“It—it seems to be the thing around here,” says she, serious-like. Hashknife stares at her for a moment and then at us.
“Ma’am, I’m plumb glad you wasn’t a he. Some fellers are so danged timid.”
“I am,” says she. “I have never done anything more serious than to sell lace in a department store. The lawyer found me there and I had just got my week’s pay, and also a notice that my services were no longer required. The lawyer was lovely to me, and—he said that Mr. Hartley was a close friend of his.”
“Sure was close once,” nods Hashknife. “Old Whiskers with his hay-hook wasn’t far behind us either. I reckon there’s a heap of difference between the he-men out here and the ones in town. Cow-punchers are rough, ma’am, but they don’t mean half what they do or say. I hope you’ll excuse Windy and Sleepy if they makes bad breaks at times —— knows I’ve done my dangest for ’em.”
“I knew a cowboy once,” says she. “I know now that he was a cowboy, but he didn’t say he was. It was in San Francisco a year ago. There were four of us—another girl, and two young men from the store and myself. We went slumming down to Chinatown and the Barbary Coast.
“We were up in a Chinese noodle-house when a number of young men came in; I think they were drunk. One of them tried to kiss me. The young man who was with me asked him to stop and another of the crowd knocked him down.
“The Chinese were frightened. Some of the other men grabbed Gladys, and—oh, it was awful! I saw one of the men hit a Chinaman with a chair and then one of them grabbed me and tried to pull me across the table, but just then a man came from somewhere.
“He was wearing a big hat and I remember that he did not have any necktie or coat on, and he was smiling. He crashed into the crowd and tore his way to us girls, and then I saw his hand swinging a gun, and it hit a man on the head—then another!”
Mary Jane’s eyes were as big as saucers as she describes it.