(This is the Texans’ introduction to The Great Western.  I figure Sarah understood the importance of first impressions).

     The population of Colonel Kinney’s trading post had multiplied tenfold from the original hundred or so inhabitants.  The palisade was barely visible beyond the sprawl of tents and leantos and hastily-erected shacks, most of which advertised themselves as saloons.  It seemed as though everyone who wasn’t hammering was playing cards.  Sarah steered the mare into the smell of manure and newly-sawn wood. Others abandoned their tasks to watch. 

     “Looky at this sorrel-top.”  The man approached spraddle-legged and ripe with menace.  

     “She’s a frockful, ain’t she?”

     “I reckon I’ll be your first customer, Ma’m.”

     “I’m not in that business, sir.” 

     “Then I’ll surely be your first customer.”  His laugh sounded like a dry axle churning through deep sand.

     Sarah regarded him fondly.  He would do just fine. He was a great hairy brute, almost as tall as she was.  He wore a chimney-pot hat, a mangy wool vest, and Indian leggings.  He liked attention and he was attracting an audience.  Yes, he would do just fine.

     He made a grab for the mare’s bridle and Sarah unhooked the iron skillet.  It weighed twenty pounds, but she regularly hefted sodden wool uniforms that weighed more.  She swung the skillet with one hand.  It clanged when it hit the side of his head, unseating the chimney-pot hat.  Sarah thought of it as a school bell for the uneducated.  He fell as abruptly as a sack of nails dropped from a height.

     She balanced the frying pan on her knee.  “Do any of you gallants know where Mister Delfinius Burch has pitched camp?”