nds, ma'am. I reckon I could show you how to pull the trigger
in a jiffy. That would be a certain kind of shootin'. But as for showin'
you how to hit somethin' you shoot at, why, that's a little different.
I've knowed men that practiced shootin' for years, ma'am, an' they
couldn't hit a barn if they was inside of it. There's others that can hit
most anything, right handy. They say it's all in the eye an' the nerves,
ma'am--whatever nerves are."

"You haven't any nerves, I suppose, or you wouldn't speak of them that
way."

"If you mean that I go to hollerin' an' jumpin' around when somethin'
happens, why I ain't got any. But I've seen folks with nerves, ma'am."

He was looking directly at her when he spoke, his gaze apparently without
subtlety. But she detected a gleam that seemed far back in his eyes, and
she knew that he referred to her actions of the other night.

She blushed. "I didn't think you would remind me of _that_," she said.

"Why, I didn't, ma'am. I didn't mention any names. But of course, a
woman's got nerves; they can't help it."

"Of course men are superior," she taunted.

She resisted an inclination to laugh, for she was rather astonished to
discover that man's disposition to boast was present in this son of the
wilderness. Also, she was a little disappointed in him.

But she saw him redden.

"I ain't braggin', ma'am. Take them on an average, an' I reckon woman has
got as much grit as men. But they show it different. They're quicker to
imagine things than men. That makes them see things where there ain't
anything to see. A man's mother is always a woman, ma'am, an' if he's got
any grit in him he owes a lot of it to her. I reckon I owe more to my
mother than to my father."

His gaze was momentarily somber, and she felt a quick, new interest in
him. Or had she felt this interest all along--a desire to learn something
more of him than he had expressed?

"You might get off your horse and sit in the shade for a minute. It is
hot, you've had a long ride, and I am not quite ready to begin shooting,"
she invited.

He got off Patches, led him to the shade of the house, hitched him, and
then returned to the porch, taking a chair near her.

"Aunt Martha says you were born here," Ruth said. "Have you always been a
cowboy?"

A flash that came into his eyes was concealed by a turn of the head. So
she had asked Aunt Martha about him.

"I don't remember ever bein' anything else. As far back as I c'n
r