“You’re going to do well in Benton,” she said suddenly, to me, with a nod. “I regret this scene—I couldn’t help it, though, of course. When Jim’s sober he has sense, and never tries to be familiar.”
She was amazingly cool under the epithets that he had applied. I admired her for that as she gazed at me pleadingly.
“A drunken man is not responsible for words or actions, although he should be made so,” I consoled her. “Possibly I should not have struck him. In the 48 Far West you may be more accustomed to these episodes than we are in the East.”
“I don’t know. There is a limit. You did right. I thank you heartily. Still”—and she mused—“you can’t always depend on your fists alone. You carry no weapon, neither knife nor gun?”
“I never have needed either,” said I. “My teaching has been that a man should be able to rely upon his fists.”
“Then you’d better get ’heeled,’ as we say, when you reach Benton. Fists are a short-range weapon. The men generally wear a gun somewhere. It is the custom.”
“And the women, too, if I may judge,” I smiled.
“Some of us. Yes,” she repeated, “you’re likely to do well, out here, if you’ll permit me to advise you a little.”
“Under your tutelage I am sure I shall do well,” I accepted. “I may call upon you in Benton? If you will favor me with your address——?”
“My address?” She searched my face in manner startled. “You’ll have no difficulty finding me; not in Benton. But I’ll make an appointment with you in event”—and she smiled archly—“you are not afraid of strange women.”