He coughed.

"So you thought you'd freeze on to that six-shooter of mine until you saw my hand ?" She nodded.

Then she picked up a broken hazel branch, fitted it into the small of her back, threw her tanned bare arms over the ends of it, and expanded her chest and her biceps at the same moment.

This simple action was supposed to convey an impression at once of ease and muscular force.
"Perhaps you'd like to take it now," said Lance, handing her the pistol.
"I've seen six-shooters before now," said the girl, evading the proffered weapon and its suggestion.

"Dad has one, and my brother had two derringers before he was half as big as me." She stopped to observe in her companion the effect of this capacity of her family to bear arms.