They did get killed, sometimes, down there where there was so much fighting going on all the time.
When the shadows of the giant cactus stretched mutilated hands across the desert sand, and she believed that Nogales was near, Jean carried her suit-case to the cramped dressing-room and took out her six-shooter and buckled it around her.

Then she pulled her coat down over it with a good deal of twisting and turning before the dirty mirror to see that it looked all right, and not in the least as though a perfect lady was packing a gun.
She went back and dipped fastidious fingers into the box of chocolates, and settled herself to nibble candy and wait for what might come.

She felt very calm and self-possessed and sure of herself.

Her only fear was that Art Osgood might have been killed, and his lips closed for all time.

So they rattled away through the barrenness and drew near to Nogales.
Casa del Sonora, whither she went, was an old, two-story structure of the truly Spanish type, and it was kept by a huge, blubbery creature with piggish eyes and a bloated, purple countenance and the palsy.