"Jess'my," he said in a moderate tone, "I want to tell ye one thing. Ye know that I shoot straight from the shoulder, or straight from the hip, whichever's handiest—and I don't shoot to scare."
He waited.
Jessamy nodded. "I'll have to admit that," she said. "I think it's the thing I like most about you."
He pondered over this, and again his brows came down above his pitted nose. "I didn't know they was anything ye liked about me," he at length said bluntly.
"Oh, yes," she remarked, levelling that straightforward look of hers at him. "I like your height and the breadth of your chest, and the way you sit in your saddle when your horse is on the dead run—and the other thing I mentioned before."
Again he grew thoughtful. "Well, that's somethin'," he finally chuckled. "Ye like my way o' sayin' what I think, then. Well, get this: I'm the boss o' this country, from Red Mountain to the Gap. I been the boss of her since my pap died and turned her over to me. So it's the boss o' the Poison Oak Country that's talkin'. And he says this: That new fella Drew that's made camp down on the Old Tabor Ivison Place can't make a livin' there, can't raise nothin', don't belong there. And if by some funny business, that I'm gonta look into right away, he's got a-holt o' that forty, he's got to hit the trail."
"Why, how ridiculous!" laughed the girl. "Where do you think you are, Mr. Selden? In Russia—Germany? King Selden Second, Czar of all the Poison Oak Provinces! Mr. Drew, owning that land in his own right, must hit the trail and leave it for you simply because you say so!"
"Ye heard what I said, Jess'my"—and he clanked out of the room.