God! How sweet her face looked in that room of men. I can't tell you how it's been to know and talk to a fine woman again." And somehow, as I felt the intensity of his voice, I became filled with a rage which even then I was at a loss to understand. Rage at Gail Cockran. But, I quickly reflected, it wasn't my affair how she chose to amuse herself. Yet, she could have let him alone.

Supper was a difficult time. All must have felt the constraint, as palpable, almost, as something to be touched. As the meal progressed I admired Crombie more. He maintained a quiet aloofness which even Cockran's cold hostility did not disturb.

Gail was at her best, talking and laughing with every one. Yet, I knew, she was aware of the tension. Her quick glances at Crombie and her brother told me that. By not the flicker of an eyelash did she betray it, however. She was dressed in a white-woollen sweater and short skirt which accentuated the soft curves of her graceful young body. Once or twice I caught Crombie's eyes upon her. The hunger in them appalled me. I was glad when, the meal over, the Englishman rose to take his leave. He held Gail's hand a moment and thanked her in his grave, restrained manner. It was hard to think of him as a sheep-herder then. There was a subtle suggestion of something finer than any one of us knew. Cockran stood beside me in the doorway as the Englishman rode off. Suddenly he muttered, "The devil take women," and strode away in the direction of the office

tent.

VI

It was evident that Mrs. Kenston wanted to say something to me when, a week later, I went for the accumulated mail. She drew me into the room where the battered grand stood in faded magnificence. Shutting the door she turned to me quickly. "That girl. That Miss Cockran. What is she like?"

"Why, I don't know. That's a difficult question to put to a man. Your own judgment would be better."

She was silent a moment, nervously pleating her skirt. Then, suddenly: "Is she serious about Crombie?"

"Serious? How should I know? What do you mean?"

"Listen," she went on hurriedly. "Yesterday afternoon they were here. She got him to play for her. He didn't want to, but she kept on teasing him to. He said he hated music, but she wouldn't let him alone. Then, finally, he played and I never heard anything like it. You know, there was something in his music. It made me want to cry. He played for a half-hour, I guess, and then everything was quiet for a while. I thought they had gone out and I came in to see. Just before I got to the door I heard him talking. He was begging her to do something and he kept saying it over and over: 'Don't fail me, Gail. Don't, don't fail me. With you I can do it. Without you-' It was terrible. The sound of his voice, I mean. I couldn't hear her voice very well. Only once in a while her little laugh. Somehow, when she did that it made me want to hurt her. You know, I like Crombie. He's just a poor fellow that's lost his way. After she had gone, I got him in here. He showed me a letter. It was from his brother in England. Something about starting again. Something about a ranch. Crombie was just like a boy, laughing and excited. What I want to know is what's she trying to do? Does she care for him?"

"I really don't know, Mrs. Kenston. I like Crombie, too. But I guess we'll have to wait and see."

As I rode back to camp Crombie's words kept running through my mind. "Don't fail me, Gail; don't fail me." Was it possible that affairs had gone that far? Did she really care for him? One thing I was certain of: I didn't care to be about when Crombie found out if she didn't. It isn't pleasant to see a man smash up after he's started back. Somehow, he had been much in my thoughts. That indefinable air he carried about with him. It lifted him out of sheep-herding. I had even ceased to think of him in that connection. He was just a wistful kid, off on the wrong foot.

That night, in the office tent, the discussion came up about moving camp. We were walking rather too far to work each morning. Cockran turned to his sister: "Gail, it's getting late in the season. We might be snowed in at any time. Strikes me you'd better be thinking about that. I'd like to have you stay, but you

"Oh, do you think so, Jim? Do you really think I'd better go back? Surely, snow wouldn't be a serious matter so early in the fall?" She kept glancing at each of us, twisting her handkerchief in her fingers. She was plainly distressed. "I hadn't thought of leaving so soon. Really, I'm beginning to like it here. It will be so-so cramped back home after this."

"Not so cramped as a rag house in winter, I imagine," said her brother dryly.

That night the first snow fell, white and soft, blanketing the mountains and standing six inches high on the branches of the pine-trees. I met Gail going into the office as I was preparing to go out on the "line." "Well," she smiled at me brightly, "I'd better say good-by. My brother thinks I'm a tender flower to wilt at the first touch of frost."

She held out her hand with a little laugh. I took it and looked at her directly. "Taking any trophies with you? Elk heads or scalps or anything like that?"

"Nothing but some pleasant memories," she replied, but her face colored swiftly. "Do you know any that I might take?"

picturesque in their own environment, don't you think so?" I bowed to her and walked away, but I caught a malicious glint from the corner of her eye as she went through the tent flap.

A few hours later Steve motioned toward the white expanse of the valley. A black dot, no larger than a man's hand, was crawling through the snow. I turned the level upon it. It was the Casper stage. From a window I caught the flutter of something white. Steve stepped to the glass and then turned abruptly

away.

I would like to have avoided it but I couldn't. Supper was just over when Crombie came into the office tent where Cockran and I were working. His lips were compressed and the excitement under which he was laboring was evident in the nervous opening and closing of his hands, delicately shaped hands with their long, slender fingers. He stood for a time without speaking, his eyes on Cockran, then on me. Cockran rose and, unconsciously, I thought, went forward and placed his hand on the Englishman's arm. He was looking at Crombie compassionately, a worried frown upon his brow. "They told me at Kenston's," Crombie began at last with difficulty, "that Miss Cockran- Is she-is she

"I'm sorry, sorry, old fellow. Mighty sorry."

He stood, for a long moment, without speaking. A white, bitter smile twisted his lips. "Well," he said at last,

"quite a snow. Rather early, what?" Then, abruptly, he turned and left the

tent.

As I said, we were driving to Casper through a smother of biting, blinding snow. Suddenly, beside the half-obliterated trail, loomed the figure of a man, his sheepskin coat collar turned up against the icy blast, a collie dog crouched at his feet. "Say, Old Timer," yelled the teamster, striving to lift his voice above the noise of the wind, "How far is it to Casper?" The man turned to us slowly. There was a familiar line about the lean, weathered face. "Casper?" he asked

with a smile which I thought was ironic and bitter. "I think I can tell you exactly." He turned to his dog and waved his arm in the direction of the gray, crawling mass of sheep. "Go way around 'em, Shep." Then back to us: "Forty dollars a month!" he spat out, like an oath. "That's how far it is to Casper.

"Crazy," muttered the teamster, "crazy as hell."

The wind swooped upon us with a shout carrying a cloud of fine, dry snow. The teamster shook the reins. A few moments later I looked back. But all I saw were the twisting wraiths of snow and the gray-green clumps of sage.

T

HE revolver as a factor in the development of America has never received serious consideration, either from the historian or the literary man. The former has neglected it entirely, while the latter has neither understood it nor its true place in our national life. Too frequently he has used it as his chief stock in trade in portraying certain striking types of American menthe Texas Ranger, the cowboy, or the bad man on horseback. The sensational storywriters, the moving pictures, and even worthier literary men, are loath to abandon this original idea. To them and to their public-which is large-the Westerner is a man with a six-shooter-he wears it low and pulls it smokin'. This has become the tradition of the West, something of a stigma which must be explained. It is proposed here to account historically for the revolver, give its origin, explain its rapid spread, its notorious popularity, and interpret its true significance to that region with which it has been so intimately associated.

Definition or description of a weapon that is known and recognized the world over is hardly necessary. Briefly, the American revolver is a pistol with a rotating cylinder containing five or six chambers, each of which discharges through a single barrel. It is six pistols encompassed in one, commonly known to its familiars as a "gun,' "six-gun," "shooting-iron," "six-shooter," or "Colt." The Colt was the original revolver. It furnished the principle upon which all others have been constructed, and it is around the Colt that this account is written.

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The revolver has not been associated impartially with all the West. The real six-shooter land is the Southwest, comprising Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, and to a less extent the States farther north. And of all these States Texas wears the six-chambered crown. How those Texans can shoot! A recent visitor there bore a commission from a friend in the East to "pick me up a real Texas sixshooter, preferably one with notches." An example of how this notion is furthered by literary men is found in a book by a well-known author which tells the story of a deadly feud between cattle

men and rustlers in Arizona. The author had the feud start among the gunthrowers" of Texas, and then had both factions adjourn to Arizona, where the shooting was resumed with relish, and when the smoke cleared both sides were wiped out to the last man—a sanguine tribute to Texan marksmanship.

Is this association of the six-shooter with the Southwest incorrect or unjust? Yes and no. The West has outlived the six-shooter as Kentucky has the long rifle, or Massachusetts witch-baiting. But the popular conception of the sixshooter as the weapon of the West, the Southwest, and especially of Texas, is based upon facts which are so clear and convincing as to destroy doubt, and yet so simple as to create surprise that they have not been presented before. The sixshooter, though invented by an ingenious New Englander, was first used and proved in Texas, spreading later through the West, and filling a need that existed only in Texas and the West. Upon a far-flung stage the drama of the six-shooter has been played out and many actors have participated, but the principal rôle has been played by the Texas Rangers.

Our first consideration is the West, that land of splendid adventure lying between the Mississippi and the Pacific. We are particularly concerned with that interior region—the true West-extending from the Mississippi to the Rockies. This river-bound and mountain-walled area is characterized so boldly by nature as to set it apart from the remainder of the continent, a great ribbon of prairie some three or four hundred miles wide flung along the meridians of a continent from Mexico to Canada. This vast and treeless region is known as the Plains area, and within its limits the institutions and traditions of the West have had their origin, have attained their fullest develop

ment.

Within this great corridor of nature primitive life was strikingly different from that on either hand. The buffalo was the most conspicuous form of animal life, and as the seasons swung round from hot to cold great herds of these beasts tramped north in the spring and south before the oncoming cold in the fall. Closely associated with the buffalo herds were the Plains Indians, as different in

culture from their neighbors east and west as the prairies were different from the forests and mountains. Like the buffalo, they too moved north and south, rarely entering the forest area except as plunderers of their less predatory neighbors. Such in general was the life in the Plains corridor when the white man appeared.

The first effect of the white man's coming was beneficial to the Plains Indians— such strange and incongruous shadows do coming events sometimes cast. It was in the sixteenth century that the Spanish conquistadores let some of their horses escape in Mexico. In the course of time the wild progeny of these animals covered the southern country and pushed northward onto the rich pasturage of the Plains, leaving their Spanish masters far behind.

But if the horses outtravelled their old masters it was only to find new ones. The Plains Indians learned to ride, and came to look upon the horse as a Godgiven boon, a marvellous space-conquering agent which enabled them to move with wonderful celerity over the wide reaches of the plain. Very shortly the Plains Indians became the horse Indians of America, and superb horsemanship became their predominating characteristic. It emphasized their nomadism and further contrasted them with their humbler sedentary and pedestrian neighbors. Here was a great revolution in Indian transportation.

Now it so happened that at the southern entrance of the Plains corridor dwelt the singularly ferocious Comanche Indians. Because of their location, they quite naturally were among the first to secure horses, and they developed horsemanship to a superlative degree. Here the whole story of the revolver hinges on the equestrian skill of the Comanche, the Texas Indian. It was his horsemanship, coupled with his warlike disposition, which in time affected not only his own weaponry but that of the white man who came against him. As a mounted warrior, the Comanche was incomparable. Since he was the greatest horseman, he would become, if not the greatest warrior, then the greatest mounted warrior, and this he did become. He was a terrible foe, a foe on horseback; those who came to meet

stopped abruptly in southern Texas, the southern extremity of the Plains area, recoiling, as it were, from the Comanche country. And, when Spain finally let fall from her palsied hand her American empire, Mexico became free, with Texas as her northern province. But what hope had the Mexicans where the Spaniards had failed? The Comanches called them "our horse-raisers," and it is said by tradition that they compelled Mexican soldiers to hold their horses while they engaged in riotous celebration in the towns. Truly, it was not for a Latin people to work out a fighting organization that could meet the Comanche Indian on horseback.

All the while the Anglo-American frontier was far to the east. Though it was advancing, destined soon or late to cut athwart the north-south flowing life currents of the Plains corridor, it had not yet penetrated that region at any point. The people of the States termed the Plains corridor the Great Desert; they knew next to nothing of the Plains Indians, their culture, or their warlike char

his arm and the indomitable spirit of freedom in his heart. Truly a new man had entered the mélange of Texas, a rugged and bold spirit who would never hold the horse of the Comanche-a simple and a dangerous man who would not be turned aside. He was the founder of a new nation, almost an empire. Here, at last, in this adventurous offshoot of Anglo-Saxonism, was the real Texan. To him it mattered not that he had outrun all his fellow countrymen, that in his impatience for the West he had outstripped the American frontier. He cared not that he was to be the first to break into the Plains corridor, the first to meet the Indian in mounted warfare.

But this white man did not meet the Comanche in a spirit of misguided altruism. His was a hard-handed and infrangible policy of extermination based upon the conviction that the good Indian was the dead Indian. Out of the merciless conflict in which he engaged there emerged such a weapon as the world had not seen-the Texan's weapon, the