Even when the Drifter was tellin' me about you, I was sure of you." "I think you have shown it in your actions," she laughed.
"But how about you ?" he suggested; "did you have any thoughts on the subject ?" "I--I think that even while I thought you were my brother, I realized that my feeling for you was strange and unusual; though I laid it to the fact that I had never had a brother, and therefore could not be expected to know just how a sister should feel toward one.

But it has all been unusual, hasn't it ?" "If you mean me comin' here like I did, an' masqueradin', an' lettin' you kiss me, an' fuss over me--why, mebbe that would be considered unusual.

But love ain't unusual; an' a man fightin' for the woman he loves ain't unusual." While he had been talking a change had come over him.

His voice had lost its note of gentle raillery, his lips had straightened into hard lines, his eyes were glowing with the light she had seen in them more than once--the cold glitter of hostility.
Startled, she took him by the shoulders and shook him.
"Why, what on earth has come over you, Deal ?" He grinned mirthlessly, got up, took a hitch in his cartridge belt, and drew a full breath.
"The fightin' ain't over yet," he said.

"There's a bunch of guys comin' toward the Double A.