Day after day the wagons had plodded on, and day after day the snow-covered hills fell behind, the streams were crossed, the lonely camps abandoned to the wilderness. And day after day she seemed to dwindle, to grow less. The vans were tiny things, their bright-colored sides tawdry in the stillness and snow. All was immensity where they seemed to crawl at a snail's pace into the vastness beyond belief.
(from Heller With a Gun, by Louis L'Amour)
His shoulders filled the doorway as he went out. For several minutes after he was gone nobody said anything.
"Knew him in Dodge," Williams said suddenly, "and again in Utah. He's salty."
"Has he really killed so many men?"
"He has. Killed one at Doan's store. Fellow name of Les Benham was going to cut Mabry's herd. Mabry said he wasn't."
"Did they cut it?"
"Too busy burying Les Benham."
(from Heller With a Gun, by Louis L'Amour)
"Come far?"
"No."
The hostler puffed on his pipe. He had never seen this man before and it was indiscreet to ask questions, but the hostler was a curious man - and he knew that beat-up buckskin.
He gestured. "Ain't in good shape."
"Better shape than the man who rode him."
Griffin, the hostler remembered, was considered a very salty customer in some circles. He must have cut himself into the wrong circle.
(from Heller With a Gun, by Louis L'Amour)
The hunter and the hunted - these two are kin. Their senses are alert to the same stimuli, awaken in the same far-off sounds. A shadow in the wrong place, a flicker of sun reflection, a creak of leather - each may be a warning.
And for these things and a thousand others the senses of hunter and hunted are alert. Often the exact warning is not recognized; it is a subconscious perception.
So King Mabry now waited for the snow veil to break once more. He had learned to trust his instincts. Attention might lag, reason might fail, but the instincts were first born and would be the last to die.
(from Heller with a Gun, by Louis L'Amour)
His heart was heavy. It was a kindly heart, and from the very first it had been deeply stirred by the stormy romance of Mr. Ronald and his young lady. He wished that life were as the writers of the detective stories, to which he had become to addicted, portrayed it. In those, no matter what obstacles Fate might interpose in the shape of gangs, shots in the night, underground cellars, sinister Chinamen, poisoned asparagus and cobras down the chimney, the hero always got his girl. The significance of the presence in the library of Lady Constance Keeble and Lady Julia Fish had not escaped him. He feared that it meant the worst.
(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
"Beach, go and bring Pirbright here."
"He shall do nothing of the kind," said Lady Constance sharply. "The idea of bringing Pirbright into the library!"
It was not often that Beach found himself in agreement with the chatelaine of Blandings, but he could not but support her attitude now. Like all butlers, he held definite views on the sanctity of the home and frowned upon attempts on the part of the outside staff to enter it - especially when, like Pirbright they smelt so very strongly of pigs. Five minutes of that richly scented man in the library, felt Beach, and you would have to send the place to the cleaner's.
(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
"You think you can cope with this pig?"
"Certainly. I am not afraid of pigs. Pigs like me."
At these words, Monty found his respect for a breed of animal which he had always rather admired waning a good deal. No animal of the right sort, he felt, could like Lord Tilbury.
(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
