“They’re sawed-off thirty-eights,” said the girl promptly, jerking one of the weapons into view. “I can take your sizing, all right, Nomad. You think I’m too much of a spectacle to make good in a fight. I’ll admit to you that I don’t like rowdyism. I try to be a lady, both at home on the ranch and when I’m abroad in the hills. But I don’t think any the less of a lady because she’s able to take care of herself. Do you?”
“Nary, I don’t,” said Nomad.
“I’m no second edition of Rowdy Kate or Calamity Jane; but when my father died”—the girl’s voice trembled, and a mist came into her fine eyes—“and left no one but me to look after mother and take care of the ranch, it was up to Dell of the Double D to show her hand. In self-defense I was obliged to learn the ways of the frontier. How well I have learned them, Nomad, any one in these parts can tell you.”
Nomad pulled off his hat.
“Ye’re all right, Miss Dauntless,” said he, “an’ thet shot goes as it lays.”
“I’m Dell to my friends,” said the girl, her eyes dancing again, “and I want to be friends with old Nomad, and with Buffalo Bill, too.”
“Thar won’t be no sort er trouble erbout thet. But I’d like ter hear more erbout them fellers thet was chasin’ ye.”
“They have been dogging my heels ever since I left Phœnix, picking up my trail about the time I crossed the Arizona canal. I don’t know why they did this any more than you. As I just said, I was going to make a play to find out when you came to my”—she laughed—“my rescue.”
“Waal,” grinned Nomad, “now thet ye’re rescued, ye kin jest trot erlong home ter ther Double D, an’ Golightly an’ me’ll pike fer ther Three-ply.”
“I’m piking for the Three-ply myself,” said Dell.