Bully McGrane

In Pistol Gap life was pitched to a key of suddenness and intensity. Men of this Western land worked with an energy that brought out the salt sweat; and their hours of play were equally violent. If they drank at all it was usually to excess and if they gambled they flung the whole of their labored wealth on the green table in prodigal abandon, never considering tomorrow. And in Pistol Gap death only infrequently visited a man in bed; one moment he was alive and in full stride; the next moment he was quite utterly dead. In such case the coroner’s jury had a uniform, unvarying verdict: “dead by an act of God. ”