she come out, she spun around on her heel and shot the see-gar out of his mouth as purty as you could 'a' knocked it out with your hand."

"He was lucky she didn't shoot his darned head off. I think he got about what was coming to him."

"I ain't sayin' he didn't, Doc. I don't approve passin' remarks about the women-folks when they go by, no matter if they do put on things that provoke men to say something. I won't stand for it, not a second. I'd