An' to preserve that life is each man's first an' closest thought.

Where would any man be on this border without guns?
Where, especially, would Lassiter be?
Well, I'd be under the sage with thousands of other men now livin' an' sure better men than me.

Gun-packin' in the West since the Civil War has growed into a kind of moral law.

An' out here on this border it's the difference between a man an' somethin' not a man.

Look what your takin' Venters's guns from him all but made him! Why, your churchmen carry guns.