Chapter 13
She wore a cartridge-belt slung jauntily across her hips and
from it hung a holster of stiff new leather with the top flap open
to show the butt of a man-sized forty-five caliber six-shooter—her
first g*n. Not a man of the g**g but had loaned her his guns time
and again, but they had never dreamed of giving her a weapon of her
own.
So they stared at her agape, where she stood with her head back,
one hand resting on her hip, one hovering about the butt of the
gun, as if she challenged them to question her right to be called
"man."
It was as if she abandoned all claims to femininity with that
single step; the g*n at her side made her seem inches taller and
years older. She was no longer a child, but a long-rider who could
shoot with the best.
One glance she cast abo
