BLACK JACK

Max Brand

1922







CHAPTER 1


It was characteristic of the two that when the uproar broke out Vance
Cornish raised his eyes, but went on lighting his pipe. Then his sister
Elizabeth ran to the window with a swish of skirts around her long legs.
After the first shot there was a lull. The little cattle town was as
peaceful as ever with its storm-shaken houses staggering away down the
street.

A boy was stirring up the dust of the street, enjoying its heat with his
bare toes, and the same old man was bunched in his chair in front of the
store. During the two days Elizabeth had been in town on her cattle-
buying trip, she had never see him alter his position. But she was
accustomed to the West, and this advent of sleep in the town did not
satisfy her. A drowsy town, like a drowsy-looking cow-puncher, might be
capable of unexpected things.