She was a fair type of a class not uncommon on the Southwestern frontier; women who were ruder helpmeets of their rude husbands and brothers, who had shared their privations and sufferings with surly, masculine endurance, rather than feminine patience; women who had sent their loved ones to hopeless adventure or terrible vendetta as a matter of course, or with partisan fury; who had devotedly nursed the wounded to keep alive the feud, or had received back their dead dry-eyed and revengeful.

Small wonder that Cressy McKinstry had developed strangely under this sexless relationship.

Looking at the mother, albeit not without a certain respect, Mr.Ford found himself contrasting her with the daughter's graceful femininity, and wondering where in Cressy's youthful contour the possibility of the grim figure before him was even now hidden.
"Hiram allowed to go over to the schoolhouse and see you this mornin'," said Mrs.McKinstry, after a pause; "but I reckon ez how he had to look up stock on the river.

The cattle are that wild this time o' year, huntin' water, and hangin' round the tules, that my men are nigh worrited out o' their butes with 'em.

Hank and Jim ain't been off their mustangs since sun up, and Hiram, what with partrollen' the West Boundary all night, watchin' stakes whar them low down Harrisons hev been trespassin'-- hasn't put his feet to the ground in fourteen hours.
Mebbee you noticed Hiram ez you kem along?
Ef so, ye didn't remember what kind o' shootin' irons he had with him?
I see his rifle over yon.
Like ez not he'z only got his six-shooter, and them Harrisons are mean enough to lay for him at long range.