boot a man clean to the middle of the street if he was to shoot his mouth off in the hearin' of any lady that passed my place, I don't care if she had pants up to her knees."
"That's the spirit!" Hall applauded.
"But I ain't sayin' at the same time I approve of 'em puttin' on britches, wide or narrer. But all the women-folks in this country do it now," Jim sighed, shaking his head for the delicacy of the ladies west of Dodge. "I seen a woman—she was a young woman, too, and purty, purty as a peach—in here the other day wearin' overhauls, a pair of plain, blue-drillin' man's overhauls! She was drivin' a span of mules, handlin' 'em as good as I ever seen a man pull a gee-string over a jinny in my life."
"One of these newcomers, I suppose. I think she was a very sensible woman."
"Did you see her?" Jim inquired, in a tone at once depreciating and challenging, as if he questioned the right to approve her on a mere matter of report.
"No; I wish I had."
"I don't know how men as you take 'em feels when they see a woman steppin' around that way, but I know I felt like I wanted to sneak off. A woman with britches on always makes me think she's got something missin' behind, like a horse with a docked tail. I was so ashamed for that woman I felt ashamed of myself."
"You're altogether too modest," Hall laughed. "But how did that little shooting scrape of Elizabeth's come out? Did the old major go gunning for the smart guy?"
"No. No, the old man didn't take no more notice of it than if she'd shot a rabbit. He brought that girl up to
