"
"I don't want to say anything unkind, Jim," Reade went on,
thoughtfully. "Please don't misunderstand me. But, as I
understand the affair, if your brother hadn't been carrying a
pistol he wouldn't have been killed?"
"Perhaps not," Ferrers grudgingly admitted.
"Then the killing came about through the bad practice of carrying a
revolver?"
"Bad practice!" snorted Jim. "Well, if that's a bad practice
more'n half the men in the state have the vice."
"Popular custom may not make a thing right," argued Reade.
"But what are you going to do when the men who have a grudge against
you pack guns?" Jim queried, opening his eyes very wide.
"I've had a few enemies---bad ones, too, some of them," Tom answered
slowly. "Yet I've always refused to carry an implement of murder,
even when I've been among rough enemies. And yet I'm alive.
If I had carried a pistol ever since I came West I'm almost certain
that I'd be dead by this time."
"But if you won't carry a gun, and let folks suspect you of being
a white-flagger, then you get the reputation of being a coward,"
argued Ferrers.
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