She wore a cartridge-belt slung jauntily across her hips and from it hung a holster of stiff new leather with the top flap open to show the butt of a man-sized forty-five caliber six-shooter--her first gun.

Not a man of the gang but had loaned her his guns time and again, but they had never dreamed of giving her a weapon of her own.
So they stared at her agape, where she stood with her head back, one hand resting on her hip, one hovering about the butt of the gun, as if she challenged them to question her right to be called "man." It was as if she abandoned all claims to femininity with that single step; the gun at her side made her seem inches taller and years older.
She was no longer a child, but a long-rider who could shoot with the best.
One glance she cast about the room to drink in the amazement of the gang, and then her father broke in rather hoarsely: "Sit down, girl.
Sit down and be one of us.

One of us you are by your own choice from this day on.

You're neither man nor woman, but a long-rider with every man's hand against you.

You've done with any hope of a home or of friends.