Blome won't be quick enough on the draw to kill him.
That's all."

"Quick enough on the draw? I understand, but I want to know more."

"I doubt if there's a man on the frontier to-day quick enough to kill
Steele in an even break. That means a fair fight. This Blome is
conceited. He'll make the meeting fair enough. It'll come off about like
this, Miss Sampson.

"Blome will send out his bluff--he'll begin to blow--to look for Steele.
But Steele will avoid him as long as possible--perhaps altogether,
though that's improbable. If they do meet, then Blome must force the
issue. It's interesting to figure on that. Steele affects men strangely.
It's all very well for this Blome to rant about himself and to hunt
Steele up. But the test'll come when he faces the Ranger. He never saw
Steele. He doesn't know what he's up against. He knows Steele's
reputation, but I don't mean that. I mean Steele in the flesh, his
nerve, the something that's in his eyes.

"Now, when it comes to handling a gun the man doesn't breathe who has
anything on Steele. There was an outlaw, Duane, who might have killed
Steele, had they ever met. I'll tell you Duane's story some day. A girl
saved him, made a Ranger of him, then got him to go far away from
Texas."

"That was wise. Indeed, I'd like to hear the story," she replied. "Then,
after all, Russ, in this dreadful part of Texas life, when man faces
man, it's all in the quickness of hand?"

"Absolutely. It's the draw. And Steele's a wonder. See here. Look at
this."

I stepped back and drew my gun.

"I didn't see how you did that," she said curiously. "Try it again."

I complied, and still she was not quick enough of eye to see my draw.
Then I did it slowly, explaining to her the action of hand and then of
finger. She seemed fascinated, as a woman might have been by the
striking power of a rattlesnake.

"So men's lives depend on that! How horrible for me to be interested--to
ask about it--to watch you! But I'm out here on the frontier now, caught
somehow in its wildness, and I feel a relief, a gladness to know Vaughn
Steele has the skill you claim. Thank you, Russ."

She seemed about to dismiss me then, for she rose and half turned away.
Then she hesitated. She had one hand at her breast, the other on the
bench. "Have you been with him--talked to him lately?" she asked, and a
faint rose tint came into her cheeks. But her eyes were steady, dark,
and deep, and peered through and far beyond me.