Over the Pass

Book Excerpt: ...has killed!" Mary went on."Whew!" said Jack. "And he isn't more than thirty! He seems a hard worker who keeps right on the job."She pressed her lips together to control her amusement, before she asked categorically, with the precision of a school-mistress: "Do you know how to shoot?"He was surprised. He seemed to be wondering if she were not making sport of him."Why should I carry a six-shooter if I did not?" he asked. This convinced her that his revolver was a part of his play cowboy costume. He had come out of the East thinking that desperado etiquette of the Bad Lands was _opéra bouffe_."Leddy is a dead shot. He will give you no chance!" she insisted."I should think not," Jack mused. "No, naturally not; otherwise there might have been no sixth notch. The third or the fourth, even the second object of his favor might have blasted his fair young career as a wood-carver. Has he set any limit to his ambition? Is he going to make it an even hundred and then retire?""I don't kn...