Judith of the Plains

"From the look of the yearling's chin, I think he'll get all that's coming to him," whispered the man who had nearly upset him with the second chair.

"You're right, pard. If I'm any good at reading brands, she is as self-protective as the McKinley bill."

The man Simpson was not a pleasant vis-à-vis. He wore the same picturesque ruffianliness of apparel as his fellows, but the resemblance stopped there. He lacked their dusky bloom, their clearness of eye, the suppleness and easy flow of muscle that is the hall-mark of these frontiersmen. He was fat and squat and had not the rich bronzing of wind, sun, and rain. His small, black eyes twinkled from his puffy, white face, like raisins in a dough-pudding.

He was ogling Mary amiably when the woman who kept the eating-house brought him his breakfast. Mrs. Clark was a potent antidote for the prevailing spirit of romance, e